You are what your mother eats

A mother's likes and dislikes, particularly for fruit and vegetables, is passed on to her infant during breastfeeding, suggests new research from the US.

A study of 45 infants, just under half of which were breastfed, showed that a baby's preference for a certain food is dependent on its mother's tastes, but only if the baby is breastfed, report researchers in this month's issue of Pediatrics.

The study deepens our understanding of the evolution of taste preferences, and could aid the development of modern tools for both nutritional counseling and food development.

Such research may also help explain why children and adults like and dislike foods and could be important for the understanding of eating problems, such as obesity with over 22 million children under five are severely overweight.

During the first exposure, the researchers report that infant intake of peaches was greater if the child were breastfed and the mothers liked peaches. This suggested that the enhanced peach acceptance of their infants might be attributed to increased exposure to fruit flavours through breast milk.

"It's a beautiful system," said Mennella. "Flavours 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."

Bonnie - there also has been much fanfare for taste in foods through genetics. The answer is not clear cut and is multifactorial. Introducing a food numerous times (eight to ten times instead of one and done) increases the chances that your child will eat it!