Brussels sprouts went from being a rather despised vegetable, certainly among young children, but they have been accepted more and more in the past decades. It turns out, there’s a science-based reason why.
In the 1990s, Dutch scientist Hans van Doorn identified the chemical in Brussels sprouts that made them bitter. According to findings published in van Doorn’s 1998 study, those chemicals were sinigrin and progoitrin, and once they were identified, Dutch seed companies were able to breed them out.
Through crossbreeding with higher-producing varieties, we got more Brussels sprouts that weren’t bitter. This means that by the time the 2010s rolled around, there were lots of Brussels sprouts, and they didn’t taste bitter anymore. Suddenly they’re incredibly palatable, and began appearing more and more often on restaurant menus.”
Source: news.yahoo.com