SC - Babies have taste buds

[Gwynydd of Culloden]

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>From Gwynydd of Culloden unto the Gathered Cooks

I wasn't going to get involved in this - actually, I agree with all that these 2 posters have written.

When my daughter was nursing I ate masses of oranges (oddly, I have never really redeveloped the taste for them).  I found that her saliva on my skin actually stung!  I was assured by the nurses that it was the acid of the oranges going into her via my milk and coming out in her saliva!  We were also warned off raw onions when nursing - a fact that no-one had bothered to tell the kitchen!

Actually, I have always been told that it is the excessive quantity of tastebuds in babies which mean that bland food is best for them at first.  Too much flavour overloads them, or so I was told.

BTW, I believe (because I am seeing it in action!) that children do outgrow (or at least, can) picky eating.  At 11 my daughter suddenly realised that her diet was incredibly limited and it concerned her.  She has started to taste all sorts of things which I would never have dreamed of feeding her.  (She now adores roast venison!) Also, she tended to go through major fads right through her childhood (for a while she would have been happy to eat porridge morning, noon, and night.  As well, for at least a year her favourite food was (believe it or not!) Peanut Butter soup!  I have not made it since she gave it up - a few dozen buckets full in the freezer can really turn one off some things!).  I realise that this is only just on topic (well, it is about food! :-)), but I hope that it might give comfort to other parents out there who are desperate (as I was) that their child will never learn that more than 2 regular dishes is a Good Thing!

Craving your indulgence

Gwynydd

At 2000-03-17 22:44:46.421001, 
RichSCA at aol.com wrote:
> I must have missed this thread.  Must have run while I was between 
> Arkansas 
> and Texas.  :-)
> 
> Just a quick comment.  After having my first baby (a girl) I lived 
> just north 
> of the Mexican border in Arizona and I LOVE Mexican food.  I soon 
> learned 
> that if I ate my favorite spicy tacos she would NOT nurse. I asked 
> the doctor 
> if this was my imagination and was told that babies have taste 
> buds and some 
> foods/spices can come through the mother's milk and some babies 
> won't nurse 
> if they don't like it.  
> 
> I knew that certain diets that cows eat can alter the flavor of 
> the milk.  
> Have tasted the difference myself, but I never knew that human 
> babies cared.  
> Crystal (my first baby) would have been SOL if I had been born and 
> raised in 
> Mexico.  She would have starved.  :-)  
> 
> Rayne
>      
> << 
>  >I recently read that babies are basically born without taste 
> preferences
>  >(i.e.: no taste buds) and develop these in the first five years 
> of their
>  >life.
>  
>  I'm sorry, but even though this thread is several weeks old (I'm 
> trying 
>  really hard to catch up!) I feel that I MUST comment on this!  
> Babies most 
>  certainly DO have taste buds!!  They have about TEN TIMES as many 
> taste 
>  buds as adults have, by the age of 6 I think the number of taste 
> buds are 
>  down to half that, and by age 10 (I think, the exact age level 
> escapes me) 
>  they have only Twice as many as adults.  At puberty, the 
> tastebuds have 
>  reached their adult number.  The big difference is that babies 
> taste buds 
>  are almost entirely attuned to Sweet (as oppose to sour, bitter 
> and salt; 
>  the other 3 of the 4 flavors that the tounge detects) so that 
> they will 
>  crave their mother's milk.
>   
>  -Laurene
>   >>
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