Avoidance of plant foods in infancy.

Abstract

Infants avoid touching plants. Here we examine for the first time whether infants are also reluctant to touch plant foods. We hypothesized that infants would avoid plant foods because food neophobia-the avoidance of novel foods-is particularly strong for fruits and vegetables. However, we predicted that infants would avoid processed plant foods to a lesser degree than whole leafy plants because they bear the markers of previous human engagement. In a first assessment, we presented 7- to 15-month-old infants, recruited from a predominantly White population around Berlin, Germany (N = 56; 29 girls), with whole plants, processed whole plant foods, and nonplant food controls. We measured infants' latency to touch each object and their social looks toward adults prior to the first touch. In a follow-up assessment 1 year later, participants' caregivers filled out a questionnaire measuring their child's food neophobia. Infants avoided touching both whole plants and processed plant foods, and engaged in more social looking before touching them, relative to their matched controls. However, infants took longer to touch and engaged in more social looking for whole plants than processed plant foods. The follow-up assessment indicated that avoidance of cut plant foods in older infants was related to their food neophobia measured 1 year later. These results demonstrate that (a) infants avoid plant foods, (b) cues of food processing decrease infants' reluctance to touch plant foods relative to unprocessed plants, suggesting that these cues may signal food safety, and (c) avoiding certain types of plant foods in infancy may be a precursor of later food neophobia. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).