Food is life. It is arguably one of the most important aspects of the human experience. For thousands of years, humans have been driven to seek out this irreplaceable source of nourishment for survival. Although eating is a vital activity, many children (and sometimes adults) experience difficulty eating due to their aversions to different tastes and textures. People with these aversions are commonly referred to as “picky eaters.” Childhood development researchers Mascola, Bryson, and Agras found that at any given age between 13% and 22% of children were reported to be picky eaters. Incidence declined over time [but] point prevalence increased indicating that picky eating is often a chronic problem with 40% having a duration of more than 2-years (253).
Many doctors choose to classify picky eating as an actual eating disorder, which highlights how problematic it can be in one’s life. When trying to understand this problem, it is important to note that the act of tasting is an almost universal human experience and process but it is still perceived differently by everyone, which causes them to have different preferences when it comes to food. These preferences are arguably more affected by nurture, learned behaviors, than nature, biologically triggered behaviors, when studied through the factors of biology, mental processing, experience, gender, and age.
Interestingly, regardless of what food is eaten, they all go through the same general process when ingested. When food hits your tongue, it sets off the various chemoreceptors for taste and smell located on the surface. These chemoreceptors are responsible for sending different signals to the brain. Your brain then collects and converts these signals so a taste is experienced. Now that a standard for the tasting process has been established, it is also important to understand the difference between taste and flavor. Taste is a specific chemical sense that is perceived by the brain via the taste buds.
The flavor is the overall experience when your brain process all the sensations relating to it- things like taste, smell, temperature, and mouth-feel. Scientists have currently agreed on five basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Umami is the newest of the accepted tastes and is an abstract measure of the savory-ness of food it is often an indicator of fat content. Many people consider spicy to be a taste, but that is a flavor because it includes the sensation of pain.
Many people remember learning about the tongue map in elementary school. It argued that certain parts of the tongue were able to taste certain flavors (ie. The tip of the tongue perceives sweetness, while the sides perceive saltiness). However, scientists have agreed that this is outdated and no longer valid. It is now accepted that certain areas of the tongue have a higher ability to taste those tastes, but they are also able to sense all the other flavors.
The biggest observed biological influencer on taste was proved through the existence of “supertasters.” Supertasters are individuals who have a heightened sense of taste, especially bitterness, because of their taste system anatomies and can be discovered through a basic paper tasting test. Taste scientist, Linda Bartoshuk, spent a considerable amount of time studying supertasters and found that they “feel more burn from oral irritants like chili peppers, more creaminess/viscosity from fats and thickeners…and may also experience more intense oral pain” (447).
These experiences were experimentally found to be directly related to the TAS2R38 gene and hypothesized to be a result of its possible alleles. Supertasters were suspected to have two dominant alleles (TT); medium tasters, those who have keener taste senses than the general population but not to the extent of supertasters, were suspected to have one dominant allele (Tt or tT); and regular tasters were suspected to have two recessive alleles (tt) (Bartoshuk 450). This effectively explained supertasters as a direct cause of biology by being either heterozygous or homozygous.
These experiences unsurprisingly had a huge impact on food choices, and their abilities have a greater impact on children. Since even adults find some of the flavors unpleasant, children, who have an underdeveloped sense of will power, will have an even harder time eating those same foods.
The second biological factor studied was the effect of ancient cultures’ food preferences and their progression through history. Some humans are better able to digest foods than others. It is directly observable when it comes to allergies and intolerance of certain foods. This is hypothesized to be caused by a decrease in genetic variation. Talk about evolution and how certain genes were phased out in certain areas since they weren’t passed down and whatnot.
Mental processing is how someone’s brain absorbs and interprets information. Although one may feel like they know exactly how they are thinking, various factors can influence how your neurons are connecting information.
Have you ever absolutely loathed a character on TV but day by day they slowly grew on you, and you ended up rooting for them? This experience can be explained by the mere exposure effect. To put it simply, it states that the more someone is exposed to a certain object or behavior, the more they associate it with positive things since it becomes more and more familiar to them. The mere exposure effect can be observed in terms of food. The more you consume a certain food, regardless of your personal feelings toward it, the more likely you are to like it. This explains why everyone believes their mom’s food is the best because it is simply what they have eaten most often compared to all the other foods.
Another way mental processing is relevant is when preferences are affected by visual biases. Of the five main senses, humans rely on sight the most, which causes us to favor the information it concludes. Scientists JoAndrea Hoegg and Joseph Alba explained it best when they said:
“Humans rely heavily on visual information to navigate the world. Visual cues generally serve us well, particularly when aligned with other sensory cues. However, sensory cues do not always act in concert, such as when visual and kinesthetic cues are intentionally mismatched to produce exaggerated feelings of motion in attractions found at entertainment parks. Evidence suggests that conflicts between visual and other sensory cues tend to be resolved in favor of vision” (494).
It makes a lot of sense on the evolutionary level because our ancestors relied on how foods looked to gauge whether it was safe to eat or not. No matter how hungry you were, it was hard to override your instinct telling you the potential food was poison. However, in modern times, it seemingly occurs on a more subconscious level. Hoegg and Alba also found that it appears that consumers are neither adept at taste discrimination nor cognizant of the extent of their ineptitude. Since consumers rarely conduct blind taste tests. The presence of competing for visual and verbal cues may hinder discrimination of truly differentiated options (492).
Hoegg and Alba as well as Hyman, another taste researcher, both conducted similar studies that examined the relationship between color and overall taste perception. The subjects in both their studies completely misjudged the flavor of the substance they tasted due to the color. In one instance, a subject went as far as to describe birch beer as “cherry soda” or “cream soda” (Hyman 147). This affirmed their ideas on the mental importance placed on physical appearance.
Within Hyman’s study, the effects of colors on taste perception were mentioned to have already been proven in a previous study by scientists Hall, Pangborn, Romeu, and DeVicente but his study showed those effects were apparent to a higher degree due to the non-restricted way they surveyed the subjects. Unlike the original experiment where participants were asked to rate the drink based on a scale of sourness, the new experiment asked them to describe what they thought they were drinking without any leading terms.
It brings the framing effect to attention where the way something is worded or presented affects the reaction. In this case, the framing of the earlier study caused the subjects to fit their tastes into a predetermined category rather than freely explain what they perceived. The framing effect is also apparent in instances where a disliked food and liked food are served together; the extent of dislike/like is elevated respectively.
The last way mental processes can be influenced is through rewards and punishment of behaviors, most notably positive reinforcement. Operative conditioning was first observed with Pavlov’s famous dog experiment, but its theories have spanned more psychological uses.
About food, behavior scientist Dr. Remington and his team did a study on children’s change in food preferences through the use of positive reinforcement at home. The experiment was simple- each time a child willingly tried a new food (namely vegetables), they were either given a reward in the form of praise or a sticker. Children who received exposure and a tangible reward increased their consumption and liking of the new foods significantly more than did children in the control group who got nothing (Remington et al. 72).