Yahoo Lifestyle Study Finds Vegetable Eaters Are Made in the Womb
Listen up, mums. A new study shows that if you want your child to eat their greens, you need to eat vegies yourself while pregnant.
Researchers from Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia have found babies can develop a taste for certain foods within the womb.
The study found that flavours pass from mum to bub via amniotic fluid.
“Things like vanilla, carrot, garlic, anise, mint — these are some of the flavours that have been shown to be transmitted to amniotic fluid or mother's milk,” explained study leader Julie Mennella.
The researchers tested the theory by giving women garlic or sugar capsules then routinely sampling their amniotic fluid. The fluid samples were given to people to smell.
“They could pick out the samples easily from the women who ate garlic,” Dr Menella said.
As 90 per cent of our sense of taste comes from smell, the researchers assumed unborn babies could taste it.
They then moved to examine whether memories of these tastes could be created before birth by dividing a group of pregnant women into three. One group drank carrot juice everyday while pregnant, one to do so while breastfeeding and one to swear off carrots altogether.
When their babies moved onto solids, the research team fed them baby cereal blended with water or carrot juice.
The babies whose mothers drank carrot juice while pregnant were much more interested in the carrot-blended cereal.
Dr Menella said the research team think this could be nature’s way of introducing babies to foods they will be exposed to in their lifetimes, as mums tend to feed their kids what they eat themselves.
University of Florida researcher Linda Bartoshuk said Dr Mennella's findings could be an important part of child nutrition.
“To what extent can we make a baby eat a healthier diet by exposing it to all the right flavours - broccoli, carrots, lima beans, et cetera? Could we do that or not? My guess is we could,” Bartokshuk said.
What do you think? Did you eat vegies while pregnant, or were they supplemented by a generous snacking policy?
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