European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 13, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse How tastes reformed continued from Page 13 vegetables in. Lor example. India where they Are a dietary mainstay. Although inuit can discriminate among doors which influence their reaction to oods. Many experts believe that no smells Are innately repulsive. The acquisition of disgust is now receiving the scientific scrutiny of Paul Rozin a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who said that children begin to View certain smells As repulsive Between the Ages of 3 and 7. He hypothesizes that this transition May be linked to toilet training and to the expressions of repugnance infants see on their parents faces during diaper changing. Given what scientists do and Don t know parents should not count on them for answers. I a worried Parent asked me As an expert in food selection. How can i get Little Herman to like Green vegetables i would t be Able to help or. Rozin admitted. We just Don t know very much about How people come to like and dislike scientists have established a Lew common and they believe innate tendencies in infant taste by watching How enthusiastically babies drink from bottles filled with different solutions. In a new study by Diana Rosenstern and Harriet Oster of the University of Pennsylvania. Infants just two hours old were videotaped As they fed on solutions containing sugar quinine Salt or citric acid. Confirming previous findings the looked Content after avidly consuming the Sweet liquid and they scrunched their faces in displeasure when they tasted the bitter quinine. Salty and sour tastes triggered less intense reactions. When you re born Sweet is Good and bitter is bad said Linda Bartoshuk an expert in the psychophysics of taste at Yale University. We believe the body is hard wired that these traits seem to be products of sons of natural selection scientists say and they would have aided the survival of an omnivore scavenging food irom the wild As human ancestors did. In nature the parts of plants containing sugars tend to be Laden with Energy while those with a bitter taste Are Otten poisonous. Supporting evidence Lor this evolutionary explanation comes from the animal world notes Gary k. Beauchamp of the Monell chemical senses Center a research Institute in Philadelphia. Other species that eat lots of fruits and vegetables tend to have a Sweet tooth while carnivores tend not to. Research has revealed that Lions tigers leopards jaguars Domestic cats chickens gulls armadillos and hedgehogs All find sugar to be a bore. Newborns Are basically indifferent to the taste of Salt. In recent years enlightened Wisdom has held that children s craving Lor Salty items is Learned and May result from parents sailing baby foods to satisfy their own taste. But recent research or. Beauchamp observed shows that around the age of 4 months infants naturally develop a preference Lor moderate Levels of Salt. This appears to be the result of delayed maturation of the nervous system. Still it does not Lully explain Why people who Are biologically Replete with sodium continue to shake enormous quantities of Salt onto their dinners or Why pretzels and potato chips Are so popular. Desire for Salt is partly a product of experience other studies show. After months on a Low Salt diet a sip of canned Chicken Noodle soup is unpleasant like being hit with a sledgehammer of Salt As one researcher put it. The More Salt a person is accustomed to the More one likes. To tha untold anguish of parents Between Ages 2 and 4 most children become finicky about foods. While Many children develop uniquely bizarre menus they most olten refuse vegetables and meats choosing instead foods that Are starchy or Sweet. Psychiatrists say this food fussiness is part of a general developmental stage a time when a child exercises the ability to say no As a Means of sell assertion. Parents May recognize this As a description of the terrible 2s." some children develop food fixations for months refusing everything but Peanut butter sandwiches or cornflakes or food Cut into a round shape. Or. E. Gerald Dabic a new York psychiatrist suggested this May often a. Explained As a ritual by which children struggling for autonomy reassure themselves of their self control. Parents need not worry or seek counselling unless especially in an older school age child a pattern of multiple obsessive Behaviours begins to interfere with Normal functioning or. Dabbs said. Dietary experts tend to take a sanguine View of the finicky phase saying that the family arguments it provokes Are probably More damaging than any nutritional harm it May cause. They usually get their Basic nutrients said or. Rozin. Noting that a child who seems to eat Only potato chips for example is usually drinking milk on the Side. Some of children s dislikes May be influenced of not determined by natural inclinations. Food experts have not failed to notice that the Green vegetables most notorious among children contain tha same by
