The “kids don’t like broccoli” has a scientific reason. Kids have a lot more receptors for aromas tasting bitter (10 to 15k different chemical compounds taste bitter to them) which reduce to 5k or less when growing up. So some types of food that adults can eat without problems because they lack the receptors have bitter and vile flavours for kids.
Plant breeders have also been busy reducing bitterness/tannins in various vegetables like brussel sprouts and canola oil, so things are in fact less bitter than 30 years ago.
Doesn’t help a lot of people used to just boil broccoli without seasoning. Doesn’t do the flavor any favors.
I always assumed this is also why adults love disgusting cheese (I do to a degree as well nowadays). We just lost our sense of taste and call it refined taste.
The “losing taste” is actually a beneficial thing. Most things that kids don’t like are either risky (e.g. coffee) or difficult to digest (all kinds of cabbage), so it is good that kids don’t like them. For adults being able to expand acceess to available foods helps feeding the horde in difficult times.
This one, for example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654709/
Or this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22197939/
Originally, I had read a cluster of those articles some years ago, but scientific articles like to hide behind paywalls nowadays.
And at old age, it ends like this: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/05/526750174/why-taste-buds-dull-as-we-age
