Chem. Senses 24: 465-467,
1999
© Oxford University Press 1999
Short Communication |
The Influence of Early Experience withVanillin on Food Preference Later in Life
ASAP, Gesellschaft für Sensorische Analyse und Produktentwicklung mbH, Drachensee-strasse 1, D-81373, Munich 1 Europäisches Institut für Lebensmittel- und Ernährungswissenschaften, E.V., Amselweg 7, D-65239 Hochheim, Germany
Correspondence to be sent to: E.P. Köster, Jan van Scorelstraat 55, 3583 CK Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Abstract |
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A study with 133 adults, who had been breast-fed or bottle-fed after birth, shows that neonatal experience with vanilla influences preferences for other foods in later life.
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Introduction |
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Does very early experience exert a strong influence on later preferences? In 1992 (Pollmer, 1992
) it was suggested that the bottle milk fed to newborns and
small babies had been flavored with vanilla for many years in Germany. The question arose
whether this would
influence the preference of bottle-fed persons in later life. It was supposed that such persons
would have a greater preference for vanilla-flavored foods. Since there were also some
indications from other applied research that men prefer vanilla flavor more than women, it was
decided to take this possible factor also into account. |
Method |
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TopAbstractIntroductionMethodResultsDiscussionReferences |
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At the occasion of a visitor's day to an `environmental fair' at the `Frankfurter Messe', 133 visitors (71 female, 62 male), ranging in age from 12 to 59 years (mean 28.8 years; median 27 years), responded to a questionnaire on food habits and food preferences (see Table 5) in which the following question was hidden: `Were you breast fed or bottle fed as a newborn?'. Following the questionnaire, they were asked to taste two ketchups and to indicate their preference for one of them. Both ketchups were the same product (Kraft) but to one of them 0.5 g of vanillin per 1 kg ketchup had been added. Ketchup was chosen as the carrier because it is not normally associated with vanillin. Thus it was unlikely that experiences with this combination in other phases of life could interfere. The concentration of vanillin chosen was kept very low, in order to avoid explicit recognition of the vanillin taste. In a preliminary triangular test the difference in taste between the ketchup with and without vanillin was found to be barely detectable ( n = 24, correct identification = 14, P < 0.05). That such small differences in the triangular test can nevertheless give rise to considerable differences in preference has recently been demonstrated (Lévy and Köster, 1999
).
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Results |
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Composition of the group with regard to gender and feeding history
The answers to the hidden question were distributed as shown in Table 1. As can be seen from this table, the numbers of breastand bottle-fed participants are about equally distributed in the two gender groups.
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Gender and ketchup preference
Of the total number of respondents, 83 (62.4%) preferred the pure ketchup and 50 (37.6%) preferred the ketchup with vanillin. Table 2 gives the distributions in the two gender groups. As can be seen from this table, the preferences for pure and vanillin-added ketchups are also equally distributed in the two gender groups.
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Feeding history and ketchup preference
The repartition of those who prefer the pure ketchup and those who prefer the vanillin-added ketchup over the two groups with different early feeding experiences is shown in Table 3. Of the total number of participants who indicated that they were breast fed (n = 103; 77.4% of the total), 73 (70.9%) had a preference for the pure ketchup and only 30 (29.1%) had a preference for the ketchup with vanillin, whereas of those who were bottle fed ( n = 30; 22.6% of the total) only 10 (33.3%) had a preference for the pure ketchup and 20 (66.7%) showed a preference for the ketchup with added vanillin (Fisher exact test, P < 0.01).
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To answer the two hypotheses mentioned above, a loglinear model was created, taking the three factors gender, feeding history and ketchup preference into account. It could be shown that only feeding history, not gender, had an influence on the ketchup preference.
Preference and age
To answer the question of whether there was an influence of age on ketchup
preference, the participants were divided into four age groups, as shown in Table 4. As can be
seen from this table, the incidence of preference for vanillinadded ketchup was lowest in the
youngest group and highest in the 26–32 years group, although in general there was no
significant difference between age groups (
2, P =
0.69).
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The questionnaire
The repartition of the full set of answers to the questionnaire over those who preferred the pure ketchup and those who preferred the vanillin added ketchup is shown in Table 5. The answers to only two questions were differently distributed among those who favor the pure and those who favor the vanillin-added ketchup in a significant way—one concerning the desire to reduce calorie uptake and the hidden question about feeding history.
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Discussion |
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In interpreting the results of this small investigation it should be remembered that vanillin is not a common taste in ketchup and it is not surprising that a population which shows a considerable distrust of industrial products (last question in Table 4) prefers the pure ketchup as the most natural. Nevertheless, the dislike for the vanillin-added ketchup is reversed into a preference among those who indicate that they have had vanillin already in the first feeding experiences of their life. At the same time, this group does not differ from the others on all the other attitude questions in the questionnaire, with the exception of the question on calorie uptake. Although with this latter question the difference is more marginal, one might ask the question whether fear for calories and not vanillin liking was the driving factor. In order to check this, the partition of those with and without fear for calories over the two groups with different feeding histories was considered in Table 6.
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As can be seen from this table, the fear of calories is somewhat lower among those who were breast fed than among those who were bottle fed, but the difference is not significant. It can also be shown that the difference found was to a large extent due to the lowest age group (12–18 years, n = 15), where 11 of the 12 breast-fed children showed no fear of calories and all of the three bottle-fed children indicated that they avoided calories. When the youngest group was left out the significance of the partition of the responses to question 5 in Table 5 disappeared, but the significance of the results obtained with the question about feeding history remained at the same level ( P < 0.01). None of the results from the other questions in Table 5 gained significance when the youngest group was left out. Although other explanations of the phenomenon can never be completely excluded, it seems reasonable to conclude that early experience with vanillin is responsible for the attractiveness of ketchup with added vanillin to the bottle-fed group much later in life. Whether this finding is vanillin-specific or would also be true for other taste components (e.g. the particular milk used) in such early experiences cannot be concluded from this experiment.
Apart from its practical implications, this finding has theoretical importance because it sheds light on the question of whether olfactory memory exists independent of verbal memory. Bottle feeding stops long before children speak, let alone try to identify their experiences with words. The results are also a clear demonstration of the effectiveness of unintentional learning in olfaction.
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References |
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TopAbstractIntroductionMethodResultsDiscussionReferences |
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Lévy, C.M. and Köster, E.P. (1999) The relevance of initial hedonic judgements in the prediction of subtle food choices. Food Qual. Pref. , 10 , 185–200.
Pollmer, U. (1991) Novel foods: flavour design and malnutrition. Agro-Ind. High Tech. , 2 , 43–45.
Accepted March 31, 1999
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