Taste

A question that has been on my mind for a long time is why such few children seem to like vegetables but like almost every sweet thing. It turns out that there is a scientific reason for this.

In nature when things are not very good for us to ingest they typically like to let us know. By this I mean with there taste. Think about it, if you are a poisonous plant it does not do you much good to be eaten and killed and also kill what ever ate you. You would much rather have the animal take a bite, taste your poison and spit you out. Not only do you get to live, but that animal probably won’t try to eat you or anything that look like you. But this only works if the animal that is eating you can taste and can recognize that you are not a good thing to be eating. Poisons do, or at least did, taste like the things that small children do not like. Unfortunatly for us, some plants that are not bas for us, but actually good for us are also not very attractive to children (like broccoli or some other green vegetables).

The reason that children are drawn to sweet tasting things like candies is because fruits were (and still are) a great way to get many of the different vitamins that your body needs. Because of this you have evolved to crave the taste of sweet things so that your body can get the nutrition it need (today however, this love of sweet things does more bad than good). But now you may be asking your self “if being sweet causes the organism to be eaten, why would anything want to be sweet?” The reason is because they want to be eaten. You heard right, they want to be eaten. Let us say that a long time ago one of your ancestors eats a strawberry. They eat many more because they are just so good then they go back to there cave and go to sleep. The next morning, as so many of us do, your ancestor drops a duce behind a tree and goes about his day. Inside of his droppings are the reminisce of the strawberries, including there seeds. Now the seed have a new place to grow, a nice pile of fertilizer and not have to compete with their parents for resources (since the guy probably did poop right under the strawberry bush).

As you should now be able to see, disliking the things we do and liking the things we do is an evolutionary advantage. It not only helps us, but also the species of plants that eat and do not eat. (458 words)