What makes sugar so good?

Answer

First, the results of a simple experiment. If one puts a drop of a sweet solution on a baby’s lips, he/she smiles. However, if one puts a bitter solution on the lips, he/she makes an ugly face. So it seems that there is an innate preference for sweet and an aversion to bitter.

The explanation given is that sweet foods are usually nutritious and bitter berries and plants are often poisonous. Children who enjoyed bitter foods tens of thousands of years ago would have died and thus have no offspring. The reverse would have happened for people who liked sweet foods. The preference for flavors is hereditary. We speak of natural selection.

It is of course true that eating bitter foods can be learned (learned behaviour) and that a newborn often has a preference for what its mother has eaten during pregnancy. In this case one speaks of the influence of environmental factors. So there are many things that influence what one likes and does not like.