Scientists have discovered that a nursing mother’s breast milk can be flavored by the foods she eats.

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark asked 18 lactating mothers to provide a sample of breast milk before and after eating flavored capsules. The capsules contained compounds that give caraway seed, menthol, banana and licorice their flavor. The milk was analyzed by high-tech machinery: a dynamic headspace analysis and a gas chromatography mass spectrometry.

The findings suggest that flavored breast milk may be beneficial to babies — preparing them to try new foods as they grow up.

Lead researcher of this study, Helen Hausner, told New Scientist magazine: "It’s not like if the mother eats apple pie the baby thinks ‘mmmm, apple pie,’ but it may make them more accepting of the flavor of other foods."

In the study, all four flavors tested disappeared from the women’s breast milk eight hours after they ate the capsules. Different flavors took varying amounts of time to appear in breast milk: two hours for caraway; two to eight for menthol; one hour for banana and two hours for licorice.