the.com/polyphenol
The reason plants taste bitter is the same reason they might keep you alive longer.
means A plant compound, found in things like tea, berries, red wine, and dark chocolate, that acts as an antioxidant and gives many fruits and vegetables their astringent, bitter, or colorful edge.
from Built from Greek parts: 'poly-' meaning many, and 'phenol,' a compound name coined in the 1800s from 'phene' (an old term related to coal-tar derivatives, itself tied to the Greek 'phainein,' to shine or appear, since such compounds were isolated from illuminating gas) plus the chemical suffix '-ol' marking an alcohol. So a polyphenol is literally 'many phenols' — a molecule carrying multiple of these ring-shaped phenol units, which is exactly the structural feature chemists were naming when they coined the term.
- found in
- coffee, wine, tea, dark chocolate, onions
- plant purpose
- self-defense chemicals against pests and sun damage
- body effect
- antioxidant, but gut bacteria do most of the work
- irony
- bitterness you dislike is the healthy part