Mothers control tastes from pregnancy

By JEREMY LAURANCE

A love of curry, a taste for garlic or a predilection for Pernod may all begin in the womb, scientists say.

The food preferences of babies are shaped by their earliest experience of flavours and their first taste is of the amniotic fluid that surrounds them in the womb and their mother's breast milk after they are born.

American researchers have shown that there is a window of opportunity from pregnancy to three months - when babies' likes and dislikes are established - which can affect later eating behaviour.

The flavours that babies are exposed to through the amniotic fluid and breast milk depend on what their mother ate.

In addition to garlic, flavourings such as vanilla and aniseed are detectable in breast milk and may influence babies' later preferences.

In the latest study, researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia compared two groups of babies given two kinds of formula feed.

One was the standard milk-based formula and the other a foul-tasting - to adults - "pre-digested" formula for babies who have difficulty absorbing protein. Despite its unpleasant taste, babies fed the pre-digested formula in their first three months preferred it at seven months of age, whereas those given the standard formula wrinkled their noses in disgust when it was offered to them.

Julie Mennella, who led the study published in Paediatrics, said: "It is often difficult for parents to feed these formulas to their babies because they think it tastes bad.

"These findings reveal that if the baby feeds this formula by three months of age, the baby learns to like its taste."

Ms Menella said understanding how food preferences were determined in infancy could assist the fight against childhood obesity.

"Children are emotional eaters. They only eat what they like. If you tell them to eat fruit and vegetables it is not going to work.

"The way to enhance acceptance of a new food is by gradual introduction of it. That is what happens in the womb and with breast milk. The baby gets subtle but repeated exposure to flavour cues."

- INDEPENDENT