Your Mom Told You to Try New Foods, Here’s Why

Even though she may not have realized it at the time.

A new study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that eating a variety of foods directly contributes to good health. 

According to the researchers, food neophobia also increases the risks of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

The study, co-directed by researchers from the University of Helsinki's Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare and the University of Tartu in Estonia, focused on the relatively recent concept of "food neophobia" (that is, a reticence to try and develop a taste for new foods).  

Over the course of seven years, the study monitored over 40,000 subjects aged 25 to 74 from Estonian and Finnish cohorts' behaviors relating to food neophobia and its impact on the quality of the participants' diets and attendant lifestyle-related diseases. 

The study has revealed that food neophobia is often linked to insufficient fiber, protein and intake, mono-unsaturated fatty acids, as well as an increase in saturated fat and sodium intakes and increased blood levels of inflammatory markers.

Once again, mom was right.