ELLA: We all have foods
that we love...
Cheers.
..and foods that
we're not so keen on.
BOTH: We hate brussels sprouts.
I really do not like strawberries,
at all.
I love strawberries.
How?!
For me personally,
I don't really like anything
that jiggles or wobbles,
like jelly or yoghurt.
Eugh!
Does anyone want this?
But sometimes our taste can lead us
to eat too much of the foods
that we shouldn't eat
and not enough of the foods
that we should.
Studies show only 6% of kids
are eating enough vegetables.
Eugh.
So, kids in primary school
should be eating
four and a half to five serves
of vegetables a day.
This is Astrid.
She works for the CSIRO,
and she says there's actually
a good scientific explanation
for the fact that
we tend to prefer these...
..to these.
As part of the evolution,
we were born with a liking for...
for sweet tastes,
and a bit of a disliking
for bitter tastes,
so we needed sweet tastes
in order to...
..to get the calories
from...from the food.
The trouble is, these days
we are eating way more calories
than we actually need,
and that's leading to some
serious health problems.
If we eat lots of sweet foods
that don't have any other
good nutrients in them,
we don't really give our body
what we...what we need to grow.
So, therefore, it's really important
to eat a lot of
different variety of foods
that our bodies need to...
to grow up healthy.
But is it possible
to learn to like foods
we don't usually like to eat?
Hmm.
Well, Astrid says it is,
especially when we're young.
In fact, our taste preferences
have a lot to do with
what we eat when we're growing up.
It's why
if you look around the world,
you can see preferences
for different kinds of food,
and some things that might be
delicious to some people
seem a bit gross to others,
whether it's century eggs
or vegemite.
But if you're adventurous,
you can learn to like
all sorts of things.
It's just by trying them.
So, every time we taste the food,
we get a bit more familiar
with how it tastes
and how it feels in our mouth,
and that's eventually how
we come to like it.
The CSIRO has started a program
called Food Adventurers,
which helps primary school kids
to retrain their tastebuds
towards healthy foods.
Well, it's really about
exploring vegetables,
exploring the different colours,
the tastes and the textures,
and having a bit of fun around them.
She says there's a lot to be gained
by trying new flavours.
There's lots of different foods
and plants available to us,
and lots of different cultures
as well,
so we can get lots of
different kinds of cuisines
and dishes that
we can learn to like.
So next time you're feeling hungry,
why not be a little adventurous?
