It’s 5:45 p.m. and you’ve just arrived home after a long day at work. You’d like nothing more than a glass of pinot and to binge old episodes of your favorite show. Into the kitchen comes young Sally, your food-adventurous 8-year-old. “I’m hungry, what’s for dinner?”
Sally has never met a food she’s afraid to try. Visions of her savoring the tangy brine of an oyster and joyously slurping spicy ramen noodles dance in your head.
Before you can give her an answer, Billy, your 4-year-old picky eater, shouts, “Mac and cheese!” from the living room. Billy rotates between three entrées: macaroni and cheese from a box, chicken nuggets (only dino shaped) and pasta (only spaghetti).
You sigh and wonder how such diverse creatures ended up in the same family.
If this scenario rings a bell, you are not alone. As a nutritional neuroscientist and a parent, I have spent the better part of my professional and personal life thinking about why children eat the foods they do.
Understanding how food preferences develop can help parents teach kids to enjoy a diverse, varied and healthy diet.
Nature vs. nurture?
Are genes to blame in the case of picky eaters like Billy? While genes can have some influence, they often explain only a small part of the story.
People are born liking the taste of sweet and disliking the taste of bitter. These traits are thought to be protective in that they can help drive someone toward sources of calories – which are often sweet, such as fruits or breast milk – and away from potential toxins or poisons, which are often bitter. As an example of these innate preferences, one study found that pregnant moms who consumed sweet carrot capsules had babies who smiled on the ultrasound, while those who ingested bitter kale capsules had babies who grimaced for the camera, suggesting early on their dislike for bitter vegetables.
Dinner was not a hit.
Milky Way/Moment via Getty Images
In addition to these innate responses, there are genes that affect your ability to taste bitter compounds. These compounds, called thioureas, are similar to those found in cruciferous vegetables. People who inherit genes that make them sensitive to these bitter compounds – about 70% of the U.S. population – tend to also be more sensitive to other bitter tastes in foods. Because of this, they may dislike foods such as raw broccoli, black coffee and grapefruit.
However, there are plenty of people who develop a liking for bitter foods, even though their first experience with them might have been unpleasant. Case in point, the growing popularity of bitter IPA beers.
Another gene that can influence food preferences is the gene that makes cilantro taste soapy. Those born with a version of this olfactory gene – up to 20% of the U.S. population – are sensitive to aldehyde compounds that tend to taste soapy. Because of this taste, they often dislike cilantro.
