Make your Breast Milk taste like Banana Milkshake - nonsense ?

[Oblomov]

O.k. O.k. I know it was in the paper.
Yes, I know it was The Star. Probably nonsense. star
But I was in a waiting room, flicking through the papers and was astonished to see this.
Is it nonsense?

But when I did a MN search, I found a comment by Tiktok - hope she doesn't mind me quoting her :
"Breastmilk does take on some flavours of the mother's diet - thought to be 'nature's Way' of getting the baby used to the foods he will have later."

Well if Tiktok says this, it must be true, becasue she knows.

Well, I never. So if I eat a banana an hour before, in Nov ds will get banana milkshake?
Can't believe it !!

[Oblomov]

I know such a 'paper', as the Star, glamorise & trivialise everything.
But I just wasn't sure if it was total rot. Or had any sort of scientic base at all.

[theSuburbanDryad]

I love the link at the bottom of that article:

More "news" here!

[williamsmummy]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, that explains the chocolate love in my house!

[DonDons]

I've read/heard this before - strong flavours such as garlic etc can affect the milk flavour. Apparently if you ate the same sorts of food when pregnant the baby will not be bothered by the different tastes.

[DontNeedAnything]

In my case though. I could not stomach Garlic when I was preg.

DD3 was very very difficult to feed in teh evening after I had garlic for tea.

Now she will demolish a plate full of garlic bread at teh expense of other foods (26m now)

[frisbyrat]

Thread here too.

[Oblomov]

oh shucks. And it is from the BBC. Proper. Shame.

[chocbutton]

saw it in the guardian as well

[VictorianSqualor]

As said on the other thread frisby has linked to the research was done by Gill Rapley, the BLW guru/researcher so I'm certainly more inclined to believe it.
It also says certain flavours are more prominent, citrus fruits for example, which we all know are strong scents/tastes (which are intrinsically linked) so I think it is very plausible.

DS1 was bf and at the time I was eating LOTS of curry (I craved it during pg but couldn't eat it toward the end because of heartburn) and he loves spicy things, hot and spicy doesn't bother him, possibly because he got used to the tastes both through the placenta and the breastmilk.

If you think about countries where children eat hot spicy foods as a matter of course compared with children in countries with blander food styles you'll see those who haven't eaten it many will not be able to, whereas in countries where it is second nature they have no problem, possibly due to the breastmilk/placental flavours passing through a kind of tolerance.

Anyway I'm waffling but I think it's a given that this is true and could possibly help with weaning.

[tiktok]

The information has been known for years and years....I don't know why this research is thought of as being 'new'.

The flavouring is subtle, but as we see in that paper, measurable.

It makes total sense - Nature has fixed it that way

[BexieID]

Hmm, I BF Tom until he was almost 22 months and he is the most fussy eater ever. The only meal he is guaranted to eat is shapherds pie! And I hate that, lol.

[wakesandquakes]

Makes a lot of sense to me. One of my friends had borchst (sp? but beetroot soup anyway) one evening and expressed pink milk the following morning. Think that sounds quite funky actually and guess that different flavours MUST be there too.

[whomovedmychocolate]

It's not just food either - apparently hormones have a massive effect on flavour too - in late pregnancy DD tells me my milk tasted like clotted cream vanilla ice cream (blimey I'd have had some myself if she'd have revealed this sooner), but now tastes 'milky sweet'.

Mind you she did pull a face the other day after a stroganoff so I reckon paprika milk isn't the best. DS doesn't care though, he'll take all and everything going without a sniff.