Flavour learning in babies: The role of breastfeeding

Preferences for certain tastes (e.g. sweet) are present at birth,whereas most flavour preferences are learned as a result of exposure.How flavour preferences develop has already received some attention,but the role of breastfeeding is not fully elucidated. Some studieshave shown a better acceptance of weaning foods in breastfedbabies than in bottle-fed babies (eg, Sullivan & Birch, 1994; Maieret al., 2008). The effect may well result from flavour-specific learningvia mother’s milk as suggested by Mennella et al. (2001) or fromprevious exposure to a variety of flavours (Hausner et al., 2010). Tobe able to argue for flavour-specific learning via mother’s milk it isnecessary to demonstrate that a significant amount of dietaryaroma compounds transfer into mother’s milk. Previous experimentshave shown that some flavours transfer to mother’s milk,but it has also been suggested that only lipophilic flavour compoundsare transferred (Hausner et al., 2008). Based on the existingliterature we suggest that at least two learning mechanisms occur;flavour-specific learning and learning not to avoid novel flavour viaexposure to a variety of flavours in mother’s milk. These possiblelearning mechanisms will be discussed in relation to the existing literature