Food Choice During Pregnancy Shapes Lifelong Taste Preferences of Baby

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: prenatal nutrition, health news, Natural News

(NaturalNews) Children develop a taste for the foods that their mothers eat during pregnancy and breastfeeding, highlighting the importance of pregnant and nursing women's dietary choices, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.

"It's a beautiful system," lead researcher Julie Mennella said. "Flavors from the mother's diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid and mother's milk. So, a baby learns to like a food's taste when the mother eats that food on a regular basis."

Researchers conducted a number of experiments on the food preferences of infants. In one, they supplemented the diets of some pregnant and nursing women with carrot juice, then compared the food preferences of their children with children whose mothers had not had carrot juice. The children in the former group had more of a taste for carrots than children in the latter. The same effect was demonstrated with the children of nursing women who ate raw peaches.

In another experiment, researchers fed green beans to women whose children had already begun to eat solid food but were still nursing for part of their diet. At the beginning of the study, the children rejected the green beans. Once their nursing mothers had been eating the vegetables for a while, however, the children began to eat them too.

The study shows how important it is that pregnant and nursing women eat lots of fruits and vegetables, Mennella said.

"Vegetable and fruit consumption is linked to lower risks of obesity and certain cancers," she said. "The best predictor of how much fruits and vegetables children eat is whether they like the tastes of these foods. If we can get babies to learn to like these tastes, we can get them off to an early start of healthy eating."

The researchers noted that even children who have not had this head start will still acquire a taste for vegetables if exposed to them regularly. Parents simply need to avoid getting discouraged when children reject the foods or demonstrate distaste the first few times.