Want to Avoid Having a Picky Eater? Start Exposing Your Kids to Veggies Super Early—in the Womb

In a new study, 3-year-olds who were repeatedly exposed to the taste of bitter kale as fetuses appeared to be less averse to the leafy greens’ scent than they were to a food smell they hadn’t experienced in utero

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

May 19, 2026 10:00 a.m.

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Children can often be extremely picky eaters, frustrating parents and even leading them to hide veggies in their kids’ food. But there might be a way to influence youngsters’ taste preferences—before they’re even born.

Researchers found that 3-year-olds who had been exposed to the flavor of bitter kale in the womb seemed less averse to the leafy greens’ scent than they were to a smell they weren’t exposed to as fetuses. The results, published May 12 in the journal Developmental Psychobiology, suggest that mothers can shape their soon-to-be-born offsprings’ taste palates by consuming certain foods during late pregnancy.

“These findings open up new ways of thinking about early dietary interventions,” says study co-author Beyza Ustun-Elayan, a fetal development researcher at the University of Cambridge, to the Guardian’s Mark Brown.

As part of previous studies, Ustun-Elayan and her colleagues had more than 30 individuals with healthy, singleton pregnancies ingest capsules with either carrot or kale powder at 32 and 36 weeks’ gestation. Ultrasound scans helped the team gauge the fetuses’ facial reactions.

The fetuses grimaced when they experienced the bitter green for the first time. But four weeks later, “they grimaced a little less,” study co-author Nadja Reissland, a mother-infant interaction researcher at Durham University in England, tells the London Times’ Rhys Blakely. The non-bitter carrot flavor, on the other hand, brought about fewer negative reactions.

After the second scan, the pregnant individuals continued taking their assigned capsule flavor several times per week until birth. Then, when the babies were 3 weeks old, the researchers examined their responses to both scented powders, presented on cotton swabs held under their noses. Exposure to the familiar smell—either kale or carrot—induced more smiley reactions and fewer crying-face reactions compared with their initial responses at 32 weeks’ gestation. The unfamiliar scent elicited a higher rate of negative responses in the babies than the one they knew.

The new study involved 12 of the original children, who were tested at age 3. They again sniffed both powders on Q-tips while being filmed. The toddlers’ facial expressions hinted they were less averse to the odor they had experienced repeatedly as fetuses than to the unfamiliar scent.

“What we see over time is that the children are still more favorable to the vegetables they were exposed to while they were in the womb,” Reissland says in a statement. “From this, we can suggest that being exposed to a particular flavor in late pregnancy can result in long-lasting flavor or odor memory in children, potentially shaping their food preferences years after birth.”

How does this happen? When a pregnant person eats, flavor compounds from the food go into the amniotic fluid that surrounds and protects the fetus.

“A fetus starts swallowing amniotic fluid at about 10 to 12 weeks’ gestation. They swallow hundreds of milliliters a day. It is thought that sense of taste and smell are well-developed by 21 weeks, well before they will eat or drink on their own,” Emma Beckett, a nutrition scientist at Australian Catholic University, and Zoe Yates, a nutrition scientist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, wrote for the Conversation in 2015. Neither participated in the recent study.

Still, the new research has some limitations, namely that it included a small number of mothers and children, Reissland tells the Guardian. A much larger study is necessary for more conclusive results, she adds, which she and her colleagues would do it if they had the funding.

For now, however, “the first take-home message is: don’t make pregnant women feel guilty about what they’re doing. Because they have enough on their plates, dealing with the pregnancy,” Reissland tells the London Times. “But the other thing is, of course, that healthy eating is important. If we can help mothers to get the fetus used to healthy eating, then that liking for healthy foods will perpetuate later on.”

Margherita Bassi | Read More

Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science, Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass.