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There is considerable evidence from controlled animal and human studies that sensory experiences early in life can influence flavor preferences and food acceptance [7, 18, 19]. This critical period starts with feeding through the umbilical cord during gestation, continues via oral feeding with milk, and then the complementary feeding begins, and the infant discovers a variety of foods and flavors. Humans generally have inborn positive responses to sugar and salt, and negative responses to bitter taste [20]. Genetically determined individual differences also exist and interact with experience to ensure that children are not genetically restricted to a narrow range of foodstuffs [21]. Children are also predisposed to prefer high-energy foods, to reject new foods, and to learn associations between food flavors and the postingestive consequences of eating [22].

Previous research showed that breastfed infants more rapidly accepted a new vegetable than formula-fed infants [9, 10, 23]. Breastfeeding is also associated with positive effects on later eating patterns and willingness to accept vegetables [1, 2, 24]. A longitudinal study was conducted in Germany and France to evaluate if children who had had been breastfed liked a new vegetable more readily and were also more willing to taste vegetables than formula-fed children at the start of complementary feeding but also at the age of 6 years. It showed that at both time frames children who had been breastfed consumed more of the new vegetables and were more willing to taste vegetables [1, 10]. This positive effect of breastfeeding on food acceptance may be associated with the more varied flavor variety in breast milk, linked to the transfer of flavor compounds. Thus, in contrast to infant formula, mother’s milk provides a potentially rich and complex sensory experience for the infant, reflecting in part the mother’s eating habits and food culture [20]. The early flavor experience of formula-fed infants is markedly different from that of breastfed infants. Exclusively formula-fed children do not benefit from the ever-changing flavor profile of breast milk. Their flavor experience is more monotone and lacks the flavors of the foods of the mother’s diet. There are striking differences in flavors among the different types and brands of formulas, and formula-fed infants learn to prefer the flavors of the formula they are fed and foods containing these flavors [20]. This is indicated by a study on a milk substitute containing hydrolyzed proteins (hypoallergenic nutrition). This milk substitute for infants with a severe milk protein allergy has an unmistakably sour and bitter “burnt” taste. Infants who were fed this milk substitute for the first time at the age of 2 or 3 months accepted it even at the age of 7 months. However, if infants were offered this milk for the first time when they were 6 or 7 months old, they rejected it entirely [25]. Moreover, infants who were fed hydrolyzed baby milk for several months at a very early age were more willing to accept sour-tasting beverages when they were 4 or 5 years old [26].