It is funny how many times peanut butter is brought up and how much of a "red light" food it is for so many people.
Personally, as a child I HATED peanut butter. I couldn't stand the smell of it and wouldn't go near it. Now, I was a PICKY eater so there were a lot of foods I wouldn't eat. I am NOT picky anymore and will eat just about anything. However, I still tell myself that I HATE peanut butter because I am afraid if I tried it, I would be hooked! I love peanut butter cups so I imagine peanut butter would be a slippery slope....
What foods did you all hate as a child and now love? For me, fish, most vegetables, and many fruits come to mind. I was a no green kinda gal but my parents buying canned vegetables and then cooking them to death probably had something to do with it. I hated artichokes but love them now (only when cooked in something though). My parents were "old school". They set a timer for me to eat and if my plate wasn't clean I was spanked. No wonder I developed food issues-- that and my mother telling me I was fat-- but I won't get into that now!
I still won't eat oatmeal or applesauce-- I think it is a consistency thing.
What foods did you all hate as a child and now love?
Eggs and cheese. I would only eat scrambled eggs, well done and they really had to have diced ham in them to make them edible. Now I'll eat any type of egg, the runnier the better. As for cheese, the only palatable type back then was Velveeta. Now I can't seem to get enough of real cheese.
Methinks that I was a bit healthier back as a child!
And, although my mom never said I was fat, she DID say "you'd have to be skinny to wear that" if we were out shopping. I don't know if she meant it like that or if she was just trying to say she wouldn't buy it for me because she didn't like it. Who knows. When I asked her about it years later she claimed she never said things like that.
I hated so many foods as a child... broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, brussell sprouts, oatmeal, pecans, asparagus, raisins, lettuce, cucumbers, pretty much any vegetable that wasn't a bean or turnip greens, eggs, cheese, onions, so many more... And I hated plain milk.
My mom was always small, and I remember when I became too big to wear her clothes... that was painful. She never called me fat, but she did a lot of the 'that is made for skinny people' comments similar to Allison's mom. Now as an adult she tells me that standing next to me makes her feel fat.
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 04-19-2011 at 03:11 PM.
I hated spaghetti sauce. On the nights when we had spaghetti, my mother would portion out plain noodles, melt a pat of butter in them, and then sprinkle the top with cheese. That was what I ate while everyone else slopped the sauce & meatballs around. I can still vaguely remember why I didn't like the red sauce: To me, it had an acidic, metallic taste that was unpleasant. I don't know when exactly my taste changed, maybe when I was in my teens -- but some days, I wish it never had.
I didn't really like peanut butter, unlike most of you. My decadent palate decided that peanut butter wasn't sweet enough; I only craved it when it was in a mixing bowl with lots of brown sugar added to make peanut butter cris-cross cookies, or when it was encased within a Reese's peanut butter cup. Now, I have the opposite problem: All peanut butter is too sweet, except for the natural stuff, which I buy unsalted & have to use bicep strength to mix, since it's separated into oil & nut butter when I buy it. I like it now at breakfast, but it's not a potential binge food & I don't know why. I definitely have had problems with bingeing & must be on guard against it, but peanut butter no longer "sings" to me.
Unlike many children, I never had issues about eating cauliflower, broccoli or any cabbage family member. I think because of my Eastern European ancestry, where you're fed cabbage-y stuff really early & thus get used to that sweetish, vaguely sulphuric taste.
Things that I've come to like as an adult include anchovies, sardines, stinky aged cheese, Splenda-sweetened coffee (which I drank black for years), pork loin & pork chops (for years, I'd only eat ham & bacon) and fresh uncooked tomatoes.
ETA: I always read with interest about peoples' relationships with their mothers regarding their weight & appearance.
Oh, boy, I could write a memoir with that as the subject: "Me, Mom and the Dressing Room at J.C. Penney's (and Other Stores)". Yes, it's that fraught -- "tormented" might be a good word, too. It all comes down to this: My mother was a beauty with a weight problem. For half her life, she was one of those popular girls, a baton twirler at her high school, usually the prettiest woman seated at the table with my father's friends & their wives. She had a bit of glamor to her. When Elizabeth Taylor died, I felt a bit bereft, because my mother once had similar dark good looks, the same hairstyle, the heavily penciled eyebrows -- & a similar lifelong issue with food. Let me tell you, it's not easy being a pale fat bespectacled bookish daughter of a dark beauty who never cared much to read anything but the National Enquirer. The battles over my body were epic.
I went through a lot of food phases. For a while I would only eat the stems of broccoli. Then I would only eat the flowers. Then back to the stems. Then everything had to have chicken in it and I wouldn't eat beef.
The only one that really sticks out as being a long term one is onions. I hated them with a passion as a kid and only started eating them as an adult.
Most other foods I didn't like as a kid I still don't like, like egg yolks, mayo, pickles, relish, pork (unless it's BBQ pulled pork, bacon, or honeybaked ham)... I like other pickled veggies and asian-style pickled cucumbers, but standard dill pickles are disgusting.
As a child I hated milk, cheese and eggs. I would go so far as to "accidentally" throw my cup of milk on the kitchen floor (my cats all loved me) and my first dog ate a lot of cheese and eggs. I did eat hardboiled eggs but they had to be hard enough to bounce! (Yes, I did test them - again the dog ate a lot of eggs). These are all foods I love now (and the hardboiled eggs still bounce ).
I am a bit stressed right now. The new "good" eating habits are mixed with the old. I snacked on peanut butter eggs (did not bounce them) for about 10 minutes in the car. Then I came to the dog sit, fed everyone with fur, and made my dinner of BBQ chicken and salad. Carefully peeled the skin off the chicken, low fat dressing on the salad, and a big bottle of water to wash it all down.
I will be back home tomorrow and it will be very hectic but more sane.
saef In my current state I just might have eaten the candy slice
Wow, I just got back from two weeks visiting family, and couldn't log in - talk about moments of panic trying to remember my password!
As a kid we were allowed one food that we didn't eat. Mine was liver and onions. My sister could never settle on one, so she had to eat everything. Of course, it was okay not to like desserts. I didn't like watermelon, cucumbers or cooked cabbage. Still don't. We never had a number of foods that I like now, because my mother didn't like them, thinks like sauerkraut or mushrooms never graced our table. And growing up in the Boston area in the 50's and 60's, there were very few ethnic restaurants, so I never got exposed to those til I was in college and beyond. We didn't even have pizza until I was in HS!
Managed a trip to relatives with lots of eating out and 2 birthday parties and still came back the same weight. Amazing.
Easter is pretty much a non-holiday for us, though we do go to church regularly and will be there on Sunday as well. Oh, I almost forgot, there will be a breakfast served before the worship service, so I guess there will be that small celebration. But no colored eggs, huge ham, or chocolate bunnies.
Lay in bed watching the lightning flashing and listening to the torrential rain pouring on the skylight. Wind howling around the bedroom windows.
I'm SOOO happy these extreme weather conditions seem to have moved on. I have once walked dogs all day in a semi-hurricane but don't care to repeat the experience, particularly since today is moving out day, going home day, and getting ready to restore my household day. It is also a full, full work day and I will be ready for shower and bed by around 8 p.m. probably.
No food at our house. Apparently DH only knows where the chips and pastries sections are in the supermarket. Good thing I have lots of cans of soup at home.
Poor doggies! One is staying about 4 inches from me (I've packed up all my stuff) and the junior one doesn't have a clue yet. I think he'll twig to what's happening when I carry my duffle downstairs and out into the car. Still haven't worked out how I'll get my stuff and 4 dogs into my car and then get my stuff home before the next dog walk. Most of my clients leave and return on weekends so this is something new.
Oh, families. And living within certain enclaves with very particular food cultures.
Thanks to similar circumstances, I didn't have a bagel till I was a freshman in college.
Which really makes me seem old, since bagels are pervasive now & thoroughly assimilated into mainstream American food & beverage outlets of all kinds, all over the country. But I remember a time when they weren't at all common, at least not in Upstate New York. To get a bagel, we'd have had to go to the nearby city of Syracuse, to a particular east side neighborhood, and to one of the bakeries there. We never did that.
At college, there were a lot of students from the New York City area & they all wanted bagels with cream cheese for breakfast. So there they were, every morning, and I grew to love them, and they contributed toward my carbohydrate-enriched life.
Something we never had growing up was lima beans because my Mom never liked them. Today, I rarely eat them unless they come in some sort of mix. I don't mind them, but they do tend to be a bit drier than other beans.
And I've never really liked asparagus. Again, I'll eat it, but if I have another choice I'll go with the other choice.
My Dad dislikes cooked zucchini. To me a sliced and grilled zucchini is the perfect vegetable!
I don't buy bagels, either. My DD loves them and she'll eat one a day for breakfast. I find them too calorie dense (although I do love them!). I've tried buying the mini ones or the ones that are 100 calories in hopes that DD will eat those instead. Well, instead she eats two!
My Mom had a liver recipe that was (and still is) quite yummy. I'm sure it isn't the healthiest way of serving the meat, but I do love it. Bacon is involved as well as chili sauce.
I'm taking the afternoon off today. First the window washers are coming to our house for our twice a year window washing. I hope we're done with rain for the summer so they stay nice for a while. Afterward, I'll pick up DS from school and deposit him at home and go look for some new sandals to go with the cute top I got from Chico's using the gift card my MIL gave me for my birthday. Fun!
Here I am, visiting a website that's supposed to help me focus on having a normal relationship with eating & food & maintaining a healthy weight ... and what am I writing about on it?
Food.
Stop it, Saef. Move on ...
Here I'm vibrating & in emotional uproar after the first of today's two interviews. I felt very "on" during the interview, like a comedienne on improv night who has a good crowd & feels on top of it & gets laughter for every joke.
So of course, now I'm having the backlash & the feelings of being an impostor. Like: That's not me. They'll think I'm really good or something, and if I get the job, I'll have to do everything I said I would. They're going to be disappointed if they promote me to this position. What was I thinking in applying for it? I must have had delusions of grandeur. How dare I think that I'm qualified & competent?
So I'm trying to deal with this backlash going on internally & wondering awe-struck at the ferocity of it. I can be so mean to myself, inside my own head.
And it's almost 1 PM & I need to eat lunch. But I'm glad that I used the excessive nervous energy afterward to unload the dishwasher, put a load of gym clothes into the washer (yeah, it's a work from home day & the interviews are all being done by phone) & wipe down the floor around my desk with a damp cloth. All that rather than eating something. I need to point out to myself this sign of progress in my life. Once, I would have put my jacket on, walked straight to the candy store & "calmed down" with God knows what. (I won't even try to remember what.)
Instead I'm going to eat my healthy lunch during my lunch hour & watch myself calm down further. And try to use the experience & lessons learned for the forthcoming 4 PM interview.
Next week will be the start of an adventure in our household. DH is going to do P90X and wants to stick to the diet plan religiously. I am not willing to do do the P90X diet plan. Originally I thought we'd just eat our own food for breakfast and lunch and I'd cook dinner for both of us from the P90X recipes, but after talking it over and looking at the recipes, it seems like it will work better if we just cook separate meals. DH grew up on a very bland diet and his approach to the meal plan is, "I'll just cook plain meat and plain veggies and eat them in the proportions it says; that way I don't have to deal with recipes or anything complicated." I just can't bring myself to eat plain, bland food.
I guess this goes with the discussion of foods growing up and foods we won't eat. My parents always fed us a huge variety of various ethnic foods and everything was heavily seasoned and spiced and sauced. A plain cooked piece of chicken breast just doesn't taste good to me. With veggies it varies -- I like plain green beans and plain broccoli, but I cannot eat straight up lettuce without putting dressing on it.
Good vibes Saef!!! Are the positions within your company or with different companies? I know the feeling you describe when interviewing-- I feel kind of like I'm having an out of body experience-- listening to myself while a million thoughts are going through my head about what is coming out of mouth....
We are having a volunteer appreciation tea soon for all of the parents at my school. Of course it is in "my space" (the library). I will have to have great restraint to stay away from all of the desserts! I made brownies last night, and while I didn't eat any outright, I certainly ate the bits and pieces that fell off while cutting and transporting (amounting to at least one if not two brownies!). Brownies are a huge red light food for me.
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right now. The new "good" eating habits are mixed with the old. I snacked on peanut butter eggs (did not bounce them) for about 10 minutes in the car. Then I came to the dog sit, fed everyone with fur, and made my dinner of BBQ chicken and salad. Carefully peeled the skin off the chicken, low fat dressing on the salad, and a big bottle of water to wash it all down. 
Of course, it was okay not to like desserts. I didn't like watermelon, cucumbers or cooked cabbage. Still don't. We never had a number of foods that I like now, because my mother didn't like them, thinks like sauerkraut or mushrooms never graced our table. And growing up in the Boston area in the 50's and 60's, there were very few ethnic restaurants, so I never got exposed to those til I was in college and beyond. We didn't even have pizza until I was in HS! 
