The psychology of hating food (and how we learn to love it) – article

Joseph Castro explains why kids who hate certain foods grow up into adults can’t seem to get enough of them. Quoting from research, he says:

“Up until the age of 2 you will eat anything, But then you become neophobic — that is, you don’t like new food. So if you hadn’t already been exposed to a certain flavor by the time you hit your terrible twos — whether through amniotic fluid, breast milk or solid food — chances are you won’t like it.

At this point, most parents make a big mistake. They think, ‘Oh my child doesn’t like this,’ but it’s actually anything new that they don’t like . So parents typically stop trying to feed their child that food and the kid ends up apparently hating it for years to come. They don’t know that if they just keep giving it to their child, they’ll eventually like it.