Unlearned Appetite
An unlearned appetite is one that an animal possesses at birth, without conditioning through prior stress followed by alleviation with specific foods. An unlearned appetite suggests a physiological mechanism for detecting the absence of a nutrient as well as a signalling component that directs the animal to seek out the missing nutrient. An example of an unlearned appetite might be caloric appetite, as seen in all domestic animals. Other unlearned appetites are more difficult to demonstrate. In one study, protein-deficient rats that had not previously experienced protein deficiency demonstrated strong preferences for high-protein foods such as soybean, gluten, and ovalbumin within thirty minutes of food presentation. This preference was not seen in controls, and was also exhibited by pregnant females with higher protein needs who were not experimentally protein-deficient. Rats also seem to have an unlearned appetite for calcium and sodium. In addition, zinc-depleted chicks show preferences for zinc-rich feeds.
Read more about this topic: Specific Appetite
Famous quotes containing the words unlearned and/or appetite:
“There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands. And labor is everywhere welcome; always we are invited to work.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)