RESEARCH Results from an experimen

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Fruit and vegetable consumption is below recommended levels for a notable proportion of preschool-aged children in the United States, with 31.5 % and 80.3 % consuming less than recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables re-spectively [1]. Consequently, strategies to encourage their consumption among this population subgroup are needed. One barrier to fruit and vegetable consumption in young children is taste preferences [2]. Humans are predisposed to prefer fatty, sweet and salty tastes, and reject sour and bitter tastes [3]. Although fruits tend to be sweet in flavor, some contain sour flavors and most are less sweet and less fatty than foods high in added fats and sugars such as chicken nuggets, candy, cakes, and sugar-sweetened bev-erages. Vegetables, in their minimally processed form, are not sweet nor salty flavored and some contain bitter tastes. It is believed that children can learn to like and eat food