Can You Really ‘Train’ Your Taste Buds to Crave Healthier Foods?

Raw spinach is chock-full of nutrients, but it’s never been a popular choice for breakfast—until now.

A new TikTok trend has people eating a large handful of raw spinach first thing in the morning (usually grimacing at the bitter taste as they do so), claiming that it “trains” the taste buds and the gut to avoid craving sugar and snacks throughout the day.

While it’s unclear who first started the fad, it’s definitely gaining traction. A video from motherhood and lifestyle influencer Jordynn Nicholson, for example, has been favorited over half a million times.

In the clip, Nicholson sits at her breakfast table, balls up a colander’s worth of raw spinach, and eats it behind a caption that says, “the first thing your taste buds taste and you digest” sets the tone for your daily diet. Commenters have responded in various ways, with some professing that the practice also works for them and others saying it’s bogus.

Spinach is, of course, a healthy food, but does it really have the power to change the dietary trajectory of your entire day? In fact, does any food? We asked experts.

Many of us probably think of our muscles, lungs, and brains as trainable—but taste buds usually aren’t among the body parts we try to get into shape. 

However, according to Amanda Sauceda, MS, RD, a nutrition lecturer at California State University, Long Beach and creator of The Mindful Gut, this concept has some substance. “Training our taste buds is actually a thing,” she told Health. “One of the more popular ways where people train their taste buds is when they are looking to lower their sodium intake.” 

Taste buds can get accustomed to strong flavors, such as salt, so tapering down over time can acclimate you to eating less sodium, Sauceda explained. You might similarly get used to a strong flavor like spinach, making you more likely to enjoy it.

As for spinach being the key to training your tongue toward fewer sweet cravings, though, that’s less well-established.

“This claim seems to be based on a substance found in the membrane of some leafy green plants, called thylakoids,” Kim Kulp, RDN, gut health expert and owner of the Gut Health Connection in the San Francisco Bay Area, told Health. “Small studies have shown that thylakoid extract from spinach might affect hunger hormones and reduce your appetite for a short time.”

That’s what a 2019 review of eight of these papers concluded, but the researchers also noted that “more studies are needed” to further explore the connection.

Regardless, Kulp stressed that “there are many other factors involved in taste preferences and food choices, including genetics, health status, and the microbes living in the mouth and gut.”

The second part of Tiktokers’ spinach-for-breakfast claim involves training the gut toward healthier cravings. Intriguingly, Kulp said this concept also has some scientific merit.

“Diet is one of the most important ways to change the gut microbiome, and it’s thought that gut microbes may affect eating behavior by communicating through the gut-brain axis,” she said. “Some of the same taste receptors we have in our mouths are also found in the gut and can be influenced by the different microbes that live there.”

Recent research, such as a 2021 study, has suggested that some gut microbes could quite literally develop taste preferences.

Though there’s a lack of studies on spinach specifically, Sauceda said a healthy food like leafy greens could influence dietary choices via this gut mechanism. “Your gut is always working in response to your environment and diet, so I wouldn’t be surprised when we start to see more research looking at the gut microbiome and food cravings,” she said.

Still, as with taste buds, she emphasized that the gut isn’t the sole mastermind behind food cravings. “There are so many factors that come into play about why we choose the food on our plate,” she said.

In the end, spinach’s impact on dietary change may be less about training your digestive tract and more about simple habit formation. “I wouldn’t say handfuls of spinach to start your day is the key to success,” Sauceda said. “I think the idea is that if you’re eating spinach, you’re being intentional about how you’re going to eat for the rest of the day. It’s the intention, not the spinach, that really matters the most.”

Whether you choose spinach or another vegetable, adding something fresh and colorful to your breakfast is generally a good idea. Only about 10% of Americans consume the recommended amounts of vegetables, and starting at breakfast can help you meet your daily targets. 

“Any time you can increase the types of plant foods in your meals, you’ll be eating more fiber, nutrients, and fuel for your good gut microbes,” said Kulp. 

She advised keeping things varied at breakfast time, including meals that feature not just vegetables but fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Breakfast burritos, yogurt parfaits, smoothies, and egg dishes are all opportunities to work in these food groups. As you do so, you might even train your taste buds, gut, and brain to crave them.

And even if you can’t stomach spinach first thing, Sauceda said, eating some breakfast is better than consuming nothing. “Having something to start your day will set you up for better success than skipping breakfast and then becoming ravenous later in the day,” she said.