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Can babies learn to love vegetables?
CAPTION: On any given day, American children are more likely to eat dessert than plants. Makers of baby food face a conundrum: If it sells, it’s probably not best for babies. If it’s best for babies, it probably won’t sell. IMAGE CREDIT: Photo illustration by Horacio Salinas for The New Yorker
In a laboratory in Denver, on a decommissioned U.S. Army base, a baby sits in a high chair with two electrodes attached to his chest. To his left, on a small table, a muffin tin holds four numbered cups, each filled with a green substance. On the walls and the ceiling, four cameras and an omnidirectional microphone record the baby’s every burble and squawk, then transmit them to a secure server in an adjacent room. What looks like a window with blinds, across the room from the baby, is in fact a two-way mirror with a researcher behind it, scribbling notes. The baby’s mother takes a spoonful of the first sample and lifts it to the baby’s mouth, and the experiment begins.
Building 500, as this facility was formerly known, has the looming hulk of an Egyptian temple: it was once the largest man-made structure in Colorado. When it opened, in 1941, four days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, threats to American safety were much on the government’s mind. (After the war, President Eisenhower spent seven weeks on the eighth floor, recuperating from a heart attack.) The Good Tastes Study, as the baby experiment is called, is in a similar spirit. The two electrodes on the baby’s chest will monitor his heart rate and how it fluctuates with his breathing. A third electrode, on the sole of the baby’s foot, will measure his “galvanic skin response,” or how much he’s sweating. Together, they’ll indicate whether the green substance is triggering a fight-or-flight response. Does the baby sense danger?
The enemy in question is kale. The four cups are all filled with raw kale leaves whipped into a smooth purée, or slurry, as food researchers call it. One sample is plain, another sweet, another sweeter still, and the last one salted. Sugar and salt can mask the bitterness in kale, but this baby isn’t fooled. No matter which...