When I was a child I was a picky eater. I couldn't stomach different foods mixed together (unless one of them was tomato ketchup), carrots made me gag and greens were a complete no-no. I wouldn't eat melon, or cucumber, or celery. I couldn't even eat sandwiches made by other kids' mums, as a different brand of margarine just made the whole thing taste a bit wrong.
Picking eating is incredibly common, but also very poorly understood. Now health experts at Duke University and the University of Pittsburgh have launched the first ever public registry of finicky eating in order to better understand this behaviour and possibly, in extreme cases, classify it as an eating disorder.
Plenty of children refuse to eat their greens, with previously biddable babies suddenly turning fussy on reaching toddlerhood. There are whole books devoted to disguising vegetables in kiddy meals, whether it be by sneaking mashed greens into the spaghetti sauce or making cakes from courgettes. There's scientific evidence to explain a youthful aversion to bitter green stuff though, and researchers at Philadelphia's Monell Senses Center suggest that a dislike of bitter tastes may have evolutionary benefits by helping children to avoid poisonous plants.
Like most people I have grown out of my youthful pernickety ways and I now eat pretty much anything put in front of me, from century eggs to kimchi to calves' brains on toast. A tasting menu is my idea of heaven, as it circumvents that terrible moment of indecision where I find I could happily eat anything and everything on the menu.
But finicky food habits stick with some people right into adulthood, even those famously greedy gourmands known as food bloggers. Bridget of The Way The Cookie Crumbles can't stomach fruit with meat. Blogging veteran Deb of the Smitten Kitchen took a while to get over her aversion to fish sauce. And as if being vegan isn't tough enough, this food blogger also hates onions.
Posters on this online support forum for adults with faddy food habits claim that texture is more of a problem than flavour. Anything lumpy, slimy or unctuous is enough to send them running for a piece of toast (hold the butter).
Some other picky so-and-so's claim they're supertasters, an elite breed with more taste buds than average. Apparently this makes flavours stronger and makes bitter tastes like coffee, cabbage and grapefruit very unpleasant indeed. (To find out if you're a supertaster, try this test).
Are you a picky eater? What are your foibles?
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