Recently I bought steel-cut oats, and have been cooking up a batch for the week and re-heating them in the microwave at work. Before that I had been in the habit of eating the instant oatmeal packets. Well, on Monday I forgot my breakfast, and had to get the oatmeal down in my cafeteria. Blech!!!! It was so mushy and had not texture at all to it! I think my tastebuds are changing, in a good way. I would much rather have a heartier, grainier oatmeal that I can chew!
Also, I recently bought natural peanut butter – chunky and salted – from Trader Joes. The first time I used it, I wasn’t crazy about it. But as I’ve eaten more of it, I love it…and I don’t even miss the sugar. For an experiment yesterday I tried a lick of the natural, versus a lick of the JIF chunky PB. Yack! The JIF tasted chemically, overly sweet, at not at all peanut buttery compared to the natural stuff. The natural had a much more intense peanut flavor.
Anyways, I think its neat how ones preferences evolve when they are in the habit of healthy eating. The old, less nutritious products that I always loved are being replaced by healthier, better for me products that I now prefer!
Yes, I have been constantly amazed at how my tastes have changed. I used to love sugary baked goods. To me, breakfast was a muffin or a scone or chocolate filled croissant or cereal with tons of sugar. My tongue was so saturated with sugar, it couldn't taste the sweetness in healthier foods.
I remember one time, not too long after I started eating super foods (and as a side effect, kicking sugar/processed foods) I made a baked sweet potato in the oven, let it really bake for over an hour. I couldn't believe how sweet it was, it really tasted like dessert. I am really satisfied with sweet, natural foods now - like fruit. Even cherry tomatoes taste sweet to me.
I also did the oatmeal evolution. I started with some kind of packaged Quaker maple stuff. Slowly transitioned to the quick oats with spoonfuls of brown sugar, now I eat them with just dried fruit. Same thing with yogurt - from flavored to non fat plain mixed with fruit.
Recently I bought steel-cut oats, and have been cooking up a batch for the week and re-heating them in the microwave at work. Before that I had been in the habit of eating the instant oatmeal packets. Well, on Monday I forgot my breakfast, and had to get the oatmeal down in my cafeteria. Blech!!!! It was so mushy and had not texture at all to it! I think my tastebuds are changing, in a good way. I would much rather have a heartier, grainier oatmeal that I can chew!
Once you've had the real thing.. there is no going back!
I used to gorge myself on chocolate. Then I tasted dark chocolate at a time when I was being good to myself and exercising. I was hooked and milk chocolate became disgusting. Almost overnight. All I need is a small piece of dark to be satisfied. And I don't crave it daily. Now, as much as I love chocolate you can put all the milk chocolate in front of me safe and secure because I will not touch it. It is so gross to me now.
The same with many things I've discovered.
Peanut butter... Now that I read your thread I wonder why I have Jiff in my pantry. It must be something about brand loyalty. I've always bought it so I don't even think when I reach for it. I'm going to get a jar of the natural.. and do my own taste test. Something tells me I won't be surprised to be developing a new brand loyalty.
It's sad, how corporate food companies can take something wonderful and butcher it so bad, doctoring it up with preservatives and artificial flavors, giving the consumer a substandard product.
This reminds me of a song I listened to this morning ... "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" by Rufus Wainwright:
Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me
If I should buy jellybeans
Have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter
A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me
I no longer feel this way. I never expected my cravings for rich, fat, and processed foods to change ... what a pleasant NSV.
Yes, until I ditched sugar, I never realized how naturally sweet so many foods are. Last week, my DD wanted me to try an oatmeal raisin "breakfast cookie" piece of junk food her grandmother sent home with her. I tried a small bite and it was "too sweet". The second ingredient was high fructose corn syrup, so no surprise there, but it was a minor miracle that I thought something was overly sweet. Sweets used to be my downfall.
I never thought that I'd be bad-mouthing Jif peanut butter, because I bought it for ages and loved it...but I tried the two again today and I came to the same conclusion! The Jif tastes weird now...
My husband works for JIF and they are actually made by Smuckers and Smuckers has a few natural peanut butters now that are only made with peanuts. They taste pretty good!
I grilled the fresh Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon fillet I bought at Costco. I marinated the same as I had always done with the farmed.. fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic.
I can't believe what I have been missing. There is NO way I will buy the farmed after this. OMG it was sooooooooooooooooooo good. And unlike the farmed there were no leftovers. My family loved it that much.
Last edited by Jayde; 07-28-2006 at 04:06 PM.
Reason: to add that the salmon was wild.. the point of the good taste
I grilled the fresh Alaskan Sockeye Salmon fillet I bought at Costco. I marinated the same as I had always done with the farmed.. fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic.
I can't believe what I have been missing. There is NO way I will buy the farmed after this. OMG it was sooooooooooooooooooo good. And unlike the farmed there were no leftovers. My family loved it that much.
Thank you, thank you Jayde. I thank you. All the Alaskan fishermen thank you. It really is that good. A friend of mine who's husband and sons all fish has a saying: "Friends don't let friends eat farmed salmon." So, I'll stop now. Glad you liked it.
As for the PB, I had written in a thread on PB last week that I was a diehard Jif Extra Crunchy gal. But really I know that natural is better for me, so I'm now eating a jar that's about 1/4 Jif (what I had left) and 3/4 Adams natural (crunchy, of course ). The flavor is fine, but the texture is taking some getting used to. I think by the time I'm done with the jar, I will be fine and can go with straight natural. I feel mentally better about not eating the sweetner and trans-fats.
I gave up sugar on my cereal years ago while doing WW. Never went back, though I've lost and regained at least twice since then. But, I've never been a huge sweets eater. I'll take a bagel over a muffin any day. Don't eat a lot of candy/cookies/cake, etc. Now show me a bowl of pasta and you've got my number. At least nowadays it's whole wheat....
Husband and I had this revelation when we had friends over to dinner the other week. He had made a rhubarb pie for dessert using splenda instead of sugar and not much splenda at that. After the friends took their first bite each of them actually puckered up. They declared it tasty but tart. Neither husband nor I noticed the tart-ness, it was the perfect sweetness for both of us . Prior to eating healthy I wouldn't have touched a pie that hadn't been made with real sugar and a good amount at that!
I'm going to look for you PB thread. I love your idea of mixing the two.
I'm the same with the sugar.. though sometimes I use honey or pure maple syrup. But usually food tastes sweet enough for me. My oatmeal surely is sweetened enough with just a little fruit (even though the dried fruit sometimes does have added sugar). On the Super Foods thread Nelie posted a butternut squash recipe that didn't have any added sweetners.. yet when I ate it I thought it was so sweet and delicious.
I think processed foods overload your tastebuds. The flavors are often so intense (whether salty or sweet or "fruity" or "cheesy" for that matter, everything is done to unnatural levels). Then they add fat and MSG to further strengthen the taste, that any subtlety is lost.
Now that my husband and I are eating very little processed food, it all seems to taste better to me. To the point I can taste the difference between fresh homegrown vegetables (we go to the local farmer's market) and the same veggies at the grocery stores. I can even tell which grocery stores buy the best produce - even when they all look equally as good and fresh- because it just tastes better.
They say that when smokers quit, they notice their tastebuds getting more sensitive. It almost feels like that. Then when you try something you haven't eaten in a very long time, it very rarely tastes as good as (or sometimes anything like) you remembered it. Captain Crunch was like that for me. As a kid and college student, I LOVED the stuff. I hadn't eaten it in fifteen years or more, and my husband bought a box one day. I actually looked forward to it, until I had some. I can't believe I ever even ate this stuff. Not only was it way too sweet, but it left a weird greasy film on the roof of my mouth. Blech!
Revelation about healthier preferences
It really is that good. A friend of mine who's husband and sons all fish has a saying: "Friends don't let friends eat farmed salmon." So, I'll stop now. Glad you liked it. 
). The flavor is fine, but the texture is taking some getting used to. I think by the time I'm done with the jar, I will be fine and can go with straight natural. I feel mentally better about not eating the sweetner and trans-fats. 
At least nowadays it's whole wheat....
