When I was a kid, I did not like spicy food. Now an adult, I love it.
In: 2025
Yes. A lot of plant poisons are alkaloids, which taste bitter. So kids will generally avoid bitter foods, probably as a survival adaptation. It isn’t until you’re older that you learn to appreciate those tastes, and have the knowledge of which things are safe to eat.
Our sense of taste gets duller over time so foods with strong sour, bitter, or spicy tastes become more appealing.
I never developed the spicy taste, but I’ve been a big sour and bitter fan since I was a kid.
What I want to know is why one day when I was a teenager bananas went from delicious to disgusting.
Thank you for posting this. Based on comments/replies I see hope for my 8 year old who is extremely picky and eats only bland food. He finds everything spicy even if it is not. What’s mild for us (but flavorful) is spicy for him and we were honestly thinking that he’s gonna have a hard time when he grows up.
Not really, we just lose them over time. We are born with ~50,000 of them, and end up with ~10,000 in maturity.
This is per [A Natural History of the Senses](https://www.dianeackerman.com/a-natural-history-of-the-senses) by Diane Ackerman
Kids taste bitter much more because most plant toxins taste bitter. In kids, they would do more damage, and the person affected would have to live longer with any lasting damage.
Hot food appears to inhibit inflammations. Many people, predominantly adults, are suffering from painful inflammations. It also probably takes people some time to realize what’s going on.
What I’m not seeing in the comments so far is that most of our “sense of taste” is actually our sense of smell. My partner had a college that had lost their sense of smell as a teenager because of some accident. Food was really boring to them unless it had an unusual texture. Also, when my partner had covid and lost their sense of smell for a month their pallet changed and they started to desired salty and spicy foods as that was all that they could “taste.”
Yes, kids are super tasters, so everything for them is more intense, both the bad and the good. So, if food is bitter, sour, or spicy, that can overpower another underlying flavor that may be enjoyable. When you get older, you end up being able to taste more of those enjoyable flavors and are not just blasted with the stronger flavors like bitter, spicy, and sour.
At the same time, your brain also just becomes accustomed to things, so you don’t notice them or care anymore.
I mean as a child I pretty much refused to eat any meat based product, now as an adult I eat ass so I’m thinking the answer to your question is YES.
I’m not sure if it’s a taste buds changing or in my case just being more open minded and trying stuff or maybe a combo of both. As a kid I dismissed a lot of food I love now simply on looks. Hated Chinese, Indian food, Mexican food unless it’s a plain taco, and vegetables. Got older and was open to trying things sometimes for the first time and now I like broccoli. Who knew.
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