There is actually quite a bit of science on the instinctive versus learned
behavior of children when it comes to eating.  Steven Pinker who is an
evolutionary psychologist describes this research in How the Mind Works.  It
has been a while since I read it but the pattern is something like this:
Children of about one to two years old will eat almost anything.
Psychologists have made edible artificial feces ( blue cheese for flavour,
brown food colouring etc.)  The babies eat it happily.  The they go through
a stage for a few years where they are picky.  They find a few foods they
like and they stick with them.  As adults we broaden our food choices but
tend to follow the food taboos of our society.

Marvin Harris, an anthropologist has written extensively about food taboos.
He argues that these are grounded in practical solutions to mundane
problems.  e.g. in societies where dogs do important work (e.g. herding
sheep) the idea of eating them is revolting.  Where they don't do important
work, (e.g. Korea) they are a delicacy.

Ken
----- Original Message ----- >
> let me clarify what is hard wired is the means of discovering if a food
is
> good or bad to eat . what is hard wired is the connection between
metabolic
> needs and sense of smell and taste that makes a food tastes good when
needed
> and bad tasting or uninteresting when not needed