Breastfeeding mothers, take note! If you don’t want to battle over veggies when your sweet baby is a willful toddler, you might just want to grab those greens now—and eat them yourself!

New research out of the University of Copenhagen reinforces the belief that a breastfeeding mother’s diet affects the flavor of her milk. Previous studies by Julie Mennella, Leann Birch and others have noted this. However, while earlier studies relied on sensory analyses of milk odors (by smell and taste) and behavioral observations (infants’ response), the researchers here relied on chemical analysis.

What they did
Helene Hausner and colleagues recruited 18 breastfeeding mothers for their study. On each of three study days, the mothers ingested capsules containing the flavor compounds that give caraway seed, menthol, banana, and licorice their flavor. They provided milk samples before ingesting the capsules and again at 2 hours after, 4 hours after, 6 hours after and 8 hours after. Rather than relying on smell and taste to assess the presence of the flavor compounds in the mothers’ milk, the researchers used scientific tools (a dynamic headspace method and gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy) to quantify the amounts.

What they found
The study came to some surprising conclusions:

• Different flavors appear in the milk at different times. Concentrations of the caraway and licorice compounds peaked 2 hours after they were consumed, while the menthol compound was present for between 2 and 8 hours. Mother’s milk changes flavor constantly.

• The flavors transferred to milk differently for different women. Differences in metabolism, fat content of the diet, and other factors may influence the transfer of flavors into milk.

• All of the flavors were gone within eight hours. It seems safe to conclude that the vast majority of flavors will dissipate from milk in this time frame. (So if there is a flavor that seems to have upset your child’s tummy, not to worry.)

What it means
The take-home message here is that mothers can expose their children to a wide variety of flavors through breastfeeding! This seems like a good opportunity to help children develop an acceptance for a wide variety of flavors—or, rather, foods (since most of us don’t actually consume flavors in capsule form, do we?).

I don’t know about you, but I hope it works! Pass the veggies, will you?