Bitter substances for weight loss – Are they a miracle slimming aid?

When was the last time you ate something really bitter? Medicine doesn’t count – we’re talking about natural foods in your day-to-day diet. If you have no recent memory of eating something bitter, it’s high time to (re)introduce bitter substances to your diet.

This goes especially for those who are currently on a diet and want to lose weight. Combined with the right flavours, bitterness can be delicious. In this article, we will explain the positive influence bitter substances can have on your health and weight loss!

Bitter substances are present in most plants. They protect against potential predators, as their strong taste makes the plant almost inedible.

The food industry has bred them out of cultivated vegetables and fruits over time in order to achieve a more palatable flavour that suits the general population.

Since our sense of taste can be programmed by what we eat, most people today are very sensitive to bitter substances. Our taste receptors are almost never exposed to bitterness in our everyday diets.

Before the food industry took off and flavour enhancers and preservatives began to be added to food, the typical human diet looked very different. Our former food supply was limited to foods from the wild that naturally contained bitter substances, such as wild plants or root vegetables. As the decades and centuries passed, people no longer had to hunt and gather to survive, as agriculture allowed for planned harvests that were preferable to laborious foraging trips.

Our taste buds have since changed due to increasing proportions of processed ingredients and taste-manipulating additives in our food.

For example, flavour enhancers such as glutamate or artificial sweeteners can change our taste perception.

Especially sweeteners are heralded as “healthier alternatives” to sugar, but, despite their lower calorie count, they can make us seek sweeter and sweeter flavours. In this Upfit coach article, you can learn all about healthy and unhealthy sugar alternatives, including those that can really help you lose weight.

Another reason why bitter substances are rarely found in food is that many bitter substances are, in fact, toxic. For this reason, they are bred out of some plants to make them more tolerable for the human body.

This, in contrast to the food industry’s manipulation of our sense of taste, can be logically justified, as it allows us to consume these plants safely.

Nowadays, you won’t find any food in the supermarket that contains toxic bitter substances, so don’t be afraid to reach for chicory, rocket, endive, etc. – you will find out below which foods can provide you with beneficial bitter substances!

Our tongue can distinguish 5 tastes: bitter, sour, sweet, salty and – last but not least – “umami“, which was only recently discovered and first researched in the 2000s.

Translated from Japanese, “umami” roughly means “palatability” and is perceived by the taste buds on our tongue as hearty / intense / meaty. Thanks to evolution, the umami taste is particularly delicious to us. Umami is mainly produced via processes of protein decomposition, whereby protein is broken down into amino acids, and the body needs a lot of amino acids. This is why high-protein, umami foods taste especially good to us.

We always want tastier foods: more sweetness, more salt, more umami – but more “bitter”? Unlikely. This taste loses the race against umami by a good mile, as we just don’t crave it in the same way. Bitter-tasting food is not pleasant to the majority of people. This may be deeply rooted in our evolution: recent genetic studies suggest that the human instinct has been programmed to identify poisonous or spoiled food through its bitterness since the Stone Age.

People with a much more pronounced “bitter taste gene” (a stronger ability to perceive bitterness) had a clear selective advantage, since they were warned immediately when consuming toxic substances and were therefore less likely to poison themselves.

Whether due to evolution, the food industry or simple personal preference, one thing is very clear: today, many people consume virtually no bitter substances whatsoever. However, non-toxic bitter substances actually have positive effects on our health. In the next section, you will learn about the benefits of these for your body and your weight loss journey.

The health benefits of consuming bitter substances are certainly not to be ignored:

• They aid digestion and stimulate the production of digestive juices and enzymes
• They improve how well we utilise the nutrients from food
• They support the liver’s detoxification function

However, they alone are not the cure-all for poor health. Only a healthy, balanced diet and sufficient exercise can ensure the long-term health of your organs and a strong immune system.

The positive effects of bitter substances begin when they come into contact with our taste buds. The taste buds then send signals to our central nervous system which “tell” the stomach / intestinal tract to prepare for digestion.

In this way, bitter substances promote the ample production of digestive juices and enzymes in our body, e.g. stomach acid and bile. They aid digestion by supporting our digestive system in important tasks.

This has a much greater impact on weight loss than you might suspect. After all, digestion is the “umbrella” of all the key processes that determine how well nutrients are absorbed, processed and transported so that they reach the right destination in the body.

Toxins and metabolic end products are also excreted from the body via a healthy digestive system – if digestion is not working properly, these substances remain in the body and can accumulate in organs such as the liver. Therefore, bitter substances should have a fixed place in your diet, as a “defective” digestive tract can severely worsen our general well-being and, in the long term, our health.

The belief in the healing properties of bitter substances has a centuries-old tradition. In naturopathy and Ayurvedic medicine, but also in conventional medicine, they are a well-established remedy for gastric and intestinal complaints.

Symptoms such as heartburn, trapped wind or bloating are quite common and can cause chronic digestive problems in the long run. If you suffer from such symptoms frequently or chronically, we recommend that you seek medical advice. If you want to try tackling them on your own by changing your diet, you can give a bland diet a go in combination with bitter substances. This is a good way to relieve your digestive system. 

Bitter substances play a prominent role, especially in unbalanced diets. However, they don’t do the fat burning for you, of course: to lose weight you always need a calorie deficit. Without making suitable changes to your diet and activity level, you will not be able to succeed in losing weight just by eating bitter substances.

If the general framework of your diet is right (i.e., with a calorie deficit and frequent exercise), bitter substances, due to their diverse positive properties, give your digestive tract exactly the support it needs in a calorie-reduced diet. Consuming bitter foods produces gastric juices and other substances that are fundamental for the absorption and utilisation of nutrients in the body.

In addition to the support they provide to the digestive system, you can take advantage of our instinctive response to bitter substances. If our taste receptors recognize the taste “bitter”, this automatically sends a signal to our cerebrum that tells us we are likely consuming something toxic. As a protective measure, the brain then inhibits our appetite and food cravings are alleviated or eliminated.

In contrast, sugary foods cause hunger to surge and make you want more – although the the consistency of the food also comes into play here. It’s hard to believe, but it’s a fact: the sweeter and creamier the consistency of your dish, the more your appetite increases. Why food cravings occur in the first place and how you can prevent them are questions we answer thoroughly in our Upfit coach article about cravings. 

Since foods containing bitter substances, especially vegetables, are of course much lower in calories than foods containing sugar or fat, another great side effect is that you automatically consume fewer calories. A large salad bowl with plenty of bitter vegetables not only benefits your digestion and nips your cravings in the bud, but also helps you to get a whole lot closer to your weight loss goal, as you can more easily achieve the calorie deficit required for weight loss.

Trick your body next time you feel hungry for something sugary. Instead of granola, flavoured yoghurt or a biscuit, try something a bit different: perhaps baby radishes, artichokes or Brussels sprouts in a crunchy salad will combat those cravings and make you feel full faster! All this being said, incorporating bitter substances in your diet can indeed help you to reach your weight loss goal faster and in a healthy way.

In general, a diet with less hunger is definitely the more sustainable and healthier way to lose weight. But how can you achieve your desired weight without feeling hungry all the time? Find out in this Upfit coach article on losing weight without hunger. 

Bitter substances can be found abundantly in herbs, as well as in vegetables and certain types of fruit. Here we give you an overview of the best sources that you can incorporate into your diet to lose weight:

Bitter substances are available as concentrates in pharmacies or online. Of course, they contain much higher concentrations than herbs, vegetables and fruits. If you feel an urge to consume bitter substances, but don’t fancy a bitter salad bowl or other dish, then these drops are a good option.

However, you will miss out on a benefit that bitter foods can give you as part of your everyday diet: eating (rather than supplementing) your bitter substances makes you full faster, which means that you are likely to reduce your overall calorie intake.

For intense food cravings, however, bitter substance supplements are an excellent solution. They are extra handy for when you’re on the go and just don’t happen to have a head of chicory on you.

A well-known bitter substance concentrate is “herbal bitters”. It contains bitter substances from a variety of sources that have been dissolved in alcohol, and is therefore a nutrient-rich bitter substance bomb:

• Angelica root
• Gentian root
• Cardamom pods
• Turmeric
• Cinnamon bark
• Galangal root
• Ginger
• Artichoke
• Milk thistle

You don’t need to stuff yourself with all sorts of bitter foods constantly. Nevertheless, you should fundamentally rethink your diet and incorporate a couple of bitter foods into your everyday life, especially if you are trying to lose weight. Frequency is also important: it is best to try to include bitter substances in your diet 3 times a day.

If you have decided on a bitter substance concentrate, your intake should be timed differently. Since they have such a strong positive effect on digestion, it is recommended to take 10-15 drops of the concentrate about 15 minutes before eating in order to prepare the digestive system for the meal. It is best to try to keep the drops in your mouth for as long as possible – you will then notice how your saliva production is stimulated and can imagine the same thing happening in your stomach and intestines.

If you have decided to incorporate bitter substances into your diet in the form of natural foods, we recommend that you pay attention to the seasonality of vegetables and fruits. Bitter substances are absorbed by the body much better from fresh foods than from processed and tinned foods.

In any case, take a closer look before you buy something. For example, is the broccoli product you have chosen a heavily processed frozen vegetable mixture with an extra creamy sauce? If so, this is probably not a suitable choice if you are aiming to consume more bitter substances. This product is full of preservatives and flavour enhancers, and you can pretty safely assume that almost all the bitter substances have been bred out of the broccoli. Help yourself to some fresh fruit and vegetables instead and find out which bitter foods please your palate.

All in all, bitter substances are a great option if you’re trying to lose weight. Thanks to their positive effects on digestion and detoxification, they can help you reach your goal faster. Nevertheless, as with any promised “miracle cure”, they are no substitute for a balanced, healthy diet – just an aid. Whether you add them to your healthy everyday diet in the form of unprocessed foods or as a supplement , they can bring you many benefits!

1. Rezaie, P., Bitarafan, V., Horowitz, M., & Feinle-Bisset, C. (2021). ‘Effects of Bitter Substances on GI Function, Energy Intake and Glycaemia – Do Preclinical Findings Translate to Outcomes in Humans?’. In Nutrients, 13(4). Retrieved  on 15.03.2023.
2. Wooding, S. (2006). ‘Phenylthiocarbamide: A 75-Year Adventure in Genetics and Natural Selection’. In Genetics, 172(4). Retrieved on 15.03.2023.