Blending dark green vegetables with fruits in commercially available infant foods makes them taste like fruit
APPETITE

One common method used by food manufacturers is called “vegetables by stealth.” If you’re a parent, or if you’ve ever tried to eat Lacinato kale, then you’re familiar. According to today’s study, this trickery works by creating a mixture that doesn’t taste too “bitter” or too “green” but rather “fruity.”

You might be thinking man, this is a stretch, that California sun must be getting to Adam’s head, but hear me out. This study was designed to better understand infant food, but it might as well be retitled “How to get a picky adult to eat more vegetables.”

One way to establish life-long, healthy eating patterns is to get kids to eat leafy greens at a young age. Instead, we’re training our kids (and let’s face it, ourselves) to not appreciate the taste of the most nutritious foods. We make salads that taste like dressing and green smoothies with the sweetest berries Trader Joe’s will let you buy, albeit in limited quantity.

This study looked at sensory profiles of vegetable-containing infant products commercially available in the United States. This included taste and whatever “oral touch” means. Their goal? Determine how ingredient composition affects flavor profiles.

To no one's surprise there were no commercially available single, dark green vegetable baby foods. Instead, dark green vegetables were often mixed with fruits or red/orange vegetables like sweet potatoes.

And here’s the dilemma: in order for us to actually enjoy eating vegetables, the flavors from the vegetables must still be discernible within a meal. Go figure.

So, how do you get children (and adults with child-like palates) to eat more vegetables? One idea is to learn to appreciate flavors by eating them stripped of salt, sugar, and fat. Explore the “earthy” and “bitter” quality of spinach, for example. Or, try eating it through a pipe, which worked for Popeye.