‘I hate vegetables!’ is a common refrain from children, and one adults often try to prove wrong, given that eating vegetables can be a great source of essential vitamins, minerals and fibre. But young children’s aversion to them might be entirely natural.
Children are particularly sensitive to taste. Babies are born with around 9,000 taste buds, but lose half their taste receptors by the age of 20. Tolerance of bitter flavours develops as we age and our taste becomes less sensitive, but for children, bitter foods can taste particularly unpleasant.
With bitterness a warning signal to our ancestors of a potentially dangerous toxin, we have a long-held natural aversion to bitter foods, many of which are vegetables, especially leafy green ones such as kale or cabbage.
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