Food has been a big part of my life. As it should be; all life needs nutrients, and many living things receive that required nutrients in the form of food.
My experience with one of the fundamental elements of life has been harder on myself and the people around me than most people on Earth; I’m picky. Granted, in the past few years I’ve met more of my fellow picky eaters, but I don’t think many of them have put their families through as much trouble as I put mine.
As I said, food as been a big part of my life. My life story. I’d love to tell you my whole life story (it’s pretty interesting), but I’m going to focus on just the food parts for this post.
When I was a baby, a toddler, and up until I was around 5-years-old I would eat just about anything my parents would feed me. Baby food, avocado, banana, kiwi fruit, milk, eggs, and many other fruit and vegetables. When I figured out that I could control what I put in my mouth I then decided that I would like much less foods.
It wasn’t always because of taste, but because of texture. All humans like different textures of clothing against their skin, and this carries over to textures of food that we put in our mouths.
One of the textures I disliked most was pasta. Only certain types of pasta though. I’ve always like regular spaghetti noodles (with some type of flavouring added to them; taste), but shell pasta, tube pasta, and many other hollow pastas have always creeped me out.
The same goes for many other mushy types of food. I decided that mash potatoes (I love roast, sliced, and fried potatoes), bananas, squash, avocado, watermelon, grapes, etc. are not for me.
I’ve been told by one of my uncles that if I was his son he wouldn’t have put up with me not liking things. I must say that my parents didn’t always put up with it. Some nights I wouldn’t get to eat dinner at all if I didn’t like what was put on my plate.
And, no, my parents are not horrible people; I had one of the best upbringings anyone could ask for. I learned much about the world from both my parents and they raised me to be the giddy person I am today.
Some days at school I would go hungry if I forgot to bring my lunch from home because I didn’t like anything (besides lollies/carob) in the canteen. (Remember, folks, I’m still discussing primary/elementary school.) My friends didn’t usually have anything tasty either; sliced or shredded ham/chicken/beef on white bread wasn’t my idea of a tasty meal.
Yes, I would eat most junk foods, but only about once or twice a day. I knew some kids that would have packets of chips (containing MSG) for recess and lunch. Not to mention the sugary drinks that rotted their newly received ‘adult teeth’.
In around grade six — I was attending a Rudolf Steiner School (referred by some of the students and parents as a ‘hippy school’) — my Mom obtained a book about all the ingredients in many foods. Particularly, what the numbers mean on the back of food packaging. My sister and I hated that book. Most of the food items in our house that contained MSG were removed. Many other items were given limited access. That’s mostly the junk food though. Let’s get back to my experiences with real foods.
My Mom would make this chicken that became known as “my favourite chicken”. It was a free range chicken breast covered in seasoned bread crumbs and cooked on the stove until the bread crumbs were a colour between dark brown and black. However, the chicken was never burnt. It was so tasty, and to this day I haven’t been able to replicate it.
After a few years of me being picky, Mom would make a meal for the family (herself, my Dad, and my Sister) and make me a separate chicken and white rice dish. I probably had chicken and rice four or five days our of the week. This was probably not the most nutritional meal to eat over and over, but it made my taste buds extremely happy and it was fairly easy for Mom to put together (she normally cooked a huge batch of it and would heat up leftovers every night).
In my high school years my culinary tastes grew far and wide. I tried (and liked) Mongolian beef/pork, supreme pizza (beef, sausage, capsicum, onion, pepperoni), lettuce (on burgers), mayonnaise (on burgers), tomato (on burgers), and many more foods that I probably take for granted that I like these days.
During these high school years my Mom started her own business (an acting school — now known as Actors Creative). This meant that she had less time to do household things like cook, clean, and keep my sister and I under control. My Dad took over some of those roles on his days off work (he’s a freelance television producer/director), but my sister and I also had to learn to cover some of these ‘chores’.
After a few years I began to serve as the main cook in the house because I was the most picky eater and if I could cook a meal that I liked, then chances are the rest of the family would like it too. I would (and still do) cook delicious stir fry dishes, Thai dishes, and many other dishes that mostly revolve around chicken. I often experiment with my dishes, so you never know what you’re going to get. 
One of the biggest issues with being so picky is when I’d sleep over at a friends house or even just visit for the day. I would always worry about what I was going to eat, and I feel really bad when my friend’s Mom or Dad would havechoose to cook something that I’d like. I’ve spent a lot of my life answering questions like ‘Do you like [type of food]?’.
Sometimes if a person or family didn’t know I was a picky eater I would just go along with what they were making and I’d pick out the things I didn’t like. It’s an embarrassing situation to be in, but in almost all cases I’d rather be embarrassed than eat a snow pea, a pile of corn, or sliced carrot.
Now that I live out of home I continue to cook my own meals, but I still deal with being picky almost daily because sometimes I’ll visit a restaurant, or I’ll visit family/friends for a given length of time. If possible, I offer to cook for them, but sometimes that isn’t an option.
One such amazing example of food that I’ve tried in recent years is different types of pasta. When I was staying with my Cousin’s family in Vancouver, Canada, his wife made some chicken tortellini pasta. The pasta was green (which I found a little weird, but I’d seen all different colours of pasta before, so I wasn’t worried), but so darn delicious. I discovered a new-found love for pasta. Gosh, I want some right now — I’m drooling.
Here’s proof that I also tried linguini pasta while I was in Victoria, Canada:
As you can see, I try to document any times that I try new foods (and drinks). One of my coworkers at Sugar Fix (I worked there 2005-2008), Katie, would encourage me to try new things, so now every time I try a new food I think of her. Hah.
Other very recent experience I had with food was when I went out to dinner to a restaurant which serves up international cuisine, named Puerto Adventura. We read some great reviews on the restaurant and noticed that the owner was also the chef and was incredibly kind.
To make a long story short, I asked the nice owner lady if I could remove the zucchinis, carrots, and broccoli because I didn’t want them to go to waste. She told me that she doesn’t do that because all the ingredients are meant to go together, and I completely respect her decision. I tried my best to finish everything; I even cut the sliced carrots in to tiny pieces and mixed it in to the garlic rice. I felt bad that I left the majority of the vegetables on my plate, but I’ve had to deal with that for most of my life, so I’m pretty used to that ‘bad’ feeling.
The point of this post is to inform my current and future friends/family to encourage me to try new things, but never force me to. And never buy me any food or drink without first consulting me. If you’re planning on purchasing me ingredients for my cooking adventures, then please respect my wishes to have those ingredients supplied by organic growers (and in the case of chicken/eggs: free range, organic, hormone-free).
My switch to mostly organic occurred when I watched the documentary “Food, Inc”. Read my review and thoughts on organic foods.
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