What made me think about it? In the past few months, I’ve been noticing my 1-year-old baby seemed to be interested with all the food that she sees from us. She’s been like that since her 5th month. However, there are food that I don’t wanna share with her because it’s either not good for her or may disgust her.
One time we were eating a spicy junk food, Wasabi Flavored chips and she’s crying for it. So I let her taste it so she wouldn’t want it anymore. Instead of her disliking it, she seemed to be fascinated with the taste and wanted more of it.
There is also one time where my mom was eating Jalapeno Cheetos. We don’t want her eating junk food but out of curiosity my mom let her eat a piece of it. My son couldn’t even take it because it is spicy, but my baby seemed to love it so much. We also had her taste Kimchi and a spicy noodles. It’s like nothing to her.
If the answer to the title is yes, how can I testify to it? Based on what I noticed, it seems like my baby inherited my food preferences.
I love spicy food but not too spicy. When I was pregnant, I used to eat Ramyun (Korean spicy noodles). I also like buying Indian Mango and Santol from the streets to have the Salt with Chilies.
Even after pregnancy, I still continue to love spicy food. I am breastfeeding my baby girl ever since. A lot of people says that the taste of what I eat can affect the taste of the milk.
Here are some IG posts of the food I used to eat during pregnancy period. https://www.instagram.com/p/BZPqrGRleGy/,https://www.instagram.com/p/BYVSm_NlQLr
Does that answer my question? For my own perspective I guess yes, but if you’re reading this because you want a legit answer I will do some referencing. Very unusual thing for me to do but let’s do this.
What does other sources say? The Guardian The Guardian has this article about child’s preferences. It was mentioned that baby’s food preferences are affected by the food intake of the mother from pregnancy up to breastfeeding stage. Their article implicated that my current observation with my baby is positive.
You can read more about their article here
I also found something from NCBI (National Center of Biotechnology Information). Here are some quoted statements: “Children usually prefer foods that are high in sugar and salt over those which are sour and bitter tasting, such as some vegetables. Preferences for salt and the refusal of bitter can be modified early through repeated exposure to flavors in amniotic fluid, mother’s milk, and solid foods during complementary feeding.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331538/ breast milk both reflect to a variable degree the food composition of the maternal diet, a repeated exposure to their flavors increases infants’ acceptance of foods [16]. While the knowledge of the influence of the maternal diet on breast milk is mostly indirect [17], the sensory experiences with food flavors in mothers who ate a varied diet may explain why their breastfed children tend to be less picky [18] and more willing to try new foods during childhood.”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331538/ breast milk . Their flavor experience is more monotone and lacks the flavors of the foods of the mother’s diet.”https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5331538/ Having those said, it seemed that we’re on the same track. The good news there is that we could somehow modify our babies food preferences. Like what they have said we can expose our babies to some taste by repeatedly eating the taste of whichever food we want them to expose from pregnancy.
So if your pregnant, as early as now eat more healthy food especially the vegetables that is very hard to introduce to our kids. My baby is eating bitter food aside from spicy food because I like Ampalaya (Bitter Gourd) a lot.
In the case of babies who are formula-fed are less likely get their mother’s food preferences even though the amniotic fluid can give them some taste familiarity while they were on our wombs.
Anyways, aside from the inheritance of baby’s food preferences from, it may still change as they grow. If we want our baby’s to have a healthy eating habits, as early as weaning we should be introducing healthy food. Don’t tolerate food refusal since it may become habitual.
Anything to share? Please share your own experiences on the comment below. This answered my questions and I hope it answered your too,
