Food Education

I’ve always wondered how a person’s sense of taste is developed. How is it that in my seventeen years of life, I’ve come to love so many different foods? This led me to question, how did my love of food even begin? Over Christmas break I was able to watch my four month old little sister, Madison eat her first meal of crushed up rice that came in a little Gerber’s box. In all honesty, it really didn’t look that appetizing and had to be mixed with water to make it edible. Up until then, the only food Madison knew was plain Jane breast milk that she has numerous times throughout the day. I for one really dislike having the same food over and over again and felt sorry for little Madison. When the day of her first meal came, my mom explained to me the process of letting babies try new things. She told me that you can only introduce one food per week in order to regulate what the baby is allergic to. If the baby has a sudden reaction at the start of a new food week, then it doesn’t take a scholar to know what that particular baby is probably allergic to. Madison’s response to her first meal was absolutely adorable. She couldn’t get enough! In fact she cried every time my mom took the spoon away from her mouth to refill the spoon. She just couldn’t understand why the food wasn’t coming in a constant flow like her milk does. I stood amazed watching her figured out how this eating thing worked. It made me realized that at some point in my life, I too faced this same dilemma of learning how to eat. Eating isn’t something that you are born knowing how to do. Based on Madison’s reaction to real food, I can tell that she is definitely blessed with that same adoration for food that I am.