Many of our food preferences are results of our exposure to foods throughout our lives. The experiences that we associate with certain flavours, tastes and odours shape our memories and expectations of future food experiences. Some of the strongest of these imprints come from childhood and recent research shows that many of our food preferences are formed before we are born. In a Feb 2005 article in Pediatrics for Parents, Julie A. Mennella explores some of the issues and shows how a mother’s diet strongly affects her child’s taste preference – before birth and throughout breastfeeding.