Taste differences

Why do we like one food more than another? Differences seem to come from the mother's eating habits during pregnancy and during the child's first months of life. Indeed, eating preferences are formed from a very young age and even within the womb through the amniotic fluid as the mother passes on all the flavours she eats to her child. Breastfeeding will also have consequences on the child's tastes since a mother's milk carries flavours from what she eats.
Thus, the wider the variety of foods the mother eats, the more the child will like different foods later.

Sophie Nicklaus, from the Taste and Food Sciences Centre in Dijon, reassures us: "There is no brake, or physiological barrier to acquiring eating habits"; perseverance can pay off whatever the age of the child. We should not hesitate to present rejected foods several times, without however forcing the child to eat them.

A few tricks will help you get your child to try vegetables in another form such as purées, vegetables in cheese sauce, etc. You will find some advice in the folder put together by the Louis Bonduelle Foundation on this subject: how to make children like vegetables

For more information on taste characteristics