This odour lingers: Bacon odour makes baby mice fat
4.12.2025
Translation: machine translated
Mouse mums beware: Bacon odour makes your babies fat - it affects their brain even before birth. The Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research has investigated this and what it might have to do with humans.
Imagine you are a pregnant mouse. You only want the best for your child, go to the doctor regularly, exercise, eat quinoa and even give up bacon. Only sometimes you sniff longingly because it smells so nice like bacon. Oh, that smell ... it really triggers something in you. In the truest sense of the word. Because a few weeks later comes the shock: although you yourself are slim and slender, your offspring is developing rather chubby. You and your partner react in horror.
You wonder what went wrong, but it's not your fault. You've eaten the right food, but you didn't take the scent into account. And the people in the white coats weren't doctors. They were researchers from the Max Planck Institute, who have just discovered that the smell of fatty foods alone during pregnancy increases the risk of overweight and obesity in your offspring. That's why your child develops into a little bundle of joy. All it has to do is think about bacon and it will materialise next to its hip socket.
To find out, the humans manipulated your food and added flavourings. That's why your healthy, low-fat food gave off greasy odours. You get rid of them after a coat wash, your metabolism doesn't change. But your ball child will struggle with the consequences for the rest of its life. It will react more strongly to a high-fat diet, be more prone to insulin resistance and perhaps develop diabetes. As unfair as it is, your offspring can have as much respect for the rest of the fat as they want and still get fat faster than you do.
The brains of the offspring resembled those of overweight mice, simply because their mothers had eaten healthy food that smelled of fatty food.
Human, what's the point?
Off with the mouse. Now imagine you're a person of science and you want to make a scent mark. You consider that it could be very similar for people. The headline «Bacon odour makes babies fat» would be a hit with the press, but it's not serious. You explicitly point out that this connection has not yet been proven in humans and that, according to the current state of science, food must be eaten to gain weight. But you add another facet to the state of research. This is what the researchers at the Max Planck Institute have done.
«Our discovery changes our view of how a mother's diet can influence the health of her children», says study leader Sophie Steculorum in the press release. And she also takes a critical look at food additives. «We think it is important to continue research to understand how the consumption of these substances during pregnancy or breastfeeding could affect the development and metabolic health of babies later in life.» What permanently changes the brains of baby mice should perhaps not be consumed in large quantities by humans either.
Inspector Speck
Now imagine you're an editor at Galaxus. Your boss chews cat food like in the advert, bites into bad-fish because the Community wanted to see it, and opens any can, no matter how greasy. Always on duty to provide you with guidance and entertainment.
You sense the opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of artificial flavours. And you have no doubt that you'll find what you're looking for in the range's cabinet of curiosities.
You speculate on strange foods and stumble across an air freshener that smells of bacon. You discover frozen yoghurt for dogs that tastes like bacon and is advertised as a healthy, low-calorie treat with bacon pie flavouring. You briefly regret not taking part in the Secret Santa and therefore not drawing Simon Balissat.
Dog food
Quantity discount
CHF13.20 per piece for 4 units CHF120.–/1kg
YowUp! yogourt glacé BACON CAKE, 110g
Adult, 12 pcs., 110 g
You no longer find anything absurd. Especially not the idea that the topic should be researched in more detail. Food that doesn't contain what it smells like - only humans would think of something like that. It makes the dog in the pan go crazy and the mouse in the womb fat.
Header image: Google Gemini
Michael Restin
Senior Editor
Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.chSimple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.
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