How we can learn to love the foods that we hate

Food preferences are known to change over time, but what is it that makes you suddenly love something that you wouldn’t touch as a child? Genetics may play a small part, but in a new report io9 investigates (with the help of food psychologist Elizabeth Phillips) how tolerance for a lot of the food that we eat is mostly learned. Looking at how it’s possible that our taste preferences are shaped before we even leave the womb — when a mother’s amniotic fluid can be flavored by the foods that she eats during pregnancy — the report explains how you can train your body to like foods you previously didn’t, and why you’ll probably never eat a certain dish again if it has made you sick in the past.