A mother can help her baby develop a taste for fruits and vegetables early by eating these foods herself while breastfeeding and, once solids are introduced, by offering her baby these foods regularly, even in the face of a less than enthusiastic reception.
Eating fruits and vegetables is linked to lower risks of obesity and certain cancers, yet many adults and children do not eat enough fruits and vegetables each day, Drs. Julie A. Mennella and Catherine A. Forestell from the Monell Chemical Senses Centre, Philadelphia, note in a report in the medical journal Pediatrics.
"The best predictor of how much fruits and vegetables children eat is whether they like the tastes of these foods," Mennella explained in a statement. "If we can get babies to learn to like these tastes, we can get them off to an early start of healthy eating."
Mennella and Forestell found that early sensory experiences can promote the acceptance of healthy foods and healthy eating patterns.
They randomly assigned 45 infants between four and eight months of age, 20 of whom were breastfed, to one of two groups. One group was fed green beans for eight consecutive days; the other was given green beans and then peaches over the same period. Acceptance of both foods was assessed before and after repeated exposure.
Breastfeeding, the researchers report, seemed to be tied to the infants' initial acceptance of green beans and peaches - but only if the mother regularly consumed those foods.
"Breastfed infants showed greater liking of peaches, as did their mothers, who ate more fruits in general than did mothers who formula fed," the researchers report. It's possible, they suggest, that the enhanced acceptance of peaches by their infants is due to increased exposure to the fruit flavor through breast milk.
"It's a beautiful system," noted Mennella. "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."
Both groups of mothers reported eating green beans and green vegetables infrequently - at levels below current recommendations - and there was no difference in the amount of green beans eaten by breastfed and formula-fed infants the first time the vegetables were offered.
Once weaned, repeatedly offering green beans over eight days, with or without peaches, enhanced acceptance of the vegetable in both breastfed and formula-fed infants - increasing intake by almost three-fold.
"Babies are born with a dislike for bitter tastes," explained Mennella. "If mothers want their babies to learn to like to eat vegetables, especially green vegetables, they need to provide them with opportunities to taste these foods."
The results also suggest that mothers should not give up on a food just because her infant grimaces when he or she tastes it. In the current study, babies' facial expressions did not always match their willingness to continue eating the food.