There’s a Science Behind Picky Eating

There’s a Science Behind Picky Eating

By Matthew Reitman
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

NPR’s Jeremy Hobson sat down with University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Jane Kauer to discuss the science behind our particular tastes—and peculiar ones as well. Here’s what Kauer had to say when the notion of being born with taste preferences was brought into the discussion:

“There’s a lot of experience and learning and cultural influence that’s part of this. We have a preference in infancy, at birth, for sweetness. We have a dislike or strong aversive reaction to bitterness. We have a slight preference for slightly salty things, but not much of a preference, and a slight preference for moderate to low sour things. But the sweet and the bitter, we all come in with that, so we’re not a total blank slate.”

Read the full interview on NPR here.

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