Tastes: Like Mother Like Child
By:
Linda Formichelli
Summary: Ever wonder why you and your mom eat alike? Read on to find out why.
Got a taste for spicy Mexican food? Chances are that your mother does,
too.A new study from Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center (MCSC)
suggests that children can adopt their mothers' food preferences through the
flavors in her breast milk and amniotic fluid. Study author Julie Mennella,
Ph.D., a MCSC behavioral scientist, assigned 46 pregnant women to one of three
groups. Women in the first group drank carrot juice during the last trimester of
pregnancy and water during lactation; the second group did the opposite; and the
third group drank only water throughout.Later, Mennella observed the infants
eating cereal prepared with carrot juice one day and water another. She found
that those infants who were exposed to carrot flavoring ate an average of three
times more carrot-flavored cereal than did infants whose mothers drank only
water.Mennella suggests that mother's milk may act as a medium for early flavor
experiences, giving infants a taste of their culture even before birth. "Infants
learn what foods are safe by flavor cues in the amniotic fluid and mother's
milk," she said.