There is no singular zombie lore. The brain eating entered pop culture with “Return Of The Living Dead”. That movie and the associated Living Dead series exists as a result of an IP fight between John Russo and George Romero. It is not canon with the George Romero zombie movies (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead, and the lesser following low budget movies).
In Romero’s movies the zombies do not go after brains, they don’t say “brains”. Their hunger for human flesh is discussed by characters but nobody really knows for sure why zombies attack or eat people.
In many other zombie series, there are often theorized reasons for their behavior, but rarely a solid answer, and very few series have zombies that explicitly want brains to eat.
There is no singular zombie lore. The brain eating entered pop culture with “Return Of The Living Dead”. That movie and the associated Living Dead series exists as a result of an IP fight between John Russo and George Romero. It is not canon with the George Romero zombie movies (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead, and the lesser following low budget movies).
In Romero’s movies the zombies do not go after brains, they don’t say “brains”. Their hunger for human flesh is discussed by characters but nobody really knows for sure why zombies attack or eat people.
In many other zombie series, there are often theorized reasons for their behavior, but rarely a solid answer, and very few series have zombies that explicitly want brains to eat.