Why Onions Make Us Cry...and Other Food Mysteries Solved

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Why do our food tastes change over time?

Throughout the course of our lives, we go through many different food phases, and our tastes evolve as we age. As a baby, you might have hated tomatoes and broccoli, but now you eat them all the time. Or maybe you used to love sweets and now you're much more into savory foods.

Changing tastes in food is completely normal over time, given that age affects how our brains make sense of various physical, neurochemical and memory-based signals whenever we eat something. Plus, our taste buds naturally die off and regenerate every few weeks, but that process slows down once we reach middle age and can eventually stop all together.  That said, evolving taste preferences have to do with a number of factors not necessarily directly related to taste buds but rather to individual experiences with certain foods, associated memories, sense of smell or simply, changed perceptions with time.