PostHeaderIcon Meet the taste of the child

The desire for sweets is not new. Historically, the children enjoy the sweets. Whether it is a piece of chocolate, a sweet fruit, a spoonful of jam or honey, or a glass of grenadine, all that is sweet is very successful with most children.

Meet the taste of the child The organ of taste (taste buds of the tongue) is formed very early during intrauterine life. From that age of life, the child prefers sweet taste. More amniotic fluid is sweet, plus the fetus swallows. Injection of a bitter compound in amniotic fluid inhibits fetal swallowing. If the mother has diabetes, the baby may be larger by indulgence and excess supply of blood sugar.

Sugar first!

The infant, confronted experimentally with basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) expressed his pleasure or his obvious anger by facial expressions. If the proposed newborn bottles of plain water and sugar water, it will consume more sugar water. Between two bottles, he will prefer the one that contains the most concentrated solution of sugar and one containing the solution of a substance with high sweetness (sucrose or fructose) compared with solutions of glucose or lactose, which are less ” sweeteners “This response to sweetness is observable as soon as he breathes and even before the baby has been fed.


Expressive facial expressions

Jacob Steiner, Israeli psychologist and physiologist, has tested thousands of newborns and found that facial expressions of pleasure or repulsion accompanying sensations were part of different genetic background, is innate. Tests gusto-facial (TGV) it has developed are performed on babies under six hours, who have never taken a meal. The test begins with a drop of boiling water, demineralized at room temperature. This allows to record the reactions to this stimulation. The second test is to give a sugar solution. The baby expresses contentment with his mimicry. The third test is based on lemon juice. The newborn responds by puckering. For the fourth test, we use a bitter quinine solution. The baby then glue the tongue against the roof while leaving beyond its end, facies and then expressed deep sadness.

Flavored milk

Galactogenic plants are actually plants that give a taste of mother’s milk: cumin, fennel, anise, etc. … Milk with good taste, the infant the head more vigorously and it is known that suction causes breast milk production.

An English midwife was struck by the smell of curry released by a new-born Indian woman. The amniotic fluid that bathes the baby smelled like curry. The smell, the baby is found in breast milk. The consequences of this observation are still unknown but open the door to many questions.

Preferably late for salt

If the attraction to the sweet taste is stable over the first few months, it appears more intense than six months the child received regular sugar during the previous period. Regarding the taste for salt, the researchers identified three periods: during the first month, a low reactivity to salt was obvious. From the 4th month, there is some preference for salt solutions. Finally, during the 2nd year, the children refuse the salt solutions. When introducing salt in a solid food, the infant shows a clear preference for foods with added salt reasonably from the 4 th month, even if it was fed only mother’s milk until then. Large individual differences are highlighted. Some children develop an early preference for sour taste (lemon pickle), others for the bitterness (olives), etc..




Changing tastes?

Preferences and aversions are present at birth completely changed by subsequent feeding experiments. This malleability of learning food allows children to adapt to all kitchens across the world. The degree of this flexibility can vary from child to child. The ease with which the child from 8 to 12 months accept new foods depends on the variety of tastes and odors encountered previously in the diet. Many researchers agree that the likes of subsequent infants are related to the taste of mother’s milk itself dependent on its eating habits. Thus, for example, that the mother eats garlic milk will taste of garlic and garlic child will love the latest …

After birth, the passion for everything sweet intensifies because of perceptions like taste sweetness, bitterness or saltiness, are managed by a part of the brain related to feelings. Generally, a sense of well-being is triggered when the perception of what is sweet comes to mind.

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