Mothers can pass on a love for new foods to their babies via their breast milk, research has suggested.

By eating particular foods up to an hour before feeding time, a mother can create the equivalent of a milk shake and help the baby to become used to new flavours, according to the University of Copenhagen study.

Researchers found that women could make their milk taste of bananas, menthol, caraway seed and liquorice.Concentrations of caraway and liquorice peaked after two hours, while banana was found in breast milk only for the first hour after it had been eaten. Menthol remained in the milk for up to eight hours.

Helene Hausner, who led the research, told New Scientist magazine: “It's not like if the mother eats apple pie the baby thinks, ‘Mmm, apple pie', but it may make them more accepting of the flavour of other foods.”

A Birmingham University study found that babies raised on beige foods such as rusks and baby food from a jar develop a taste for other beige foods, such as chips.

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