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And then 4 months we get switched onto it and develop a salt preference, and nobody really knows why that's true. And curiously, with salt, we have no feelings at all about salt when we're born. Equally, we all are born with a mild aversion to bitterness. This is a cross-cultural phenomenon - it's been seen in babies in every continent of the world, that they smile if you offer them a little taste of something sweet. On how we are hard-wired to love sweetnessĪll human beings are hard-wired to love sweetness. As parents, we have a far greater power than we think we have to form children's tastes. But, again, it's a really useful case of how powerful these early tastes can be. So it was if they were imprinted with the flavor of this nasty formula milk. One study showed that these children, when they were older, when they're aged 4, gravitated towards sour flavors. But to the babies who've been reared on it, it's like nectar. There's a type of formula called hydrolysate, which is designed for babies who can't tolerate regular cow's milk, and to adults it has a really offensive, horrible, hay-like, musty aroma. But even with formula-fed babies there are some interesting things that have come out of scientific experiments. On how store-bought formula can also affect taste long-termīreast milk has varied flavors, whereas formula milk has a single flavor, depending on which brand you pick. So the things that our mothers eat, even before we're born, affect the way we'll respond to those flavors when we later encounter them because they seem familiar. One of the main things we know about taste is that liking is a consequence of familiarity. So imagine swimming around in that for 9 months. There have been remarkable studies done showing that if someone eats a lot of garlic when they're pregnant, their amniotic fluid will taste and smell garlicky. formed - it's formed when our mothers are expecting us. On how our palates are formed while we're still in the womb Then, having accepted them, they would seem familiar when they encounter them again as toddlers. It's not that a child necessarily needs any nutrition besides milk before 6 months, it's that you're missing an opportunity to introduce them to all of these flavors which they would likely accept at this age. Researchers I've spoken to the question of how you get children to be less picky eaters how you get them to try more different vegetables say that the World Health Organization advice, which currently says you should keep them on an exclusive milk diet up to 6 months, is wrong. On the "flavor window" that occurs between 4 and 7 months
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Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title First Bite Subtitle How We Learn to Eat Author Bee Wilson