A pilot study to determine preschool children's liking and intake of seasoned vegetables in relation to maternal herb and spice exposure
Open Access
- Author:
- Carney, ELIZABETH MARGARET
- Area of Honors:
- Interdisciplinary in Food Science and Nutritional Sciences
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Kathleen Loralee Keller, Thesis Supervisor
Gregory Ray Ziegler, Thesis Honors Advisor
Rebecca L Corwin, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Vegetables
Herbs
Spices
Preschool
Dietary Variety - Abstract:
- To design interventions targeted at improving children’s eating behaviors, we must first understand the biological and environmental factors that contribute to food choice. Exposure to flavors in the mother’s diet during pregnancy and in breastmilk plays a role in infant’s food acceptance during the weaning period, but research has not yet investigated if these effects persist into early childhood. If early exposure plays a strong role in children’s food acceptance through the preschool years, there is potential that it can be used to increase intake of nutritionally beneficial foods, like vegetables. A retrospective questionnaire was designed to assess mothers’ intake of 9 herbs and spices during pregnancy and lactation. Forty-two mothers and their preschool aged children attended two laboratory visits where mothers filled out the questionnaire and children rated their acceptance/liking of carrots prepared with seasoning blends of the herbs and spices (cinnamon-nutmeg-ginger, garlic-black pepper-oregano, cardamom-cumin-allspice). Children’s intake of the seasoned carrots was also measured during two multi-item ad libitum test meals. Mothers were able to report an answer (i.e. yes or no) when asked to recall their herb and spice intake more often than they selected the “I don’t know” option for all but one spice. When grouped by individual spice blends, no correlation was found between maternally reported intake of the herbs and spices and children’s liking or intake of the seasoned carrots (P > 0.05). However, when a combined score was calculated for total maternal herb and spice intake, there was a significant correlation with children’s overall liking of the seasoned carrots (P = 0.03) but not with intake of the carrots (P > 0.05). Overall, we did not find evidence that maternal intake of herbs and spices during pregnancy and breastfeeding influences children’s acceptance of these specific flavors in early childhood. However, the relationship between total herb and spice intake and children’s seasoned carrot liking may indicate that maternal dietary variety is a better indicator of children’s food acceptance in the preschool years. Once validated, retrospective dietary recall of herb and spice intake may be a fast and easy tool to assess the influence of maternal diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding on children’s food preference in future research.