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We all know that kid who only eats peanut butter sandwiches on white bread cut into triangles ... and has been refusing anything different for the past seven years. Sure, he's sweet, but that's the kid moms dread having over for play dates after school. So how do you avoid raising that kid, the picky eating kid? One trick is actually surprisingly easy: Skip the baby food that mixes flavors.
The idea is that babies have to develop a palette, and blending flavors keeps them from learning to like (or even just put up with) the taste of individual vegetables.
The science to support this theory was presented by researchers from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research at a conference last week, but it's not the first time the story has been told: A study in the journal Appetite also offered up research to back this idea up.
It's the same reason why breastfeeding could produce less fussy eaters when babies grow up -- that exposure to subtle flavors helps them appreciate the taste of anything that's not just mush.
More from The Stir: 16 Bizarre Facts About Baby Food Through the Years
So the supermarket strategy is this: Skip the stuff that mashes different flavors together, and buy (or make!) the baby food that's strictly one-vegetable-only. Easy, right?
Also, shoot for getting a range of different fruits and veggies, and trick your baby into eating as many different flavors as possible (while you still can). Then, if everything goes as planned, they'll be inhaling broccoli by the bunch by the time they're old enough to chew.
Or something like that.
It's an easy switch to make, and one that certainly won't hurt anybody. Nobody really wants to deal with a picky eater -- so please, for moms everywhere, try this trick.
And then, a mere 10 years from now when you have a culinary savant on your hands, YOU get to take all the credit, thank you very much.
What kind of food do you usually feed your baby?
Image via Chepko Danil Vitalevich
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