If your kids don’t like their vegetables, maybe it’s because they never learned to. That’s how Alan Greene, M.D., sees it anyway. “Taste preferences are not an accident,” explains the Stanford University professor and author – most recently of Feeding Baby Green (out this month from Jossey-Bass). Instead, preferences are “imprinted” through exposures at crucial times.

Just like baby geese are programmed to follow the first moving objects they see (generally the mother goose), babies are programmed to like the first foods they are offered. And Greene says babies learn the majority of food preferences before age 2 ½. Unfortunately, most of the food we currently offer babies during that window is highly processed, bland stuff that comes in jars. So that’s what they imprint on, rather than the fresh fruits and vegetables they should be eating.

“After 12 months of jarred peaches, give a 13-month-old a fresh peach and he’ll spit it out forcefully,” says Greene. Learn how you can change your baby’s food preferences before he’s born …