We all heard it from our parents as children. “Finish your vegetables or you can’t get any dessert!” Turns out, for some children it may be genetic as to why they don’t want to finish those broccoli florets. Some people, as recent scientific research shows, are genetically afraid of plants.
Using a controlled study of 47 babies between ages 8 and 18 months, scientists placed in front of the children live basil plants along with arts and crafts made fake plants. The results were staggering, “It took an average of 4.4 seconds for the babies to reach out and touch the arts-and-crafts-project/faux plants, but more than twice as long, 9.9 seconds on average, to work up the courage to touch the real plants or even the models that looked like real plants. The kids were WAY warier of touching the real plants or the realistic models, than the clearly fake ones.”
At first it seems silly, perhaps almost coincidental. After all, it is always difficult to draw wide reaching conclusions from a small example. But remember, plants can be very dangerous. Some are poisonous, some have pointed needles…would it be so crazy that even from a young age people could become genetically afraid of plants? So this Christmas, when you’re at the dinner table with the family, feel free to fill up the plate with that extra slice of Christmas Ham. And if anyone asks where’s the vegetables on your plate…blame your genetics!
As a child, I also hated vegetables. Although I was not necessarily afraid of plants, I did refuse to eat vegetables because they reminded me of things that were growing in my backyard. In my childish mind vegetables looked like plants, and plants were in the dirt, therefore vegetables were also dirty. Come on, what 4 year old kid doesn’t think broccoli looks like a miniature version of a tree? To avoid hassling children to eat their vegetables, here’s some vegetable recipes that kids are known to enjoy: http://www.cookinglight.com/food/everyday-menus/vegetable-recipes-for-kids-00412000069594/.
I actually just recently read an article about how a lot of humans tend not to prefer vegetables over other food groups because, as we evolved, we became accustomed to eating larger amounts of meats and sweeter foods. I don’t know how much truth there is to this but I thought the connection between evolution and nutrition was pretty interesting. If you want to read the article, it can be found here:
http://www.quora.com/Food/From-an-evolutionary-perspective-why-dont-we-like-the-taste-of-vegetables-more
From personal experience, I like vegetables because my parents made my siblings and I eat them from a very young age so I believe we became conditioned into liking them. It seems like the increased exposure got us used to the taste.
I hate vegetables and as a kid I always refused to eat them and when I was forced to I always felt like I was gonna puke. I was never afraid of a plant though hahaha. In regards to children and getting there vegetables there is always an answer like giving them cheese covered cauliflower instead of carrots or something like that. I know there are some vegetables that are poisonous like mushrooms because my mom never let me pick those in a field when I found them. CHeck out this website about the toxins in mushrooms! http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/167398-overview
Depending on how you prepare a fruit or vegetable, it could actually be poisonous. As a bratty child, I used to hate apples, so when my mom would make me eat them I would pretend I would eat the seeds and get sick because I knew if you ate enough of them you would get sick. My mom finally stopped forcing apples down my throat and now that I’m older, I love apple. Click the following link to learn about other poisonous fruits and vegetables! http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-10-poisonous-fruits-and-vegetables