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Health organizations worldwide recommend that adults and children minimize intakes of excess energy and salty,sweet, and fatty foods (all of which are highly preferred tastes) and eat diets richer in whole grains, low- and non- fat dairy products,legumes, fish, lean meat, fruits, and vegetables (many of which taste bitter). Despite such recommendations and thewell-established benefits of these foods to human health, adults are not complying, nor are their children. A primary reason forthis difficulty is the remarkably potent rewarding properties of the tastes and flavors of foods high in sweetness, saltiness, andfatness. While we cannot easily change children’s basic ingrained biology of liking sweets and avoiding bitterness, we can modulatetheir flavor preferences by providing early exposure, starting in utero, to a wide variety of flavors within healthy foods, suchas fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Because the flavors of foods mothers eat during pregnancy and lactation also flavor amnioticfluid and breast milk and become preferred by infants, pregnant and lactating women should widen their food choices to includeas many flavorful and healthy foods as possible. These experiences, combined with repeated exposure to nutritious foodsand flavor variety during the weaning period and beyond, should maximize the chances that children will select and enjoy ahealthier diet
Health organizations worldwide recommend that adults and children minimize intakes of excess energy and salty, sweet, and fatty foods (all of which are highly preferred tastes) and eat diets richer in whole grains, low- and non-fat dairy products, legumes, fish Although such recommendations and thewell-established benefits of these foods to human health, adults are not complying, nor are their children. A primary reason forthis difficulty is the remarkably potent rewarding properties of the tastes and flavors of foods high in sweetness, saltiness, andfatness. While we can not easily change children’s basic ingrained biology of liking sweets and avoiding bitterness, we can modulatetheir flavor preferences by providing early exposure, starting in utero, to a wide variety of flavors within healthy foods, suchas fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Because the flavors of foods mothers eat during pregnancy and lactation also fla vor amnioticfluid and breast milk and become preferred by infants, pregnant and lactating women should widen their food choices to includeas many flavorful and healthy foods as possible. These experiences, combined with repeated exposure to nutritious foods and flavor variety during the weaning period and beyond, should maximize the chances that children will select and enjoy ahealthier diet