A study developed on preschool children whose tastes are rather sensitive to bitter flavors showed that they tend to avoid vegetables and remove the greens from their alimentation. Moreover, they do not only stay away from bitter vegetables such as broccoli or olives, but they also baulked at eating sweeter vegetables, such as carrots or red peppers.

A scientific research published last year showed that modifications of a certain bitter-flavor gene, called TAS2R38, controls our sensitivity to such flavors. Children with variations of this gene become hypersensitive to foods that taste bitter and they can detect even a small, microscopically bitter compound in tap water.

The study developed this month, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, involved 65 preschool kids who were asked to taste water, bitter and sweet vegetables. When drinking water, 37% of them defined its taste as bad, "yucky" more exactly, while the others did not sense anything and were labeled by the researchers as "nontasters."

Afterwards, they were given free-hand at choosing any vegetables they would like to eat. The vegetables at their disposal were both bitter (broccoli, olives and cucumbers) and sweeter (carrots and red peppers.) 8% of the "nontaster" kids and 32% of the taste-sensitive ones refused all the veggies.

What should be done, then, in order to help children like and eat more vegetables? A solution must be figured out, as the greens are extremely important for their appropriate growth and is closely connected with our offsprings' physical and mental adequate development. Dr. Beverly J. Tepper, professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey and co-author of the study gave two important advices two parents.

First of all, they should not try to influence kids' tastes on vegetables - for instance, if a parent likes broccoli, he or she should not impose it upon the kid, too. Let it all be the child's free choice. Second of all, mothers could try to bake the vegetables and not give raw ones to her offspring, as raw veggies usually taste bitter than baked ones.

"Parents should try not to project their own food preferences onto their children," Dr. Tapper said.
"We do change our food preferences as we grow and learn," she added, because we should be aware that the "impact of genetics isn't set in stone".