Bitter taste turns tots off veggies
2006-07-28 13:04
New York - Preschoolers who are sensitive
to bitter flavours may be especially likely to turn their noses
up at vegetables, a new study shows.
In an experiment with 65 preschool children, researchers
found that those whose taste buds were particularly attuned to
detecting bitterness were less likely to eat their veggies. In
some cases, they balked at eating not only bitter vegetables,
like broccoli and olives, but also sweeter fare like carrots
and red peppers.
The findings suggest that innately sensitive taste buds
help explain why some children are so staunchly opposed to
vegetables, the study authors report in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition.
In recent years, scientists have identified a gene, dubbed
TAS2R38, that controls a receptor for bitter flavour. A study
published last year found that children with certain variations
of that gene are particularly sensitive tasters, able to detect
a very small amount of a bitter-tasting compound in water.
When children in the current study were tested in the same
way, 37% of them said the water tasted "yucky" or bad,
while the rest couldn't taste anything and were considered
"nontasters."
When the children were given free range to snack on
bitter-tasting vegetables (broccoli, olives and cucumbers) and
sweeter ones (carrots and red peppers), the sensitive kids ate
significantly fewer bitter vegetables.
And while only 8% of nontaster children refused all
of the vegetables, 32% of the sensitive tasters did so.
Different taste experiences
So what should parents make of all this? According to the
researchers, parents of fussy eaters should recognise that
their children may not be having the same taste experience that
they are.
"Parents should try not to project their own food
preferences onto their children," said study co-author Dr
Beverly J Tepper, a professor of food science at Rutgers
University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
A nontaster parent who loves broccoli, for instance, may
have a more bitter-sensitive child who simply doesn't enjoy the
greens in the same way, she explained.
That doesn't mean, however, that bitter-sensitive tykes are
destined to shun vegetables their whole lives - a potential
comfort to parents who regularly engage in mealtime struggles.
"We do change our food preferences as we grow and learn,"
Tepper said, noting that the "impact of genetics isn't set in
stone."
Whether there's a more immediate fix to the
bitter-sensitivity issue is unclear. A tasty sauce might make
vegetables more palatable to a sensitive child, but dousing
veggies with toppings may not be the most nutritionally sound
choice, Tepper noted.
Serving vegetables cooked rather than raw might help, she
said, since cooking takes some of the bite out.