 David Solot is a Ph.D. student in organizational psychology at Walden University, with a Masters in clinical psychology. His background includes the study of animal sensation and perception, and conditioned responses to sweetness in foods. Is there a food you just don’t like, and you can’t explain why? Or perhaps a food that made you sick once, and now you can’t come near it? It could be the result of a million-year-old survival mechanism. When I was about six years old, I started hating cherry Jell-O. There was no apparent reason for it. I liked cherry Kool-Aid and shaved ice, and I was fine with other flavors of Jell-O. But the sight or smell of cherry Jell-O would instantly make me nauseated. My reaction to it was so bad that my parents used to tell people I was allergic to it, just to avoid my reaction. They even wrote it down under “allergies” on a school form. I just couldn’t touch it without feeling sick. Here’s how taste aversion works: You and your buddies go out for a few drinks. You’re young and wild and love drinks with the strong coconut flavor of Malibu Rum. Things get a little out of hand, and you spend part of the night praying to the porcelain god. You recover, and next weekend go out for drinks again. The bartender passes you your favorite drink, but this time the smell of coconut immediately makes you want to vomit. You loved Malibu for years, but now, the very thought of it makes you sick. What you’re experiencing is your brain protecting you from being poisoned. When we were primitive creatures, we weren’t sure what was safe to eat so we tested things out. If you survived the experience, your brain had to make sure that you never ever ate that same thing again. So, if you ate something that made you feel ill, your brain decided "better safe than sorry," and conditioned you to feel sick anytime you saw, smelled or even thought about that same food. The next time you went foraging for food and came across a berry that made you feel sick in the past, you would get hit with an overwhelming feeling of nausea and go eat something else. The people who were good at developing taste aversions lived and had children. The ones who were bad at it - well - they largely got poisoned and died. So over the centuries, our ability to form taste aversions got stronger and stronger. The reason your night of drinking resulted in a hatred of Malibu is due to this same survival mechanism. When you felt nauseated at 3am, your brain sensed that you had been poisoned. Your brain didn’t know for sure what caused it, but it did remember a really strong coconut flavor from earlier that night. To protect you, your brain decided "better safe than sorry," and assumed that the coconut flavor was to blame. To make sure you don’t poison yourself in the future, it set up a conditioned response so that the smell or taste of coconut will make you feel sick. That’s how taste aversions work properly - you no longer want to eat the thing that made you sick. But it can get more complicated than that. You may find that you suddenly hate coconut shavings on ice cream. A year later, you may push away a plate of coconut-battered shrimp at a restaurant, and have no idea why you find it so repulsive. Taste aversions are just that powerful, and they can last for years after only one bad experience. To make matters more confusing, sometimes aversions form for the wrong food. Imagine that on the way to work one morning you stop off for your traditional cup of coffee. Later that day, your coworkers all go out for Indian food. You’ve never had Indian food before, but you’re up for something new. You have a delicious meal and try lots of new items. But around 3pm, you start feeling queasy. It gets worse and worse, and by the evening you’re sick to your stomach and not able to hold anything down. Your brain senses that you’ve been poisoned. Once again, it isn’t sure what did it, but it does remember a lot of strong spices and flavors that it never tasted before. To make sure you don’t poison yourself in the future, your brain decides “better safe than sorry,” and conditions you to feel sick any time you smell, taste or even think about Indian food. The problem is, it turns out that there was nothing wrong with the Indian food - it was the creamer in your morning coffee that had gone bad! “No way,” says your brain, “we’ve had that coffee every day for a year. We know that it’s safe. It had to be that weird new food we ate.” Suddenly you have a strong aversion to Indian food, even though it tasted good and there was nothing wrong with it. To make matters worse, you’ll probably never know your hatred of Indian food is irrational, because you don’t know that the real cause of your illness was your coffee. You’ll likely think that Indian food makes you sick and avoid it in the future. This kind of thing is happening to us all the time, and we’re mostly oblivious to it. Have you ever had a really bad cold, and decided to make yourself feel better by eating your favorite food? You might find a few days later that you’ve stopped liking your favorite food. That’s taste aversion in action! Your brain assumes that the illness was caused by the food, and is teaching you to not like that food any more. This effect is so strong that people undergoing chemotherapy (which can cause severe nausea) are cautioned to avoid their favorite foods. You might think you’re comforting yourself, but what you’re really doing is teaching your brain that "favorite food = feeling sick." Luckily, our conscious minds are mostly able to overcome this effect. The key is to recognize what is happening and to think about the reason for the reaction. Consciously reminding yourself that what you’re about to eat is not poisonous can help you to interrupt the automatic survival mechanism. With practice, you may find that you are able to stomach the foods that used to hate. You may even start to like them again. The key is to go slowly, and expose yourself to the food in positive surroundings. Teach your brain that there’s no connection between the food and feeling bad. As for my cherry Jell-O aversion, I remembered that back in kindergarten I was served room temperature cherry Jell-O and whipped cream, all swirled together. I got sick to my stomach, and that’s when I started hating it. By thinking about the cause of my reaction, I was able to teach myself to enjoy cherry Jell-O again. But if I put whipped cream on it, I still get a little queasy. A million years of evolution is hard to overcome! Is there a food that you just can't eat because you got sick from it? Please share below. |
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47 years ago I was hospitalized for high blood pressure and put on a very restrictive low calorie-no salt diet for 10 days. I became so weak I could barely stand, and when I got home I couldn't climb the stairs to my apartment. I stopped at a friend's apartment on the ground floor, and while her children were eating sandwiches, I decided that mustard would make me feel better. I ate a couple tablespoons of yellow mustard and it actually DID make me strong enough to climb the stairs. However, I have NEVER been able to eat mustard again.
I have an intense loathing of eggs especially where the whites and yolks are separate, i.e fried, poached and boiled. Even just looking at a fried egg makes me feel sick. However, I can tolerate scrambled and omelets. According to my late parents this aversion started when I was 3 years old and came home from hospital after having my tonsils removed and they thought that feeding me fried eggs would be best with a sore throat. In more recent years while eating mediterranean diet I have developed a bad reaction to aubergines, having been violently sick on both occasions after consuming them. Going back to eggs strangely enough, I also love mayonnaise, pancakes and egg nog drinks especially Advocaat!!
i also have to say it's eggs,and mayo and all foods with it,the smell,the taste,the sight,the thought of it,i cant stand to be in same room or see anyone eat either,tried years ago and instantly vomited,i know i cant eat either again and fine with that,i only eat things i actually enjoy to eat.
A few years ago, I ate pizza, specifically Domino's while during a night of drinking. The next morning's hangover was terrible and it was easy for me to associate the nausea with pizza. For a year or so, the thought of Domino's pizza (and its unique, tangy sauce) made me sick. I could eat other pizza (with some trepidation at first) but the sight of a Domino's box brought back the horrible hangover. I knew the feeling was illogical, however it took a year or so for me to be able to try Domino's pizza again. Today, I have no problem with it at all, in fact its my favorite.
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Well for me it was always like I tried to eat it but always resulted in making me feel sick, without having a previous experience of having to much of a dish. Which includes:
-red meat (especially the parts that are fatty), I mean imagine not being able to eat bacon, people look at me funny
-some types of white meat(can do with a very dry chicken breast)
-fish(any type)+fish oil
-sea food
-can't drink plain milk
-plain yoghurt
-cooked spinach
-brussel sprouts
And I'm sure there is more, if I have to think of it
I can tell you this much, it is most unpleasant to be unable to eat all the things that are common and enjoyable and always ending up looking like a pretentious person. Especially when you visit someone and they cook you a nice dinner and you say "oh sorry I cannot eat this , it will make me puke"-not necessarily like that but you get the gist.
I can't eat barbecue sauce now. When i was younger, i know this is disgusting, the only sandwich I would eat was bread and barbecue. I got sick of it and would feel sick to my stomach. Eventually it went away. A couple nights ago for dinner I had barbecue sauce on chicken and bread but there was too much barbecue. I gag every time i think of it.
I can no longer eat Fun Dip, Barbeque sause, scrammbled eggs, or whipped cream. All of them exept the whipped cream are because at some piont i became sick after eating the food. the Fun Dip and Barbeque were in the same day. Not Fun. The whipped cream, however, i am not sure why i cant eat it, but i have never liked it. The texture is too airy and makes me ill thinking about it.
so what if i purposely got sick from eating chocolate? Would my craving go away?
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Andrew Zimmern of the 'Exotic Foods' TV show can eat food contaminated with (a small amount of) feces, but he cannot eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I'm now more interested in learning more about flavor and food aversion.
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What does this have to do with food?
When I was a child, I got sick after eating scallops. At some point after that, my mom made them for dinner again. I told her that I couldn't eat them, but she made me eat them anyway. I'll never forget lying on the couch in agony waiting to puke. To this day I can't stand the smell of scallops. Even seeing them makes me feel sick.
Did you tested this speculation in lab, with other animals, or just because the thesis fits in our human experience you deduced this "evolutionary mechanism"? Would it not be considered as a result of our good memory and intellect, who if can not remember a bad event of the past can predict that? Take for example the sense of sight: we all feel an aversion to shocking images, as quartered bodies, beheadings and tragic accidents even without experiencing it, because we have the ability to mentally project the feeling from what we are seeing. Or only humans have the mechanism that you described? Why nonhuman animals would not have this mechanism of association and survived, some more and better than us?
"This effect is so strong that people undergoing chemotherapy (which can cause severe nausea) are cautioned to avoid their favorite foods. You might think you’re comforting yourself, but what you’re really doing is teaching your brain that "favorite food = feeling sick." "
That's so sad!!! ;_; They already are feeling crappy from cancer and chemo, and can't have their favorite foods! :(
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For me it is all melon except watermelon. I cannot stand the taste of honeydew or cantelope, but absolutely relish watermelon. On another, funnier note, I was in Paris a few years ago and felt adventurous. I ordered the escargot. When the dish came, the smell was heavenly! Butter and garlic. This particular version was served with Mushrooms. My first bite speared a escargot and put it in my mouth. The taste was heavenly but I nearly vomitted from the texture. It was only after the next bite that i realized that what I took for a escargot was actually a slippery mushroom. The escargot had a very good texture. I am incredibly adventurous with food but keep that devil melon away!
absolutly love any kind of mushrooms...but cant stand the thought of putting cream of mushroom soup in my mouth...
My food issues seem to revolve around texture primarily. The #1 offender...MASHED POTATOES. Close second: RICE PUDDING. Any food that appears to have been pre-chewed by someone else & spit back on the plate. Can't do it. Even looking at a plate of mucky potato mess gives me that lump in the throat. I have even gone so far as to build a "blinder wall" between myself & the person at the next place setting, although I do try to be discreet & if questioned, I claim to not know what they are going on about.
I have never been able to eat eggs or seafood. Nothing traumatic that I can remember but just the idea of them, the look of them, and the smell of them are revolting to me. Eggs are actually a disgusting thing to eat and fish too, considering mercury levels, etc.
totally agree with you on Both foods,No way ever for me !
Artificial crab...became very ill after eating a sandwich containing it. I cannot abide it.
I have not been able to eat cheese at all since my brother died when I was 7. I can smell or taste it in any food no matter how it is disguised (a favorite trick of my dad's when I was younger. It's been almost 30 years now and I still can't stand the smell or taste of cheese.
I remember when I was pregnant, I had morning sickness that took hold very strongly at the mall, where there was one of those stands that sold cinnamon-sugar coated pecans. To this day, I cannot eat cinnamon-sugar anything. A damn shame because I used to love it!!!
I also can't stand eggs. My grandpa and I used to eat them for breakfast every morning and right after he died when I was 4, I stopped eating them. I never got sick from them, I just can't eat them. If they're in something like a cake or even French toast, I'm okay, but to eat them on their own, it's not happening!!
I have never been able to tolerate an egg in any way, shape or form. I can remember as far back as 4 looking at an egg in my plate & thinking it was absolutely impossible to put it in my mouth. It is the same thing for me as an adult so even when I am visiting & am served eggs it is beyond me to put them in my mouth. As far as I'm concerned it is not food, although I serve them to my family but often the sight & smell of them actually make me gag.Wish it was not this way due to the great nutritional value!
as a child I had to take medicine with sprite. It made it the worst tasting liquid I have ever had. And Ive had my share of tequila's. To this day (30+ years) I still cannot put a sprite up to my face without getting nauseous. To a lesser extent any clear soda i don't really like.
I am the same way! Except mine is 7-Up. I can barely stand the sight of a can of that stuff, let alone the smell or the taste. It's always what I was forced to drink when I was sick as a child and now I just want to throw up every time I'm around that stuff!
When I was quite young, I ate spinach practically every night at dinner. It was a staple side in my house. But one day while grocery shopping with my mother, I threw up a little in my mouth. I was too far from a restroom so, not knowing what else to do and not wanting to cause a scene, I swallowed it. It tasted like spinach! I was seven years old, and it would be more than fifteen years before I even tried spinach again. I suppose my reaction was more conscious than subconscious; I was going out of my way not to expose myself to that again because the memory was so powerful.
i hate cheese.
People in this country ar just too soft. You'll eat boot leather soup under the right conditions.
hey smart guy. the article implied it was an evolutionary trait common to all humans. there is probably another evolutionary trait for eating boot leather soup that would over ride food aversion under the right circumstances, common to all people.
Someone will eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti, under the right conditions.
I've hated raw tomatoes as long as I can remember. I just don't care for the texture, but once you turn 'em into spaghetti sauce, you've got something wonderful. I -do- experience the aversion thing with apple schnapps, thanks to tying one on too many times, but no idea where I got the tomato dislike.
Sometimes food aversion is caused by the kinds of bad experiences mentioned here, but many times it's because the person is just a nutjob.
One word – Tequila
And when consumed with burgundy wine and Drambuie AND at the very onset of the flu – well it takes a while to get back to it.
Oh, heck no, Tequila used wisely is a remedy for everything from the cruds to gut worms, it's also an ideal palliative for 'female locked knee syndrome' in margarita form...hehe.
All time worst food known to man?????? SPAM. O M G. that isn't even fit for human consumption. My Dad used to bring it along when the family went camping.... He would pan fry it for breakfast over the campfire... My brother and I would wimper about having to eat it... It just tastes BAD... No trauma associated with it... It's just bad... My Dad thought we would find it more palatable with sugar sprinkled on it.... Oh GOD!!! That made it worse. I can't even look at a can of it on a shelf at the grocery store.... UGH!!!
Since I'm anonymous here, I'll admit that I kind of like Spam.
Wholeheartedly agree, spam was a originally a government-handout concoction of pork slaughterhouse leftovers ground fine, hastily seasoned and hot compressed with gelatin into a nasty, congealed mass. The fact that the packer was able to get away with actually selling the goop in supermarkets is a testament to the American diet. Not only is the stuff bad, it's bad for you.
Am 52 now, but as a child got sick after eating spaghetti with parmesan cheese, (came out my nose... gross!!). I had the stomach flu. Also ate butterscotch pudding on a turbulent TWA flight. Violently ill... couldn't stand parmesan OR butterscotch flavored anything until about 5 years ago, and both aversions just dissappeared... I eat both now with no problems, so I guess you can "out grow" these irrational aversions....
"came out my nose" I'm sorry but the visual of spaghetti coming out of someones nose is hilarious!
...sorry, that should have been @Aubrie...
I don't know how anyone can eat JELL-O. I can't stand the sight of it. I think it has something to do with that colonoscopy I had a few years ago.
I agree 100%. Jello is abominable, contemptible and offensive. It is an affront to the very delicacy of my nature.
I loved fish (especially Long John Silvers) when I was little. At age 7 I stepped on a fish that had jumped out of our fish tank. After that, the smell of fish makes me sick. It's been 30 years and I still can't stand it.
Brussel sprouts! But I've always hated them, even the first time I ate them. I must have developed the aversion in a prior life. Other than that I will and have eaten everything, including some things that are not meant for consumption. I have no food aversions (other than brussel sprouts). I will likely be one of those people who dies from fried cricket poisoning.
Grits. I used to love them when I was real little. Then the texture got to me. Then I had some a couple of years ago and realized I liked them after all. Then New Years Eve I had shrimp and grits. Possibly the grossest thing to hurl is grits. No longer can I have them. I feel sick just thinking about them, even though I know it was the alcohol and not the grits themselves.
Why Bubba, whomever in the world has gotten the feverish notion into yo' mind that you should go writin', or that anybody would want to go out of they busy day to be bothered readin' yo' scribblin', bless yo' heart?
You suck as a writer. Maybe you should go back to school and learn proper grammar. I grew up in Louisiana and can write better than this load of crap.
Hey tool wagon, I bet you didn't even make it out of elementary school so stuff it.
Douchenozzle. Definitely a douchenozzle.
D0uchen0zzle. Definitely a d0uchen0zzle.
LOL! I love that word. Perfect.
For me, it's caviar. When I was a little kid some sadistic older cousins tricked me into putting a crackerful of slimy, surprisingly disgusting red caviar into my mouth, telling me that it would taste good. Faced with the certainty that I would displease my slightly off-kilter aunt, whom I loved dearly, I stolidly proceeded to chew, and chew, and chew, horrified at the prospect of actually having to swallow. The fact that there was cold sweat streaming down my wide-eyed face and booger juice collecting on my upper lip seemed to slip past her as she cooed happily that I had a taste for good things. Alas, I did have to swallow, after which I excused myself to dry heave and quiver, with my eyes shut tight, out of everyone's sight. UUUGH.
So I can't stand cantalope, I've been forced to try it many times in my life and the reaction is the same, I don't like it. It's the taste, not the texture. I will eat watermelon once in a while and love honeydew. I still get weird looks in my family for that....and nothing they have done can change it. None of us are picky eaters, but there are things we won't eat and have no reason not to like them.
Texture is a problem for me on some things..... Can't handle black eyed peas, lima or butter beans, chick peas (hummus) or hominy. I just can't handle the way it feels in my mouth. YUCK. I'm fine with red beans and black beans, and even baked beans... Maybe the dull color of the others have something to do with it as well.
I can't stand cantaloupe to this day. I hated the very smell of it when my parents ate it and had to leave the table I have a similar hatred for cilantro. I can't taste anything BUT cilantro if any of it is in my food..
When my son was a baby and just starting out on solid foods I made him scrambled eggs for breakfast one morning. One bite and he spit it out. He's 30 now and hasn't eaten an egg since regardless of how they are cooked. Not even in a breakfast taco! We live in Texas and excellent breakfast tacos are served everywhere. Fortunately it isn't the sight of eggs that bothers him, just the thought of eating one.
My husband got sick from eating too many peanut butter cookies when he was 7 years old. He is now 42 and will NOT go near a peanut butter cookie! He can eat peanut butter....just not peanut butter cookies. Makes sense...too bad we can't figure out how the human brain works. It's amazing.
DIITO!!! I'm exactly the same... Like peanut butter, and candy bars with peanuts, but can't STAND peanut butter cookies... Even the smell turns my stomach.
How come hangovers don't cure alcoholism?
They do! For a day or maybe two, if things are really bad...
I got really sick drinking rum back in my teens. After that I couldn't stand the smell of rum but in my 20's I was given eggnog with rum in it, it tasted so much better than plain eggnog! Then my brother made the best tasting rum cake I had ever had. Rum cured me for 10 years.
Every since my first pregnancy, I can't eat bananas. Something about that thick, sweet, gummy, sticky consistency makes me gag. I probably overdosed on them, trying to eat healthy. Now just the smell of bananas can make me retch.
During my pregnancy, I developed an insane aversion to macaroni and cheese. If someone was serving it, I had to leave the room. I knew it wasn't rational and was pretty sure it was a result of the relentless 'morning' (and noon and night) sickness. Since this was our first boy, everyone told me my hormones were out of whack. My son is 16 years old and the sight of mac & cheese still causes me to go weak at the knees...and don't you know it happens to be his favorite food?!
Mine is Jimmy John's. I used to think their sandwiches were tasty. But then my husband and I got some on the way home after a full day of chemo treatment because they were the only easy place to run in on the way home and I was really weak. Now I can't even look at the sign while driving down the road without feeling nauseated.
Of course, if you're a Fundamentalist and you think that Evolution is a dirty word, this explanation makes no sense. Taste aversion must therefore be the result of either Jesus, leading you away from sinful foods, or Satan, causing you to stray from a righteous diet. Not eating those turnips might be the path to heaven or a one way ticket to damnation!
Or, of course, God could have given us this mechanism to protect us.
What God gave us, JIm, or at least most of us, was the intellect to understand evolution and thru that understanding, realize how truly awesome His creation is. the fundamentalist take is an insult to God and throws His greatest gift to us back in His face, metaphorically speaking.
that said, i ate a hotdog at a racetrack back in the '80s and it made me sick. it was years before i could eat another one. what this article doesn't explain, and i would love to read one that does, is why foods obviously taste different to different people. why do some people think some foods are yummy while others think they're the vilest things on the planet? lima beans and brussels sprouts, for instance. i love brussels sprouts and hate lima beans. but other folks are the exact opposite. why?
Had a minor medical procedure and the medicine they gave me had an orange flavour. Now I can't stand the smell of oranges, and even my expensive citrus soap has had to go. Drug companies should go back to bad tasting medicine.
Same here!!!! When I was younger my parents gave me some kind of orange pill so I wouldn't barf on the airplane when we flew. It was disgustingly bitter and gross. I had to chew it too, I couldn't just swallow it. To this day I can eat regular whole oranges and sometimes orange juice, but with anything else I get nauseous. I used to have the same thing with grapes because one time I overate them and barfed for the next day, but slowly its gotten better
Oh yeah and raw onions. Don't like the texture....for some reason I equate the crunchiness with eating cockroaches....which I never have of course.....but that's what pops into my head when a raw onion is put on any of my food. Off it goes into Outer Darkness. It has become a family legend.
Wow, I feel the same way about onions – always have. I don;t even mind the flavor so much, but can;t stand the texture and smell.
Same thing-can't stand onions (smell or taste) and I know a lot of ppl like me...must be something unique about this vegetable.
After 2 years of undiagnosed gastritis accompanied by severe nausea & pain when eating, I have developed aversions to many, many foods. I never really cared for chicken before but now I crave it and where I used to love beef I still can't eat it. Now that I've been diagnosed and understand what is happening I am making an effort to try different foods again. It also helps that my sense of taste has returned after all this time but now I love celery. Celery?? Yep. So the foods that I liked I tried to eat while I was sick and can't eat them now and the foods I didn't like and didn't eat have become my new favorites. So I guess its true!
With IBS, I have aversions to food and I wish that I could "mind over matter" the fear of eating some things. After so many years, I'm hyper-sensitive and can't bear to try a known irritant because of the consequences.
I can not eat Watermelon. I was in 4th grade and had watermelon after a baseball banquet and got seriously nauseous. 40 something years later, the smell of watermelon makes me sick!
Watermelon could be an allergy, 25% of all people who are allergic to ragweed (goldenrod) are also allergic to watermelon.
When I was young, I remember going to the dentist & he put some strawberry flavored fluoride in my mouth. When I went out to the waiting room, I threw up all over the place. I think the fluoride was pink because I can eat red strawberry flavored snacks (like gummies & skittles), but if it's pink strawberry flavored snacks (like ice cream or starburst) it seems really gross to me. I've never been able to eat the real fruit. There's actually a lot of foods that I can't eat, I'm really picky. I think a bunch of them are from not wanting to try things & my dad shoving them in my face.
Mayonnaise makes me sick. The very smell of it turns my stomach. When I was a kid, I would eat mayo on various sandwiches, but I had a bologna and mayo sandwich at school once and got sick from it. Interestingly, I can't even eat mayo if it's hidden in something, even if I don't consciously know it's there. I once got nauseous from a piece of chocolate mayonnaise cake, and I didn't learn about the mayo being in there until the day after I got sick. And I can't stand the smell of ketchup, but I can eat it once in a great while on a hamburger, but never ever with fries.
I cannot tolerate the taste of cheese. I was forced to eat it as a child, often to the point of throwing up. Interestingly enough, not only can I no longer stand the sight, smell, texture or taste of cheese, I also cannot tolerate cream cheese, cottage cheese or cheese cake. It's not that these foods taste the same to me – my friends have conducted experiments where I am the guinea pig – we've truly proven it to be the taste itself.
On a slightly different note, while I find this article is interesting, via personal experience I find a slight flaw in the argument. Neither my biological aunt nor grandmother eat cheese either. I do, indeed, dislike cheese based on my childhood experiences, but I find it odd that my relatives forego cheese as well. I was not around them much growing up, so it's unlikely my dislike evolved in relation to theirs.
Did you discover anything that links food aversions to genetics?
Yes! My two brothers and I loathe mushrooms. To me the smell of sauteed mushrooms is so disgusting I usually have to leave the room and the thought of eating a mushroom makes my stomach turn. I also don't remember mushrooms ever making me or either of my brothers violently ill.
Same here, I hate mushrooms... hate the smell, texture and taste. I can't even eat the food that they touched (after being removed) because I can still taste even the tiniest bit of them. I've tried eating them and they just make me want to yak. I don't recall ever getting sick from them, I just remember always hating them.
honey, tequila (that's everyone right? haha), fake cinnamon, eggs (especially fried, the smell is atrocious), mushrooms, PICKLES. There are a lot of things I don't like, some because of 'bad experiences' and some just because I find them utterly disgusting (for no particular reason that I can remember).
it's rum for me. I "won" a rum and coke chugging contest in university and haven't been able to drink it since
LOL! Love the " in "won". Because no one's a winner in a drinking contest....
That said, alcoholically speaking, i can't stand a specific shot called "Kalashnikov" since a hell of night a few years back. That and a senior trip to Madrid ended my love for Gold Strike.
This explains why I'm so sickened by the thought, smell or sight of blueberries! I thought for the longest time I was allergic to them because when I was younger I had blueberry pancakes and I ended up with the flu the next day. I thought it was the berries itself, so even now if it has blueberries I WON'T touch it!
I used to love eggplant parmesan. Until one day my mother made a HUGE cookie sheet filled woth eggplant parmesan. We all had it for lunch, and after lunch there was still an entire half a cookie sheet filled with eggplant parm. It was SO delicious! First I grabbed one piece and ate it. And before I knew it I had completely finished the entire pan. Yeah, I got SICK!! To this day, I cannot eat eggplant in any way, shape or form. My husband occasionally will toss a huge eggplant into our shopping cart to be funny. Ha ha. I have tried to eat eggplant on the odd occasion, just to see if I am still "allergic" to it. And I am. – or after reading this article, I guess my brain is just trying to help me from being poisoned.
it isn't just about being poisoned. i have a very strong aversion for aquatic life – anything that lives in water (or can, in the case of amphibians), i don't want to see it alive, let alone eat it.
the only thing my family could figure out is that my grandpap loved to go fishing, and would bring the fish home, in a bucket of water, alive. he would then dump them into the sink and gut them. once he was done preparing the fillets, they would go straight into the frying pan. my mom said that may have caught some of my sensitivity for animals and made me sick at the thought of seeing them, since it would always be "poisoned" in my mind that i watched these animals being slaughtered. the very sight or smell of fish or seafood or kelp or anything dealing with water (even hydroponic plants!) makes me ill, emotionally and physically.
i never ate anything more than heavily breaded fish sticks (dipped in so much ketchup i did not taste any fish), and i luckily gave even that up after childhood (was forced to eat it on fridays due to my parents' religious beliefs). i have lived in farm country all my life, i have never personally seen a land animal mistreated (i have no qualms eating an animal that was raised humanely, i believe we all have our roles to play in society, some animals' roles are to be food), but i have seen plenty of aquatic animals mistreated. i will never, ever, eat aquatic life, even if that means i die. so be it.
Luckily you've never seen a wheat field being reaped, or you'd have to count out bread too...
Too funny – I had the identical childhood experience with my Daddy and fishing: bringing them home alive, cleaning them in the sink and popping fresh bass into hot grease. Delicious! Maybe it didn't bother me because I helped catch them, too. Now, however, fish does give me stomach pains and issues, but not because of one of my best memories about Daddy. :-)
While reading this article, I had a revelation. I'm addicted to pizza and as many of you know, that is not a healthy choice to pick from. The next time I have a really bad cold, I'm going to eat pizza. That way my brian thinks that it was the pizza that made me sick. From then on out, I will probably never want to see pizza again. Now there's a diet plan. lol
Let me know if that works because I have a whole list of food to eat next time I'm feeling ill.
This is true for animals, too. When my cat was a baby kitten, he had horrible vomiting and diarrhea. He was diagnosed with roundworms. The medication for the roundworms was supposedly banana flavored, and ever since, he has HATED bananas. He even once swatted my hand when I was trying to get him to smell one, and this is a cat that NEVER does anything like that! It's so funny...
Milk and marshmallows. Not together. The thought of putting milk in my mouth–except on cereal, which doesn't bother me for some reason–makes me nauseous. Always has. And now at age 30 I'm wondering for other reasons if I'm lactose-intolerant, so this was a pretty interesting read. And my mom says I got sick after eating an entire bag of marshmallows when I was a kid, so I guess that one makes sense.
Pickeled pigs feet! I remember eating them with my dad and then they seemed so good. Now 50 years later I can't bring myself to even buy them in the store!! LOL
Pickeled pigs feet! I remember eating them with m dad and then they seemed so good. Now 50 years later I can't bring myself to even buy them in the store!! LOL
When I was young, dinner would be trying. Dad was drunk to some degree or other, and the meal was very tense around the dinner table. To this day, I rarely eat meals at a dinner table, unless it's at a restaurant. One night, he globbed tons of butter, salt and pepper on my mashed potatoes and gave me 60 seconds to finish it. It tasted like playdough. To this day, I never put butter or salt on anything, except rarely while cooking. As it turns out ... I'm probably much healthier!
Speaking of food aversions, it seems as if your dad were fed to a pack of hungry wolves, they would each take one bite and back off, after which they would sit and start licking their nether parts, as canines do, to get rid of the taste in their mouths...
I cannot stomach mushrooms of any kind except tree ears, nor meatloaf. Any of those will trigger a gag reflex if I attempt to eat them. I have no idea why. If I had a bad experience with them as a child I don't remember, I just remember feeling this way for as long as I can remember. ICK!
As a kid, the smell of eggs cooking would do me in. I'd catch a whiff from the kitchen and my stomach would instantly lurch. Then I'd spend the rest of the day fighting the urge to vomit, and I wouldn't eat anything (everything came from the same kitchen as the damn eggs!). My mom told everyone I was allergic. Who knows? I love eggs now, though.
Lima beans! In the mid-1940s, my mother had us shell a large amount of lima beans for dinner. I kept eating them raw – and they tasted delicious! However, shortly afterwards I had a bit of a stomachache from all those raw lima beans and I haven't been able to tolerate them since. (Nor do I miss them!)
Coincidentally, my revulsion for any kind of jello is so bad, that I had to scroll past the image so I could read the article!
When you think of how Jello is made (its that GELATINOUS glop that floats to the top when you boil cow or pig bones, hooves, and connective tissues), its perfectly understandable. I liked it as a kid, but not now.
.. and intestines, too.
Whew! I agree with you on the strong mints. I also have a thing about hair in my food. A pal of mine can pick it up and throw it off and keep on eating. I on the other hand start gagging and just thinking about it makes me gag. I'm awful chunky and if I found hair in my food boy wouldn't I be skinny, lol.
I hate sweet potatoes of all things. I don't recall ever getting sick after eating them. However, my mom tells me that while pregnant with me, sweet potatoes gave her morning sickness. Apparently, my food aversion started in utero.
Chilled Monkey Brains. You know, because of that Indiana Jones documentary.
ginger, after eating candied ginger in 6th grade and getting sick. I can't stand the smell of it, but I can knowingly eat foods that have ginger in them. Thinking about it now is making me nauseous.
As a ginger myself, I take great offense! I demand millions of dollars in compensation of my grievous injury at your hands....oh...you meant the food ginger...well then....never mind.
Awesome!! (coincidentally, I was watching South Park while reading this)
When I was 21 I got my tonsils out and was on liquid codeine, which is known to um... back you up. My mother made me mashed sweet potatoes, and they got caught in the crossfire of the effects of liquid codeine. It's really sad, because I actually really liked sweet potatoes, but I have such a strong aversion to them now... only assuming because my body thinks if I eat them, they'll be stuck in my colon for a week. GROSS!
Anything with cilantro in it. Can't stand the smell of it and it is everywhere!
OMG me too. If I get one stem in my mouth I gag. I read an article once that an aversion to cilantro is actually a genetic thing, and that some people can taste it much more strongly than others. So I don't think it's necessarily a "bad experience" aversion as much as something that you are born with.
I'm fairly sure I'm at least slightly allergic to cilantro, as it makes my tongue numb if I eat it. Makes me sad, because I love mexican food.
Same with me. I had it in some Chinese food someplace about 5 years ago and it just ruined lunch. It was years later when I learned what it was and now you can't get away from the stuff. It's taking over the world. Stop the Insanity!
Can not stand the smell of most preservatives in foods, especially in cottage cheese, margarines, all boxed dry cake mixes, frostings, candy bars, etc., just gross. Pain in the *ss because I like so many of these foods. Maybe it's good as most of these processed foods aren't good for us anyway.
I've gone into anaphylactic shock during surgery from preservatives in the anesthesia. I now always receive preservative free meds...ain't easy. Preservatives and I will never be friends.
Sour Cream for me. I ate a bunch of it on nachos once, threw up, and now can't even think about it without feeling nauseous. Also, Pizza.
Can't drink 7-Up because my mom gave it to us every time we threw up to "settle our stomachs." Shiver.
And black pepper, if you can believe that. For one of the first Valentine's we spent together, I cooked my then-boyfriend, now-husband, a "pepper-crusted steak" which would have been fine except I didn't smash the peppercorns enough and it was like biting into BBs. And the taste, oh good Lord, the taste ... just imagine chewing on a handful of peppercorns. I can't stand getting a chunk of black pepper in my mouth now.
mmmmmmm *licks lips
I drank a fifth of bourbon, got sick, got into a fight, and got alcohol poisoning. I was drinking it the next week...
wtf nature? Save me before I get my ass kicked again.
What I want to know is why are there taste aversions at all? I understand the idea of getting sick and avoiding the last thing you ate and I've had that experience. But I hate fish and seafood in all forms. If it's wet when you kill it, get it away from me. I never had a bad experience outside of what I consider to be a disgusting taste. Why should my body completely (and irrationally) reject what is considered a perfectly healthy food?
Did you not read the article?
Very carefully, as a matter of fact. It only discusses food aversions as it relates to an illness. It does not discuss food aversion when illness isn't a factor. Fish and seafood has never made me sick nor am I allergic. I've tried it at various stages of my life and still, fish and seafood simply tastes disgusting to me. Why should my body reject a perfectly healthy food source when that food source has never, not once, caused me any problems?
Does tequila count? ;-)
Why not adopt this into a diet? You take a pill that makes you a little queasy everytime you eat something bad like ice cream and eventually you'll stop craving all the bad stuff. You just need a pill that makes you a little queasy and triggers the aversion but doesn't do any actual harm.
I think there is a pill that does that.
Is that why I feel sick each time I watch the movie 'Clockwork Orange'?
I guess I have three...
Zucchini: When I was about three years old I ate a little bit of zucchini and threw up soon after. I still cannot eat the stuff and will pick every piece out of any dish. (Interestingly enough I have no problem with it in zucchini bread...)
Raisin Bran: We had a minor roach infestation in our house for awhile when I was a teenager. Probably got brought home from our family business, because pest control was pretty difficult in that area at that time. At any rate, I poured a bowl of Raisin Bran one morning for breakfast, and some of the raisins jumped out of the bowl and crawled away... if you know what I mean. Didn't help matters that my mom used to feed me Raisin Bran when I was just beginning to tolerate food again after being sick.
Hard-boiled eggs: One year on Christmas Eve we had some kind of excessively thick ham-based gravy with crumbled hard-boiled eggs on it. It was nauseating. Somehow I blamed the eggs, and I cannot eat crumbled hard-boiled eggs in or on anything. Interestingly enough, my recipe for Escalloped Asparagus topped with SLICED hard-boiled eggs is fine, and I will happily just eat a hard-boiled egg by itself, deviled, or even pickled. But crumble them up, and I'm out the door.
...I also quite like egg salad and tuna salad with chopped hard-boiled eggs in it. But they're cold. Go figure.
I can eat a lot of things but the one thing that makes me go "Yuck" is – tofu. Whipped soybean curd.....cut into cubes...yuck!
That's not an irrational food aversion: it's normal. Tofu is disgusting. People who claim to like it are either lying or quite utterly insane. :)
Lol, I get ya' but I had eaten one of the most delicious salads one day and later discovered it was loaded with tofu. Go figure. I'm assuming tofu has to be treated a certain way in order for it to absorb the flavors of the other foods it's cooked with. That make sense?
Tofu is delicious, you must not have prepared it very well and thus your aversion to it :)
My sister's a vegetarian, I am not. She wanted me to try tofu so she prepared it by marinating it in the balsamic vinaigrette we were going to use as dressing on a salad. Just before we were ready to eat, she sliced it up into small pieces, tossed it into the salad along with the dressing. It absorbed the flavor of the dressing and wasn't bad at all. There wasn't anything unpleasant about the texture either. Sadly, I can't use tofu in my soy-free diet today, but it was a good lesson in keeping an open mind.
So can this be used to control diets or stop bad habits? For instance, condition an obese person to get nauseous at the smell of fried food, or make a cigarette smoker sick at the smell of smoke. The nausea would kick in like clockwork, Anthony Burgess might agree...
In theory it seems like aversion therapy should work. I certainly don't regret hating pizza! But maybe one of the problems with obese people is that they lack the aversion gene?
Honey, the only thing that obese people lack is self control.
Actually, the aversion does work with cigarettes too. When I was in college I was smoking some pot with some friends and wasn't aware that if you smoke a menthol cigarette it increases your high. I smoked about 5 menthols in a row and was so incredibly out of my head that I got violently sick. Haven't been able to smoke a menthol cigarette since.
Eggnog- Tried to make it from scratch as a child. Put milk, an egg and mayo (I know,gross) in it. Cannot even fathom taking a drink of the stuff now.
I used to hate eggs as a kid, so eggnog was also completely out of the question, too. I love eggs now, but am still afraid of eggnog and have never tasted it.
ditto da nog, blreck!
I can't stand the thick, cloyingly sweet taste or the sludgy texture of eggnog. It's like drinking yellow Pepto or wallpaper paste. Gross.
I hate Pizza. I got horribly sick as a child from pepperoni pizza and now I gag every time I even see a pizza commercial.
Octopus. I was watching a PBS cooking show and I had to change the channel.
For my daughter its tomatoes. She will not eat one to save her life! She will eat ketchup and spaghetti sauce, but not tomatoes raw or cooked! I never made my kids eat anything they didn’t like, so I am not sure where her aversion comes from. She is 22 now and we just tell people she is allergic, may as well be since she will refuse to eat anything that one is on. And my best friend is the same way – she says that tomatoes are not done doing whatever they are suppose to and that eventually she "knows" science will prove they are elements of evil. Me? I love tomatoes, however the smell / sight of liver will send me running to the nearest door for escape. I get the whole “eww” factor when I even think about it….
"The people who were good at developing taste aversions lived and had children. The ones who were bad at it – well – they largely got poisoned and died. So over the centuries, our ability to form taste aversions got stronger and stronger."
I think the word you're looking for is EVOLUTION. its not a swear word, you dont have to avoid it.
It's called "humor."
1) Beets. Mom used to make "Harvard Beets" and I HAD to eat them. I can't recall actually hurling from them but I can't stand the sight, smell or thought of beets to this day.
2) The combination of Nacho Cheese Doritos and Blackberry Brandy caused massive upheavals from the stomach back in the day. I can't stand Nacho Cheese Doritos or anything blackberry still. Lucilky the plastic flavors used in the Doritos are not really teh same as REAL nachos, so they are not part of the instant revulsion response!
Is there any way to CREATE a food aversion? Like for instance, ice cream?
Yes, eat two gallons of your favorite ice cream. No stopping until you grab the toilet. If you can handle two gallons, try 3.
I wonder if that would work: it says in the article that if you can rationalize it, it'll go away... so if you know you did it to yourself on purpose, wouldn't that kill the effect? Mind you, you still get to eat three gallons of ice cream just to test the theory...
Aversion therapy can be quite successful. For example, the parents of my hubby put him through aversion therapy. He's still gay. But now, his 'rents make him sick. Yes, indeedy – another aversion therapy success story :-)
This is the way I am with sauerkraut...even smelling the stuff will cause me to gag
For me, it was Long John Silver's. I got sick on it one time as a teenager and from then on, whenever I was around that malt vinegar, it made me gag. I've since come back around to liking it again, but it's taken me about 30 years.
I was with my grandparents in Nags Head once when I was in 3rd grade for the weekend. After we went to church we went to dinner at Jolly Rogers. Well I ate some of my dinner and ended up trying something my grandfather had. All I remember really tasting was italian sausage, green peppers, and onions. At the time it was ok. Later that night I was so sick. I was vomitting and well you know. I was like this for two weeks; turns out I had the stomach flu...(severe). To this day I still can't eat anything with Italian sausage or green peppers. I can eat onions but they have to be cooked well; not raw.
I can't for the life of me drink a glass of regular milk - whole, 2%, 1%, or skim. If I take a sip of it by itself, the gag reflex goes into overdrive!
However, I can use it in a bowl of cereal, cook with it, etc. And I have no problems drinking a glass of chocolate milk or drinking soy milk. But a glass of the good ol' regular stuff that comes from the moo-moo's? I'll whine and pitch a fit like a finicky five-year-old!
Tequila. Never, ever, ever again. I can't even hear songs about tequila without getting nauseated.
My GF cooked chicken about 3 weeks ago, and it wasn't fully cooked. I didn't realize until I was halfway done with the chicken. I said to myself, wait.. this chicken is really juicy.. almost too juicy.. looked down and was like omfg (starting to feel sick just thinking about it.) I moved my tongue around my mouth and found a peice of semi-chewed uncooked chicken and fought with myself for 20 minutes to hold it down. My iron stomach failed and I booked it to the bathroom and threw up until vessles around my eyelids exploded. I used to love chicken and now I can't even eat it anymore. Probably wont be able to eat it again in my life.. fate worse than death.
Had similar issues with Pork, Beef, Fish etc through the years and I can't eat that anymore either. Vegetables taste like crap.. so now what am I supposed to do?
Looks like it's time to invest in some vegetarian cookbooks. On the bright side, veggies can be very tasty if they're spiced and paired appropriately. And a piece of undercooked broccoli rarely sends anyone running to the bathroom. ;)
You should probably get your girlfriend cooking lessons to start with. Then try what the article said to do. Try reteaching yourslef to eat those foods...or at least some of them.
I can't have apple juice. I can eat apples and apples flavored candy but not apple juice. To me it smells and tastes like vomit. Even thinking about drinking it makes me sick. :P
Any seafood. Can't stand the smell, the taste, the texture. For as long as I can remember I have hated it. Even worse, no one believed me as a child and so I was always forced to eat it! Now I just tell people that I am allergic to seafood/shellfish, (whatever) so that they will leave me the hell alone. If I just say "I don't like it" everyone seems to feel they need to force me to try something, promising that this particular type of fish tastes great, or doesn't taste like seafood, or whatever.
THANK YOU! I thought I was the only one. I actually think I must have some weird smell thing going on with seafood. Everyone else seems to think it smells good, but it smells like garbage or feces to me.
ME TOO!! I freaking hate seafood. All of it. It all just smells nasty.
Many people are getting sick from MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) and don't even know it. It's just not Chinese foods. Many foods, including fast foods and grocery items contain MSG. Kentucky Fried is at the top of the list. Even some Wal-Mart cheeses contain it. It's an additive having no nutritional value, and is only a flavor enhancer. People need to read up on this. Many problems (headaches, swollen tongue etc.,) you may be experiencing may because of the MSG.
Tons of this stuff is being secretly added to foods in the USA each year.
MSG is naturally found in many products. It isn't just an additive. As with anything, including salt, too much of it isn't going to be great for your body.
Well said. That's why I RARELY eat at any restaurant. Once you get used to preparing and eating your own food–as fresh as possible, then you know how eating well feels. Herbs and spices do the trick even better than MSG. People need to slow down and eat at home more often.
The idea that MSG causes all of these hidden health problems is a total myth. There are much higher concentrations of MSG naturally occurring in whole foods that never trigger these mysterious effects. It's purely a psychosomatic effect (probably related to the same type of learned aversion described in this article). In blind tests, subject who had "severe MSG reactions" did not react to foods high in MSG (tomatoes, for example) or even to tomatoes sprinkled with MSG, but did react to any food they were told had MSG in them, whether they did or not.
Chris, you are dead wrong and had better do some serious reading. Google No MSG for starters.
Actually, No MSG, I spent a good bit of my life convinced that MSG caused my migraines until I DID do a whole lot of reading and realized I was eating tons of glutamates (including monosodium glutamate) in all kinds of foods (including fresh vegetables and meats) AND that I had been eating some foods with added MSG that didn't cause problems. Whatever triggers were there, were not caused by MSG.
I'm not talking about studies funded by chemical companies that produce MSG, either. Simple blind studies you can do yourself will likely demonstrate the same findings.
As health conspiracies go, this ranks right up there with the "no vaccination" folks and the homeopathic nutjobs in having no grounding in science.
There is a good layman's summary in the UK Guardian. Search for "If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn't everyone in Asia have a headache?". Also note that tomatoes, parmesan cheese, and human breast milk are loaded with glutamates and their common salt form, MSG. Marmite has more MSG than any other food product short of eating powdered MSG and there are no "Chinese restaurant syndrome" effects attributed to it. Mmmmm Marmite.
"As health conspiracies go, this ranks right up there with the "no vaccination" folks and the homeopathic nutjobs in having no grounding in science."
I've never had a flu shot and I've never had the flu. Where are you going with the "'no vaccination' folks" comment?
The people who think childhood vaccinations cause autism and refuse to let their kids have them, potentially leading to new outbreaks of mumps, measles, rubella, and other childhood diseases. The study this belief is based on was flawed, exposed as flawed, and cannot be reproduced, yet the paranoia remains.
Ah, it's clearer to me now. That's not a paranoia I claim.
It's not secret.
Fish, any kind. I hate the meat department in the stores because of the fish counter, it smells rotten to me. Just thing about makes my tummy jump!
Just thinking about it. Is how I should have said it.
I like most fish, but I agree with you on the smell.
Agreed. I hate going out to dinner and my steak dinner is practically ruined by the smell of the seafood that someone else ordered!
I can't eat, smell, or even be within 20 yards of a green pepper without feeling ill. I have no idea where the aversion came from, but it must have been deep in my childhood.
Cucumbers and Bananas. Can't quite put my finger on Cukes, but I remember my Nana feeding me bananas when I was about 8. I got an instant headache. Granted, I had horrible allergies anyways, and we were on a farm in a leaky farmhouse. But I can't tolerate anything banana flavored. I make a mean banana nut bread, though. Weird.
I invariably throw up if I eat Thilapia fish, even a very small piece. Has anyone experienced it? Now the very name make me feel like vomiting.. any idea why this happens?
Read the article. It might explain why.
Eating Tilapia is a waste of time. Being farm-raised, tilapia has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. "]Perhaps worse, it contains very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids. Research has found this. These fish also endanger other fish. It's become so popular because they are easy to raise. Skip the Tilapia.
My husband gets violently ill on seemingly random types of fish, even Virginia spots – no seeming rhyme or reason. One thing he has noticed, however, is that he has never had a reaction to deep-fried fish. Maybe there's some kind of enzyme or parasite that he is actually allergic to that is killed by the high heat?
Too many to post all of them...peppermint and peach flavors, due to Schnapps abuse at one Halloween party in my late teen years. YUCK! Still makes me ill to think about it.
i made some pudding the other day, and it made me sick.
as it turns out, I was unaware that the sweetener was "high fructose corn sweetener" and has had a proven track record of making me sick.
way to go jello – I'm looking elsewhere – to people who DO care about food, food safety, and not so much about the bottom line.
'my hope is that your bottom line WILL be effected, as many people are waking up to the notion that Corn sweeteners are JUNK FOOD plain and simple.
I used to really like pudding, pies, that are made with them.
I won't be eating them any longer, until I find one that actually reverts to actual SUGAR.
Yes. Yes it was undoubtedly Jell-O's fault for using a food that most people are just fine with eating, and enables them to make low-cost dessert products. You are in no way to blame for not considering that the most popular commercial sweetener on the planet might be found in a cheap pre-packaged food and that maybe you should have looked for it on the ingredient list before you made the food that made you sick. They should definitely have used the more expensive sugar and priced themselves out of the market just because they cared about the minority that you belong to rather than the majority that are by definition most of their customers. Because sugar isn't junk food. At ALL.
Ice Cream. Only strawberry ice cream is okay. But it has to be NATURAL, with REAL strawberries.
Anything with Heath Bar in it. When I as in college, the church sent an entire heaping plate of heath bar cookies home with me. I ended up eating a ton of them at once, and then projectile vomitted it all over the stall of our dorm's shared bathroom late at night. I ended up having to clean it all up myself since I couldn't just leave it there like that til morning. To this day I can't even look at something with Heath in it or even look at the Heath package without feeling really ill!
I have an extreme aversion to "fluffy" foods, particularly marshmallows and whipped topping. This aversion has been part of my DNA since before I can remember, and the butt of many family jokes. As a Girl Scout, I was once told during a camping trip that I could not have a s'more without the requisite toasted marshmallow. The result involved me hurling my guts up behind a log and a call to my mother to come and pick me up, a fact that I still cannot live down. I'm comforted to know that some ancient force is at work whenever my gag reflex sets in while I watch family members enjoying their Cool-Whip.
Interesting that you word it that way. I don't have an aversion per se, but I have issues with most white foods.
Rice, pasta, white potatoes: major carb spikes
Marshmallow, whipped cream/Cool-whip, most vanilla-flavored foods: bland, flavorless
I am not a super-taster. :D
When I was about 5, I got violently ill and lost my meal all down the stairs as I was going up to bed, after eating beef stroganoff for dinner. I'm 33 and it still makes me sick to even think about it, let alone eat or smell it. About 6 years ago, I got sick after eating a ham sandwich for dinner, I had the flu but I still have a hard time eating ham in any form.
Irish Car Bombed my self away from Guiness for ever... 10 in a span of 4 hours will do that.
I haven't eaten my favorite sushi topping in over 10 years. When in London I had eaten at McDonald's on Piccadilly Square and then later ate my favorite red salmon roe on crackers. That night I got food poisoning that was pretty severe and I couldn't eat for 3 days. Talked to my microbiologist father and also the doctor when I got back to the US. Both agreed it wasn't the salmon roe, it was the McDonald's burger that was tainted.
Of course I was able to easily go back to eating McDonald's burgers without a problem, but haven't been able to touch salmon roe now since, even though I know it wasn't the food poisoning culprit.
fatty red meat, especially rare prime rib and heavily marbled other cuts. I just hate the smell, the taste and texture. I guess if you can't stomach something it might as well be something that actually is bad for you over time. I do like Carpaccio though, and sushi grade tuna, a completely different experience in my opinion and has no fat blobs.
My best friend can no longer stand Tostitos "Hint of Lime" tortilla chips, even though we both used to gorge on them regularly. He got sick one night after a dinner party with friends, and it's extremely unlikely that it was the chips, since I ate even more than he did. But after that experience, he feels sick if he smells an open bag of those chips, or sees someone eating them.
When apples are cooked (cobbler, tarts, etc.) the texture of them makes me want to gag.
This is SO TRUE...also when you are sick DO NOT watch your favorite shows, music etc. Once you start feeling better you will have an aversion to them and they will start making you sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love this article...finally I thought I was the crazy one!
Lima beans. I've never been able to eat even one without immediately wanting to urp, from a very, very young age until, and likely further than, now. They just make me immediately gag. Kidney beans, less so, but somewhat. Baked beans, somewhat the same issue. Ketchup helps.
Not aversion. Just I can't swallow them. Or chew them. Or, now, smell them.
Which is, by definition, an aversion...
Mac & Cheese, potato salad and egg salad are foods that I absolutely never liked at all. Just the slight scent of them or having it anywhere near my mouth makes me gag or even vomit!
That's interesting!
I hate potato salad and egg salad. I wouldn't feed that sh!t to a starving animal.
However, I love mac & cheese. Go figure...
Tequila, in any form, definitely Tequila. Just the word alone can send my body into convulsions.
TEQUILA!!!
Strawberry dacquiris - I only had two in my life. I had one at a party and threw up all night. Later I tried one again and that came up, so there's something in strawberry dacquiris that doesn't agree with me.
Southern Comfort, all you have to do is remove the cap and I am gone!
Yes. Tequila. I was damn near poisined in Mexico. Now just typing it is giving me quivers.
Anything that even kind of tastes like cinnamon makes me sick to my stomach.
when I had chemotherapy one of the medicines was the exact shade of orange pop – it left a horrible taste in my mouth for at least 24 hours and was very toxic. After chemo ended it was at least 10 years before I could even look at orange pop, let alone drink it.
Congrats on the 10+ years since chemo!
Perppermint Schnapps.... it reminds me of community college!
Pancakes and Mrs. Butterworth's.
Loved em. Had a really bad flu about 1970.. Was sooo sick. Would not eat. Grandma had the bright idea one morning to make pancakes. "Because the boy has to eat." I woke up hungry and gobbled em up then threw up every one and dry heaved for hours.
Feed a cold, starve a fever as they say....
I still can't eat them.
When I was sick, I had apple flavored Theraflu to get better. I wonder if I had something like that now, will I get "sick" smelling/tasting it? Well now definitely because I psychologically will tell myself that it supposed to happen...
Alka-selter, things with the same lemony smell and are carbonated makes me gag lol
For the person looking for an aversion to chocolate cake: Years ago in my first apartment I was really broke and the only thing in my kitchen was a box of chocolate cake mix and 2 eggs. Paydays were few and far between. I made the chocolate cake and ate nothing else for about 3 days straight. To this day I won't touch chocolate cake. Reminds me too much of being poor.
As for other foods I hate - that fake orange 'French' dressing that came in bottles back in the 1960's. Another is beef liver. Can't drink beer or Guinness. It must be an acquired taste because I'ver never been able to get more than a mouthful down. Finally - sushi. Who knows what intestinal parasites lurk in that uncooked chunk of whateverthatis.
As for smells, the odors of gasoline and cigarette smoke give me blinding headaches. One time I splashed gasoline on my slacks while filling the gas tank and had such a violent headache it made me throw up.
The good smells bring back memories though. The smell of Noxema reminds me of sunburns - mom used to put Noxema on us when we got a sunburn. The smell of vinegar reminds me of dying Easter eggs. Any mint smell reminds me of my grandmother because she always had heartburn and was always ...always chewing on Rolaids. The burst of fresh coffee when you open a new can reminds me of my dad...he was a confirmed coffee drinker so we went throught a lot of cans of coffee.
You must really hate that Crowded House song 'Chocolate Cake'.
"Can I have another piece of chocolate cake"
Tequila shots. Need I say more?
Ovaltine! Used to eat the stuff straight up. One day a spider crawled out of my mouth after eating a spoonful of the stuff. GAME OVER!
Donnagel! (diahrea medicine) Smells like puke. Comes up faster than it goes down. You can have diahrea and vomit at the same time. Bonus! :D
LOL! This makes total sense to me. My mother used to routinely make these horrible Jell-o 'salads' into which she always put stuff like fake mayonnaise, marshmallows, fake whipped cream and black walnuts. Invariably these were made using 'red' jello, usually blackberry or raspberry flavor. As a consequence, I cannot face any jello concoction without the terror that I'm going to encounter a walnut (I just hate nuts mixed with sweet stuff, with the exception of pecans) and it has generalized into an adult aversion to all things raspberry or blackberry. So funny how these things work.
So you're saying that it may be OK for me to drink Coors again if I keep at it and don't give up? I shared pituchers with friends back in the early 80s when it first came over the Mississippi (legally, not with Jerry Reid and Burt Reynolds) and got VERY sick. Ruined my dorm room carpet and spent the next few days in class with my head down. I can drink other brands of beer but the thought of Coors still makes me queesy. I'm willing to try and overcome this. Thank you for the inspiration!
You may want to rethink trying Coors again. After seeing the "Rocky Mountain Water" flow into the plant in Colorado, I was completely disgusted and still am by even the thought of drinking Coors. Cheers!
So that's why I can't drink Yukon Jack anymore and refer to it a Puke-on Yukon. Always a reason.
Ketchup. GROSS. I don't know when or why it started, but I can't stand the smell of it, having it touch me, and definitely not on or anywhere close to the food I'm going to eat. Meatloaf with ketchup on top? NO way! Of course, when it's in barbecue sauce, it doesn't bother me – I guess the vinegar and everything else takes enough of the smell and taste away? My husband constantly tries to convince me to taste it, but just the thought makes my stomach turn.
Oh, but tomatoes I love!
This is a no brainer...LOOK at what is ACTUALLY put into "food". It's chemicals and known poisons. The body is just reacting naturally to crap.
No brainer, eh? Obviously you just decided to comment without comprehending the article at all. The article has nothing to do with whether food is organic, straight from the earth or artificially produced. It's neurochemical wiring of the brain in response to a bad outcome from anything you ingest – and from an evolutionary perspective, something that existed long before there were ever artificial anythings to put into food.
Could you describe a non-chemical please?
I can not eat anything with clove or nutmeg in it. Therefore, eating pumpkin or sweet potato pie is out of the question. When I was 8 or 9 my parents took us on a vacation to Williamsburg VA for a Colonial Christmas. We ate our Christmas dinner in the Colonial Williamsburg in. I order ham and upon taking the first bite, bit down on a clove that had been used as a decoration. My mouth filled with the bitter, horrid, taste of raw clove and immediately felt sick. I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth and couldn't eat another bite. To this day, the taste of holiday baking that included cloves, nutmeg, allspice or any of its other nasty friends turns my stomach. NASTY!!!
Shredded coconut from Hostess Snowball Cupcakes – I cannot even look at them today (or most other things with shredded raw coconut, toasted coconut is different) – although I can eat Pepperidge Farm 3-Layer Coconut Cake! Go figure....
Bananas~totally gross, everything about them, color, texure, smell, those nasty strings inside. When my kids were little, I'd give them bananas if they wanted, but would have to go wash my hands with soap and hot water immediately after. If my husband wanted a banana, he had to kiss be before, because I certainly was not going to kiss him afterwards!
I'm actually allergic to potatoes and the rest of the nightshade vegetables. I will break out if I eat raw strawberries, but jam is fine. Like other posters, the SMELL of a fish market will make me throw up; I won't eat freshwater fish, crab (like eating sea spiders!), oysters, clams, etc, and can only eat scallops or shrimp if I don't have to see or touch them raw.
No mushrooms of any sort.
good grief.
My mom and wife were also allergic to strawberries. Their hands would break out, could not wear their rings.
Wow, you must be a blast to go to a restaurant with.
or cook for.
Key lime pie ... ugh!
I got sick one night after having Chinese food at a local restraunt. It used to be me and my husband's date night retreat. Not anymore! I can't even bring myself to think of chinese food. Another bad experience led to me never touching red rind cheese or hot apple cider ever again. Just the smell duing the holidays sends me running.
It's alright, you're actually doing yourself favors by skipping Chinese food.
I believe this phenomenon is called Garcia Learning. After John Garcia, American psychology who did pioneering work in describing the phenomenon of food aversion.
"Garcia Effect"
For me it is avocados. I like the taste, have tried eating them pure, mixed etc. But after an hour or so my stomach rejects them and sends them back. The only other food I have a problem with is Butter beans, can't even put those in my mouth.
Butterbean is disappoint.
Avocados are the worst. Never had them that I know of until I was 19 or so, then unbeknownst to me, I ate some in a bite of salad and instantly gagged. Guacamole make me feel sick just to look at.
when i was four, i fractured my skull. all the hospital would feed me was applesauce, yogurt and jello. since it was a head injury, naturally, it all came back up. can't do it any of it anymore and i am way older than 4 now.
since when did a head injury automatically cause food to come back up? Maybe you were actually allergic to the pain medication.
Nausea and vomiting are very common and well-known symptoms that can result from head injuries. Maybe you should educate yourself before broadcasting your stupidity.
Locode,
You can't understand why a head injury would cause sickness? You must not know much about head injuries.
Do some reading and learn a few things before piping up.
A fractured skull can easily lead to hemorrhage and increased intracranial pressure. A frequent side effect of this is vomiting. Head injury does not "automatically" lead to vomiting; however, it is very common and I am inclined to believe MereC.
Severe headaches can make me throw up. I used to get migraines and usually felt better after vomitting. In my post I mentioned strong odors (gasoline, cigarettes) that can cause headaches and vomitting. Not to mention seasickness and motion sickness - something to do with the internal ear and balance mechanism. Severe menstrual cramps have made me throw up more than once. Not all nausea is caused by food.
milk. when i was about 3, i was shadowing my father one morning... he picked up the newspaper, and i picked up the newspaper; he poured himself a big glass of cold milk and downed it and i poured myself a big glass of milk and downed it. then i proceeded to puke it all up. i STILL can't drink plain milk, or even smell it. quite frankly, i don't even like to TOUCH it... this aversion can be a bit of a handicap since i have two milk-loving kids ("mom, does this milk taste funny to you?").
I understand the aversion to milk. I can't drink a glass of it; can only use it over cold cereal. When I was growing up we had a cow which my dad milked twice a day. In the spring wilk weeds grow in the field that smell like garlic and that garlic taste gets into the milk. Our milk wasn't processed because the cow was healthy but you could still taste the garlic in the milk. I developed an averson to both milk and garlic. Took me years and years to eat garlic in any kinds of Italian food or garlic bread.
Food poisoning from a BBQ joint. Now just the smell of anything BBQ makes me wretch.
*retch*
That was necessary.
Sweet Potatoes. DISGUSTING!! I can't stand the sight of them or the smell. Makes me want to vomit.
I have the worst food aversion ever: PANCAKES. I ate some funny-tasting ones at the Shoney's in Nashville fourteen years ago and tasted them in the back of my throat for HOURS before I gave in and threw up. BLARK!
liver. ate it, was sick for unrelated reasons, threw up. never wanted to go near it again.
Liver is about the most vile food ever. You share that one with billions of people.
That is simply because few people cook it properly. Cooked properly (in bacon grease) it is one of the best. Dont be closed minded. Didn't you read this article
it doesn't matter how it's cooked, or even if it's served with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Liver is vile.
Hamburger pizza!! Was really ill when I was thirteen. Lying on a cot near the kitchen so Mom could keep an eye on me. She cooked hamburger pizzas for everyone else but all I could do was smell them. Took years for me to even be able to look at pizza without getting queasy. Even today I will not eat a hamburger pizza, but I will tolerate small amounts of hamburger on a "mixed meat" pizza.
Nobody should ever eat anything called hamburger pizza. Eww.
it's just meat on a pizza. not a big deal.
It's actually quite delicious.
The only time I tried Hamburger pizza, it was NASTY. The restaurant put the raw hamburger on the pizza before putting it in the oven. So while it cooked, all the hamburger fat, juices, and blood ran all over the pizza. Disgusting. I have no idea how hamburger pizza is supposed to be made. Shouldn't you cook and render the hamburger first before putting it on the pizza? Whatever. I'm not touching it again.
There is no blood in hamburger or steak.
Mayonaise. Yuck.
FINALLY! Somebody mentions mayonnaise! MAYONNAISE IS EVIL!!
1. lebanon bologna (ate too many of those gross sandwiches with that nasty fake deli meat when I was little)
2. scallops (it's a textural thing, bleh!)
3. brussel sprouts (just because they are heinous)
4. coconut anything (see above, brussel sprouts)
5. I'm game for anything else
When I was 9 we went on a family trip to England. For the first time ever I tried Maynard's Wine Gums. And by "tried", I mean ate about 4 packages worth in one go and got very very sick.
So now whenever I'm in England I can't eat.
I have 2. Dill Pickles and Twinkies. Dill Pickles, I ate a few too many when I was 7 and was quite sick. I haven't been able to eat them since. The thought of twinkies, actually makes me sick to my stomach. Yuck!
What a great story!
Can't eat Waldorf Salad anymore after getting sick from eating at buffett restaurant. But I can still eat chili in spite of getting sick after eating it at a bowling alley. Weird, huh?
I FEEL THE SAME ABOUT SEX..................INSTANT VOMITING
That you ate waldorf salad at a bowling alley? Yes.
wow, read much? they ate the waldorf at a buffet.
brain... yes... millions of years... bunk
just get over it. there is no god. evolution is real.
but I bet you have a great explanation for how life began, right?
the big bang idjit.
Think about this. if some so-called god created the word, who the heck created god? Obviously that all makes NO SENSE.
If he created us in his image... how come we're not invisible too?? ;)
I concur!
Wow! You are going to be in for a shocker when you die! Yes, evolution is real. But so is God.
Senigallia wrote: "millions of years...bunk".
Can't get away from you people for a second and your mythical creationism garbage. Millions of years...far from bunk, this behavior is exhibited in millions of animal species. I bought a bag of cat food one time that was apparently spoiled and now my kitties will not touch that brand for their lives.
There is a God and He made us all. He created the Earth and universe BILLIONS of years ago. He did not do it in 7 days either. That is just a random time period made up because the people writing the Bible did not understand how long the Earth has existed. BTW...dinosaurs were real too.
I love you.
I have a serious aversion to slimy foods. I had a babysitter show me chocolate pudding in her mouth and I said stop it or I'll puke! So she did it again and I puked! Still can't eat pudding alone, jello, or yogurt. Also I dont like whole tomatoes but I eat tomato sauce and ketchup. Also why I can't eat a lot of fruit, for some reason the texture just really grosses me out. Also same goes for eggs. I bit an undercooked one on eggs benedict, it looked like snot and I was sick feeling all day.
that wasn't chocolate pudding...
Okay, NOW you made me laugh!
Fake banana, fake grape, and fake cherry, thanks to the children's tylenol I was given as a kid.
Jello, in any form, because my mother gave it to me during a stomach bug and it came right back up. When we were younger, Mom would do the fruit- in- the- jello thing. I'd pick the fruit out and hand it to my sisters on the condition that I got the fruit from their Jello.
Popcorn. That stuff is absolutely disgusting. Coat it in caramel and I can eat a handful or two, but any other way and even the smell makes me gag. With or without "butter", air popped, coconut oil, olive oil... doesn't matter, it's still popcorn and vile.
Peanuts, although I can get around that one if it's the ONLY taste in my mouth. Add bread or meat or something and I gag.
Melons are just too damn sweet to be real food. I can't even stand the smell, especially fake melon. They're sweeter than candy to me.
Hand the jello to my sisters, not the fruit.
For me it's not food, but perfume. Whenever I would get sick at school, I'd have to go to the nurse, who always wore the same heavy perfume. Now I want to wretch whenever someone walks by wearing that same perfume.
*retch*****
Okay, so what gives with pregnancy-related food aversions? Surely if my body thinks something is poisonous, I'd be nauseated thinking/smelling/seeing it at any time – but there are foods I've been perfectly okay eating – EXCEPT while pregnant, and not even during all of pregnancy; mostly the 2nd trimester. What's up with that?
That might due to the temporary change in body chemistry. Before and after my sister was preggers, she loved eating tomatoes & tuna (separately). While she was pregnant, both times, she couldn't be in the same room as either.
dx, I had the same problem when I was pregnant. For me, chocolate developed a horrible chemical taste, like insecticide smells. I cannot eat chocolate to this day (unless there are other ingredients involved). I blame the pregnancy hormones for setting it off.
coffee. i drink it every day (just one cup) but both times i was pregnant, the smell of it on someone's breath, or smelling it several office cubes away, was enough to make me gag. thank goodness i was able to go back to it once the kids popped out.
I wondered if anyone would go into the pregnancy thing. For me it was raw or even rare meat. Loved it before and after both my pregnancies, but during – yuck! Could hardly stand to even handle or cook raw ground beef. But it always kind of made sense to me that it was likely a protective mechanism.
I had an even weirder experience. Normally I can't stand cilantro, which is apparently in my genes and not just all in my head. But while pregnant, I didn't mind it. My only real aversion during pregnancy was to yogurt, which I otherwise love and have gone right back to loving even having been unable to make it through a carton of the oversweetened stuff. Three times.
As for other aversions, I pigged out on Red Vines at a class party in the sixth grade and haven't been able to stomach them since...
In high school we were allowed off campus for lunch. One particular day(11th grade I think) I got a ride to McDonalds. Half way through a 1/4 Pounder, I stopped eating. Just couldn't finish it.The thought of eating it just made me sick. It was probably 6 years before ever ate non ice cream food at McD's even though Iived directly behind one for 2 years in college.
One of my long-time favorite foods was roasted red peppers - especially grilled. 10 years ago, I made them for dinner the night I was becoming ill from an oddball digestive disorder that was about to make its first appearance about 8 hours later. I must have been "off" because I didn't feel like having them - have never rejected them before. Middle of the night, sudden acute pancreatis developed and I was a very sick gal for months - and it's been a management job ever since to keep fairly well. I still associate roasted red peppers with that first night of illness, and have only begun to enjoy them again a decade later. But it's a touchy enjoyment - I can't see, smell or make them without the memory of being so ill coming back to me. And I didn't even eat them that night I became ill!
Damn fish sticks. When I was 7 or 8 I had fish sticks at a funeral reception with lots of depressing old people and puked it all up. Now I can't look at an old person without wanting to ralph!
ROFL!
Good one Johnny'O!
Hopefully, one day you'll be looking in the mirror puking.
I'm old...........Booga booga.
Oddly enough right now it's turkey sandwiches. A few months ago I made a turkey sandwich and I don't know if it was the turkey I'd bought or because I just wasn't into it but I gagged on it and I still won't buy turkey from the store to make my own sandwich. But, oddly enough, restaurant made is fine. If it's from Jimmy John's or Penn Station or any other deli then bring it on but the thought of buying my own turkey and bread and making one makes me nauseous.
I thought I was the only one who had a sudden aversion to sandwiches, especially meat. This counts for me even if it is Jimmy John's, etc. I just cannot even begin to imagine the thought of eating a sndwich and I cannot figure out why.
Fried Shrimp is mine. When I was a kid, around 9 or 10, my family and myself went to Puerto Penasco, in Mexico. We had shrimp at least twice a day, for three weeks straight. The very last day we were there, we had some rotten shrimp that made our stomachs churn. For probably 5 years, I wouldn't touch shrimp at all...over the past 7 years or so, I have been able to slowly get over my aversion...but it's been tough getting there. I can eat shrimp grilled, baked and sauteed, but even if I fry it myself, I still cannot bring myself to eat fried shrimp without giving myself a terrible stomach ache.
Sweet so my hatred of veggies is because they are actually according to my brain bad for me. Score one for me next time my girls suggests them i'll yell at her for trying to poison me.
Had to get an abdominal CT scan once. I had to drink a whole bottle of barium sulfate that was flavored 'vanilla milkshake'. Then they made me drink another, and I eventually succumbed to gagging/retching. The stuff did taste like vanilla and was thick–like a milkshake. and now i can't eat/drink anything vanilla–ice cream, milkshake...
Ketchup is my only food aversion, anything else is fair game for the most part. For some reason when I get sick everything smells like ketchup which makes eating it, and thus smelling it, at any other time a bad idea. Luckily this problem is limited to just standard ketchup as I have no problem with curry ketchup or tomatoes in any other form.
In second grade I was feeling sick to my stomach, but my dad made me drink my milk before school. Threw up in class and haven't touched a glass of milk since.
Amen to the milk comment. My babysitter when I was four years old made us drink warm milk before naps. I haven't had a glass of milk in 31 years, but I can still rememeber what it tasted like and how sick it made me feel.
and it was her breast milk...
Mushrooms. Can't bear the smell of them. It's no food aversion, that is just a gross thing to eat. It's a damn fungus.
Yeast in your bread is a fungus too!
You're entitled to your aversions, but mushrooms are an EDIBLE fungus. Just about everything we eat is weird and creepy when you think about it.
Like I said earlier, mushrooms are slimy and disgusting and unfit for human consumption.
I went to bed on a Sunday night in college years ago after having eaten La Choi chow mein. The next morning I woke up throwing up. Turns out it was a ruptured appendix. After 10 days in the hospital – my brain will never disconnect that link no matter how irrational it is!
When I was about 6 or 7 I ate an entire jar of bacon bits. The gross, red, fakey kind. I through up for days. I couldn't stand bacon for years after that. I would cry when my mom would cook it and the house would smell like it. 20 years later, I finally have been able to stand bacon again and though I don't prefer it, I will eat it in and on stuff.
I have never been a drinker and have never gotten sick off of coconut. But, I have such a strong aversion to it that I can't even eat anything with coconut oil in it. I can smell it and it makes me sick. Shame really as most chocolate chip cookies have coconut or palm oil in them. Palm oil is just as bad and affects me the same way. There is an odor to it that I just can not get past.
There is no "perhaps" about it. Certain foods make us ill because of prehistoric dietary conditions.
Based on what rigorous science? Where?
Let me guess – paleo diet? Sorry, there is no strong evidence to support that. First off – physical/genetic adaptations to new food sources move very quickly through a population. There are only two areas that independently retained the ability to digest whole milk after weaning. Northern Europeans and the Masai. In both populations this adaptation spread through the population so quickly that in less that 7000 years 95% of the population has this ability. We've been dealing with grain for a lot longer – 10,000 years marks the known beginning of cultivation. It didn't happen over night though – you are looking at probably 12,000 years with people working on it with another 8,000 years where people were collecting wild grains. So 20,000 years to adapt to an incredibly prevalent food source. Seems likely to me. And really, the idea that grains are bad for you? The Japanese are generally seen a very healthy population – around 70% of their calories come from grain in the form of rice. If it was detrimental wouldn't you expect to see some sign of that in such a grain based culture? Instead we see the opposite – a relatively healthy and long lived population. So tell me, what is your evidence that grains and new world foods are bad for you?
Had a horrible experience with an underdone Thanksgiving turkey when I was 22 and it took almost 15 years before I could force myself to eat turkey again. Drank cranberry juice when I was hospitalized with pneumonia when I was 12 and have never liked it since, though I love cranberry sauce and dried berries. Won't eat any type of melon due to winning a watermelon eating contest when I was 10 and having a veeeery unpleasant evening when it came back up. Melon does NOT taste good recycled!
Also can't stand coconut, onions, fish or green beans but I'm not sure why. Blech on all of those items!!!
About 50 years ago when I was 4 or 5, I walked across the street, sat down under the neighbor's apricot tree and ate my fill. I think I must have had the trots for 3 days. Dad told me that apricots will do that to you. Oddly, I still like the occasional apricot, but I limit myself to 2 or 3, not 10 or 12 lol.
That's probably not the apricot, but unwashed apricot... :D
Lots of fruits in quantity then dried can cause that. Think of plums, that are the type they dry into prunes. The difference is you can easily eat a lot more pieces of dried fruit than of the fresh fruit.
Yep, da skitters are a beotch.
A rookie 19 year old drinking mistake (19 is legal in Canada btw) – drank too many screwdrivers, threw up a few hours later with the acid in the orange juice burning my throat. Almost 20 years later I recently can tolerate the occasional small glass of orange juice but will drink any juice over it.
Also as a kid I lived on apple juice. My Mom would pack little cans in my lunch. In grade 4 I opened one to see a large, bloated, dead beetle carcass floating on the top – again I only recently started to drink apple juice on occasion. Both apple and orange juice still make me feel a little nauseous though.
Mint gum, and it just started fairly recently. If I smell it I get sick to my stomach – GREAT, right?
I had to laugh when I read this one, for me the smell of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum makes me want to hurl. I remember being nauseated by the smell of someone chewing it when I was about 8 years old and I still can't stand the smell of it at age 53.
Politicians. Now I've never had one in my mouth, but, I have seen the open yapping mouths of many a politician. to this day, when I see a politician with . . .it's mouth open, I feel nauseated. . . Guess I'm allergic to BS
Well said! LOL!
Yellow Curried Chicken – When I was 15, I spent a night violently sick on a hike returning my dinner. Although it was most likely undercooked campfire chicken that was the cause, 30 years later, I still cannot even step into an Indian restaurant because the strong smell of curries causes an immediate unpleasant response. Though I have tried, I cannot seem to retrain my brain.
For me it is Salmon. Although I had never had a bad experience with it, the first time I ate salmon, I felt sick. I thought maybe it just hadn't been cooked enough, but when I had it again and felt the same way, I knew it wasn't that. Every time I've had it, I feel the same way. But I don't have any "bad experience" with it from that past. I just felt sick after eating it. What does that mean about it?
I have a problem with salmon, too. When I was a kid my grandmom and one of my great-aunts used to make fried salmon cakes for dinner and every time I would be nauseated. Also, I went out to eat with my parents when I was in my 20's. My mom ordered salmon that came with steamed veggies that she didn't want. So I ate them. The juice from the fish had run into the veggies on her plate, but I didn't think anything of it. I started feeling severely ill a few hours later. The next day I found out that my mom puked on the way home from the restaurant. Had to have been the fish since my dad ate something else and he wasn't sick. There is no such thing as good salmon dishes IMO.
When I was a little kid, I never really liked peanut butter anyway. When they put me in daycare, this girl couldn't close her mouth properly when she chewed, and she sat right across from me. So everyday I had to see and smell her peanut butter sandwich when she was eating lunch. I refused to be anywhere near peanuts or peanut butter after that. As I got older (probably 10 years later at least), the knee jerk "that's gross" faded, and I could occasionally have small amounts of peanuts or peanut butter when it was cooked into a dish (though usually I would regret it afterwards). I was allergy tested about 3 years ago, and it turns out I am allergic to peanuts. So in the years prior to daycare, I was avoiding peanut-y things because my body knew they really were harmful to me, and the years after daycare I was avoiding them because of that girl.
Tequila does the same thing to me, but that's because no one warned me you don't drink tequila shots all night and then take the buttery ni pple shots with the rest of the table.
Truly inspirational.. Thank you for sharing this heart warming story..
better confess that you actually kissed the girl with the mouth open and full of peanu butter, yummy
Ever since I was a little kid, I can't stand fish or seafood as they tasty "fishy" to me. I also can't stand the smell of frying fish or seafood. Other than that, I eat pretty much anything. My husband overdosed himself on a box of maple sugar candy at age 10 and now he can't stand the stuff. I've seen him gag when we've gone into a store that makes or sells it!
My neighbor once consumed a case of Duff Beer in an hour, and vomited all over my son. Swear I saw the devil that day. Can't stand the thought of Duff Beer anymore, makes hi didly hot in the head!
Hahahahaahahahahah – Hi diddly O neighbor! Gosh Darn it to gumdrops that Duff Beer is the Devil's nectar!
I had a bad whisker biscuit one night.. turned my stomach.. Couldn't eat whisker biscuit for a month. Then on a separate occasion I had some funky bearded clam.. Almost blew chunks all over the place and had to stay away from it for another month.
It was probably just that individual whisker biscuit or bearded clam that was bad/funky.
Or maybe it's just a monthly thing and your timing needs work.
Sounds like you should stick with sausage and head cheese.
Just stick to fuzzy tacos.
I am a recovered alcoholic. I threw up every time I drank but it sure didn't stop me from drinking.
Same but the smell makes me sick every time. I drink it even though my body says it is sickening. Two different levels of psychological levels battle it out and decide being smashed is worth the sickness.
coconut, whiskey, spiced rum and eggs...
they all bring up that going to vomit feeling.
What does a professional student Shrink know about food allergies and their causes?
Absolutely nothing.
Pure conjecture.
Since the article wasn't about food allergies, your point is moot.
maybe you didnt read the qualifications right:
"David Solot is a Ph.D. student in organizational psychology at Walden University, with a ***Masters in clinical psychology****. His background includes the study of animal sensation and perception, and *****conditioned responses to sweetness in foods.****"
So we should take your word over his? Tell me Jackinstein, what are your qualifications? Being that I've read about food aversion in many places before this I'm sure I will be stunned by your expert opinion on why this is pure conjecture.
I wonder if the same taste aversion response would include medications. There are certain medications, in pill form, that I just cannot stomach the sight of them, even the thought of them, or I get sick to my stomach. It's been so hard to take some of my meds (which are required on a daily basis with my condition) to the point I've had to try and find non-pill form variants (ie. Patches, liquids) to avoid that sick feeling I get.
AJ I think so, there was a medication I would take during a gout attack, and I got to where even thinking about taking the pill would make me ill from the memory of the effect the last time.
The red sauce at a used-to-be favorite restaurant. Got sick after eating my favorite dish there one afternoon about 20 years ago and cannot even go in the place anymore. Just the smell of it makes me ill.
Mint makes me gag. I cannot go near mint without feeling nauseated. And if the dentist uses anything mint in my mouth, I involuntarily gag. I learned that one the hard way, lol. I didn't want to be a whiner that something tasted bad and didn't complain when the dentist used a mint floss. Some of the flavor made its way to my throat, and suddenly I was coughing violently and couldn't swallow until it was all out of my mouth. After that the dentist wrote NO MINT all over my charts, lol.
Ginger ale. Whenever I had the flu or a stomach virus... anything that made me nauseated... my mother would make me drink a ton of Vernor's. To this day, I can't drink or smell ginger ale without feeling like I have the flu.
I've never been able to eat honeydew melon or cream of mushroom soup (which means no green bean casserole). Even the smell makes my gag reflex start going. Forget putting it in my mouth. I have no idea where that comes from, though. I've never gotten sick off either food... I simply cannot keep it in my mouth long enough to chew it, let alone swallow it. It's weird.
I can't stand Costco's Key Lime Pie – or anything key lime, for that matter. I suppose it's because my mother used to wash our mouths out with soap if we swore, and that's exactly what key lime tastes like to me...sigh.
OK, now explain why sweet potato pie makes me sick when I accidentally eat a piece of it because it looks and tastes exactly like pumpkin pie (which never makes me sick, and which I love).
PULLED PORK!...or basically any stringy meat. Disected human cadavers in college and pulled pork looks just like preserved, striated gluteus maximus (butt) muscle. To this day I don't even like to be at a table where it's served...and I LOVE any other bbq.
Daayyuuum! Why did I read that! Fuk......
Salted peanuts. I ate a whole bunch of them the day I came down with a severe flu and since then I only eat raw unsalted nuts(of any kind)
Also Fluff. I had eaten Fluff on some crackers at another time right before I got violently ill. Don't know what caused it, but I still blame the Fluff.
When i was little, I hate a bunch of pickles with my older brother. I ended up getting sick, and hated them since. :) Good to know why I can't eat them now, but I think I'll keep avoiding them for now.
Anyone get any pregnancy food aversions? When I was pregnant with my son, I couldn't stand the taste of jalapenos or coffee. Since they're diet staples for me, I almost went insane!!! They didn't make me gag, but they just didn't taste right. My brain was screwed up food- wise throughout that whole pregnancy. I lost 15 lbs my 1st trimester b/c the appetite center in my brain shut down. I ate about 6 bites of food a day, b/c I wasn't hungry. At all.
My food aversion during pregnancy was fish and, like you, it was one of my favorites before becoming pregnant. I couldn't even eat in a restaurant that served fish because just the smell of it cooking was enough to sicken me.
I could not eat bacon when pg and the smell of it made me nauseated. The first time I was pg, my office was next door to the little office deli and the lady would bake the bacon right when I came in and I remember that smell just hitting me like a wave as soon as I got out of the elevator.
I love tomatoes, fresh, canned, sauce, salsa etc. When pregnant, couldn't stand the sight or smell of them. And I had a lovely large tomato garden that year!
During two of my four pregnancies, I had a total meat and egg aversion. Any kind of meat, and way eggs were cooked. Before my fourth pregnancy, I was diagnosed with dairy allergy, so during that pregnancy I really worried about getting enough protein. I ate tons of almonds. I'm taking a long break from those now.
Raw Onions. If there is even a microscopic piece of raw onion in something (sandwich, salad, on burger, etc.) I can smell it and will start to gag. I have no control over this. More than once I have been in meetings where sandwiches are brought in and if there are onions anywhere I can't eat. If I'm lucky I won't have to run to the bathroom to hurl. I never admit this to anyone because it seems so juvenile, but I can't help it. Been this way since I was a little kid.
Scott Conant, is that you? (Food Network "Chopped" fans, holla!!)
Holla!!!! I love how annoyed he gets over the raw onions!
Fish sticks. They were hands down my favorite food I would ALWAY order when I was a kid. One night at home I was eating Gordon's fish sticks and BAM – lost my cookies at the dinner table into my favorite red checkered robe (it was the late 70's, kids wore robes over their PJs then. Don't judge me. To this day the sight of fish sticks make me quesey. I once in my 20's had a few beers at an English fest (at a pub) and thought I could get past it....one bite and I was done. Never again.
In 1st grade I started attending a Catholic school where the lunch ladies made you eat everything on your plate. In November, they served a Thanksgiving lunch – including cranberry sauce. I told them I didn't like cranberry sauce but they made me eat it anyway and I puked all over a nun's shoes. It took me about 15 years to ever try it again.
So sad that it took you 15 years to puke on a nun's shoes again... j/k
Lima beans...first time I ever ate them I gagged on them. Maybe in a past life I ate too many of them.
For me it's the texture of lima beans that is so objectionable. Not that they have a whole lot of flavor, but that mealy texture is so unpleasant. I do most of the grocery shopping, so I just avoid them.
I think that is just because lima beans taste awful.
Bad night involving a lot of Ameretto in college. Since then can't be near it. Also got food poisoning from pizza once and couldn't eat pizza for a few years (especially delivery pizza). Somehow I got over my pizza aversion after a while. Love tomato sauce, soup, juice, etc, but the second a piece of raw tomato ends up in my mouth, whatever I ate before that is coming right back up. My strangest taste aversion I've had my whole life is peanuts/peanut butter. Never had a specific bad experiance with it and it doesn't really make me nauseous, but the smell/taste of it is horrible to me and I can detect even the most insignificant amounts of it. My wife has tested my peanut butter detections skills several times because she thinks its all in my head but I pass every time. She once ate some peanut M&M's in secret, waited 30 minutes and kissed me. First thing I yelled was "aghh peanuts". Another time some bought some trail mix and took out all of the peanuts. She asked me to tell her what the trail mix smells like. Again, "agh peanuts".
Agree 100% with the raw tomato thing...but juice, sauce, etc. are great.
With tomatoes, I think it is that weird gel like substance that holds the seeds in the indentations of the tomato. It is so strange looking, and reminds me of several unpalatable things I won't mention here. That, and raw tomatoes are ultra squishy and messy when ripe. It's a texture thing.
I had the same issue with red jello! Mine branched over to red koolaid too, anything that had that same smell. It also got to the point where everyone just said I had an allergy as well. I thought I was the only one!
When my ex of 20 years and I were dating he mentioned getting carsick and vomiting Hostess Snowballs, to this day if he says something foolish to me all I have to say is "snowballs" and he gets nauseated! I only say it as needed.
I can't stomach Good 'n Plenty candies. I think it's because I got motion-sick while eating them in the car as a kid.
Anything grape flavored. Jello came out with a brand new flavor when I was a kid ... grape. OMG, how awesome that was – so I thought. Eating grape jello for the first time coinsided with a bout of the stomach flu. To this day anything grape flavored, and even the smell, makes my stomach do flip flops.
My son has a huge sweet tooth, but refuses to each chocolate cake from costco. He threw up after eating it once and will not touch it ever since. I'm sure it wasn't the cake that made him sick, but for his love of sweets he will gladly pass on that cake.
Have you met whazit2ya farther down the comments? :D
sorry that' NOW lactose intolerant
I once got pretty sick after eating a lot of pepperoni pizza. After that, the sight or smell of pepperoni pizza would make me feel nauseated. However I knew the reason was because I had gotten sick after eating it. That lasted about 3 years, and then one day I decided to have a slice of pepperoni pizza. It didn't make me sick and after that I could eat it again with no problem.
Stewed tomatoes. I had a rip-snorting argument with a college classmate's mother over them one weekend when she insisted I MUST eat them as served. I told her if I did I'd heave all over her table. I was at the point of grabbing my backpack and hitching back to the dorm when her brother intervened with a compromise of a baked potato (which I love.) Idiot woman. Also I confirmed (the hard way) that I inherited my mother's allergy to shellfish when two bites of shrimp salad had me throwing up for 2 days; no one else got sick on it so I know it wasn't bad shrimp. And, alas I am not lactose intolerant. I love dairy but it doesn't love me any more. The only other thing was total aversion to pasta when pregnant with my first child; I can eat spaghetti and other pastas now but have never been a big fan.
I haven't eaten Fruity Pebbles in 21 years. Spewed them all over the backseat of my stepmom's car and she had to get a new one, b/c of the smell!!! I also won't eat anything blue. I see blue food, and my brain says "Nope. Wrong. Was NOT found in nature!"lol
What about blueberries? :P
blueberries
Blueberries aren't blue. They're purple. The little fake ones in cheap muffins are gross, though.
Could be a reaction to the blue dye used in all "blue" food or fruit additives – I know a few people who can't have any food dyes.
Do I know you, O thou won't eat anything blue and who says blueberries are actually purple? There's only one person I've ever heard say that...and I'm wondering if the phrase "only Celts truly understand fire" means anything to you.
Me either.. nothing blue. It's just not natural. Blueberries have purple skin and are pale green on the inside
Wow, never read so many comments from complete BABIES. There's nothing I won't eat or try (oh, and I'm a 42yo male, 150lbs & still have all my hair!) If I believed in gawd, this is where I'd thank him/her/it/whatever! Love y'all! lol...
There's no waiting at the stfu cafe. GTFO and have a seat.
Omg! Lol! Marry me.
You obviously don't have any food allergies. Good for you. But I would submit that I am not a baby. Nor is my son with autism who has severe food aversions. It is the body's sensory system taking over, it's not a conscious choice. I guess I'm saying you don't have to be a JERK for being a little more fortunate in this area that others are.
This reminds me of two foods I developed aversions for.
A couple years back when there was the e coli outbreak in spinach I got violently ill within hours of eating a spinach omelette at IHOP. To this day even just little pieces of spinach in a pasta dish or on a pizza turn my stomach. I can eat fresh spinach if it is mixed in with other lettuce in a salad, but I still can't stomach the texture and taste of warm or cooked spinach.
Also, when vacationing in NYC I ate at Planet Hollywood in times square and had a brownie and ice cream thing. THe brownie had that horrid freezer burn flavor, and it was quite a while before I could eat brownies. I still dislike brownies that are cold, or I know have been refrigerated or frozen.
Tthere's spinach. As a kid of the 60's, I grew up with Popeye and the idea that Spinach made you strong in a jiffy. when I was about 6 I talked my mom into getting me a can of it...it HAD to be a can of course, not fresh. So Mom opens the can, I look inside and see a big wad of snot. No way. I never ate it! lol
orange soda and lipton soup! Got sick on this combination as a child and 30 years later I still cannot tolerate the thought of either!
Back in high school I was at a party and thirsty so someone gave me a glass of 'water', or rather what turned out to be gin. For many years after that I was not able to drink water straight, it always needed to be flavoured because the transparency of it seemed misleading. It's been a decade now and I can finally drink water straight again without being grossed out.
Ice cream sandwiches and Jimmy Dean Sausage Breakfast sandwiches make me feel sick. I can't figure out when it started or why but I haven't been able to eat those two items without feeling nauseous.
Wait...you were eating those things at the same time?
Jeez, we're trying to have a civilization, here, you know.
I don't know if I would call this an aversion but when I was younger I couldn't eat if there were handicapped people around such as in a wheelchair, only one arm, or any deformity. I'm still that way to an extent. I totally lose my appetite if I see anything on TV that is like that also. When we eat dinner I ask my husband if he can change the channel while we eat if there is a hospital show on or something gory. My older daughter is the same way.
All my life I have had an aversion to certain green vegetables, mushrooms, seafood and eggs. There is no reason for the eggs that I know of, I am one of those people with naturally low cholesterol no matter how much of high cholesterol foods I eat.
It turns out I have the gout gene, mushrooms are very high in purines, so that explains it, they were naturally bad for me, also any kind of seafood is very bad for gout.
As far as certain of the green winter vegetables, it turns out that according to the Chinese system of medicine and diet they are good for me and my type of metabolism. I have always had an attraction to hot and spicy foods and it turns out that both according to the Chinese system it's very good for me and also for the gout, as it tends to aklalize my body.
Parents, if your child has a natural aversion to soemthing, don't force them to eat it. I remember almost nightly beatings and made to sit at the table for hours "Mommy Dearest" style because I couldn't eat the foods mentioned above and honestly couldn't choke them down without almost vomiting. (Sometimes I actually did vomit.) The aversion was that strong. My parents were unkowingly trying to poison me by forcing me to eat these things.
Why does it seem that the majority of people on this sound off who have had some sort of food aversion, were overindulging in the first place??....Everything in moderation folks, it's not going anywhere...
Nice job on the over-generalization. Did you even read the article?
I'm sure food aversions are ONLY a small part of your questionable lifestyle...
7,000,000,000 people on earth as of 10/31.. It might be going somewhere.
LoPing FTW!
For me, it's coconut. And I've NEVER been able to eat it. So I can't overindulge in it. One taste of it and I'm puking. Oh...and liver too. First time I tried it – PUKE!
j55 need da jay jane to lighten up much
My daughter can't eat pineapple. Threw up something that looked like it when she was a child but I'm certain she hadn't eaten any. Since I suggested that's what it looked like, she hasn't touched it in over 15 years.
oh wow thats awful responsible of you, letting your 2 year old daughter eat random crap like that!
does kind of make ya wonder
In 7th grade, a friend gave me a can of chocolate powder. Being a chocoholic, I went to town and mixed the whole thing with water to a pudding consistency and proceeded to consume pretty much all of it. Needless to say, I ended up with the mother-of-all sugar rushes. Though I didn't throw up, I had a massive headache and an aversion to chocolate for a couple of weeks. Even the thought of chocolate gave me a headache. But, we're talking chocolate here and, in about two weeks, I was eating chocolate again like there was no tomorrow. Guess the whole brain being protected from poison reflex was overpowered by my sweet tooth!
I had a very poor schoolmate in elementary school and I remember I accidentally picked up his sandwich at lunchtime: a cheese sandwich, but unfortunately the cheese had turned some days prior. I vomited wildly throughout the cafeteria, was teased mercilessly for it and I have never eaten cheese again since. I assume people who eat cheese sniff their own stinky feet. Cheese eaters are sick and perverted people who have body odor fetishes. They border deviant those kinky cheese eaters. It is known throughout the civilized and sane world of non cheese eaters.
OMG! Thanks for this, I needed a really good laugh! I love cheese, can't get enough of it and only once encountered a cheese too stinky for me to eat.
Lol, loved that, thanks...and my wife loves it when I burst out laughing for no apparent reason...I'm kind of a serious guy.
Wow, you're lucky you don't like it, it's bad for the arteries. Insidiously evil, delicious badness.
LMAO! Thanks, you and Karyn have me rolling.
I had pnuemonia when I was about 4-5, and had to take a liquid medication that tastes like lime jello. It was DISGUSTING!!!!! I was never again able to eat lime anything, until I tried key lime pie. Maybe it was the fresh lime jiuice that was different, and it's not that bright green color, but I will NOT ingest green gumdrops, green lollipops, jello or hard candies that are green, because it's that artificial lime smell/taste. Green is one of my two favorite colors, so it's not the color. Just recently, I had a virus that caused nausea & dia–you know, after I ate some raw baby green beans. I tried to eat cut green beans a week or so after I recovered–no dice. I couldn't even swallow them!!!
Have never been able to eat lamb. Rest of my family loves it and my in laws loved it and had it for ever special holiday dinner. The minute I put a piece of lamb in my mouth I have to find a way to gracefully remove it or take a chance on hurling. Have never been ill from eating it as near as I can remember.
The thought of eating lamb or veal is gross to me. I just think they should get a chance to see sunlight and eat grass and get it on a time or two before I eat them!
I prefer mine to be a virgin.
Chicken parmasian (?)... used to make it all the time and loved it. But pregnant with my first child and had it..was vomiting for hours. Cannot even SMELL it anymore (and he's 19)..other kinds of italian food..no problem.
Pickles. just the smell and the sight makes my stomach turn. If I don't get away from them fast, i'll gag. I've never been able to eat them, my dad's the same way; maybe it's genetic!
I also have a problem with texture of foods; certain things...just can't eat them. I feel the texture of the food and as I'm eating it, involuntarily imagine something else and it makes me nauseous.
I'm the same way with textures. I love the flavors of pineapple and coconut, but the textures are horrible.
Wow! Glad to hear I am not the only person with an aversion to certain textures. My Mom kept feeding me peas when I was an infant and I would spit them back. The doctor told her babies taste buds change and to keep trying. They forced me to eat peas when I was 4 or 5 years old and I couldn't leave the table until I ate them. I gagged them down and then threw them up! I love brussel sprouts, spinach grean beans all vegetables but peas! Don't like the pasty texture, so I don't like lima beans or refried beans or anything like that. STILL won't eat peas and I am in my 60's!
Have you tried split pea soup? I hate peas and ham, but put them together and they're awesome!
I agree 100%, it's the pasty mealiness of such foods. Ew. My FIL can only eat split pea soup if it is pureed into a cream soup like texture. Pieces of pea or ham make him gag.
why do you not like pickles? Pregnant women love them!
Very appropriate for a pice on food aversions is the link ath the bottom of this page for a story on "national deviled eggs day." gag.
Peanut Butter Shakes. I loved them through middle school and high school. I got my wisdom teeth cut out my senior year, and all I could eat was cold liquids. It only seemed natural to stop at Sonic and get my favorite shake. That was until the Vicoden kicked in later and made me horribly sick. Unfortunately, the only think in my stomach was the two large peanut butter shakes I had earlier in the day. Once you see it coming back out, you never want it again. It was six years ago, and even the thought of a Sonic PB shake makes me queasy.
Rumrunners look the same going down as they do coming up – pink.
Here's mine, guys, and the reason I avoid ALL Jell-o gelatin over 50 years later. I was a chunky kid growing up, and had a bad habit of swiping desserts my Mom had pre-prepared for that nights dinner. My Mom was understandably a bit miffed at this, so my EVIL Grandmother Mary came up with a plan to keep me from filching goodies. She prepared a large serving of cherry Jell-o using Ipecac, a medicinal syrup that makes you vomit violently (mostly used in emergencies when poisons are accidentally swallowed)
Well, I spooned out a large serving of that into a bowl, and went to my bedroom to eat it. The result was about 10 minutes later, I was puking all over my room. I couldn't even make it to the toilet in time, and I felt like I was going to barf all of my internal organs out... the way I was vomiting I would be lucky if I had any bones left!
My Mom decades later after Grandma was long dead admitted what had happened, but even after being able to rationalize the reason I get nauseated when even THINKING about gelatin products, I still to this day will not even get NEAR Jell-o in ANY form. Yes, I agree this was a NASTY form of child abuse, and if this sort of thing would happen today these would be serious repercussions. BUT, this WAS 50 years ago when even public corporal punishment was sort of ignored.
MAYO. Gross!!!! Why do people put mayo on anything!!!! It tastes so disgusting and does not enhance the flavor of any food item.
Oh...I so totally agree! Mayo is so nasty! I am a Ranch dressing nut. I eat it on sandwiches like most people would use Mayo.
Mayo is in ranch dressing, and quite a bit of it to boot.
Use Miracle Whip instead. It's NOT mayo...doesn't smell nor taste like it. I was raised on Miracle Whip and won't touch real mayo.
They are both absolutely disgusting. There is a mild taste difference, but it still tastes nasty and akin to how sweaty gym socks smell. I even tried making my own mayo, thinking that'd make a difference. It didn't.
Mayo is nasty, but Baconnaise is goooooooooodd!!!!!!!
Anything with mayo in it or even if I THINK mayo (or salad dressing or miracle whip...anything related) I will not eat. This means Ranch dressing, Baconnaise (whatever the hell that is!!), sandwich spread, basically any white condiment! Mayonnaise is evil!
My husband has an aversion to eggs. The family story is that at 5 years old he helped himself to eggnog from the refrigerator the morning after a holiday party hosted by his parents. The eggnog was spiked with alcohol, and of course he got sick from it. It's not just the thought of eggs in their simpler forms, either. When cooking in the kitchen, I have to turn on the water and garbage disposal to hide the sound of cracking an egg when preparing items such as meatloaf or cake, or he won't eat them!
Chocolate chip mint ice cream. Got sick on it when I was 7, now 61 and I still can't even look at it!
Went on an early morning car trip with my parents when I was 4. I hadn't yet eaten breakfast (unheard of in my family, not sure what was going on there), so they gave me an apple. I ate it and threw up all over the backseat, possibly from carsickness. Fifty years later, I still cannot stomach a piece of fruit before noon.
My first adventure with liquor was being made to chase caviar on a toast point with a shot of Grey Goose when I was 13. Put me off Goose for long time. These days voddie is my baby, but I'll still pick Sobieski, or Stoli over Goose. A couple years ago, I did have a rather horrible night with Patron though and ever since then I've declared us "separated." If somebody REALLY wants to do a shot of it, I'll do one, but I bow out of any more than that.
I'm sorry to hear that you were unable to tolerate Grey Goose throughout your junior high and high school years, what a shame, you'll never get those sober years back...
Hi diddlio ho neighborino!
I cannot stand oysters. I hate how they look, the smell of them, and the taste makes me instantly puke. My father and a cousin have tried sneaking them into food on me when I was a kid and everytime I had to run to the bathroom to puke. I don't get why they are considered an aphrodesiac when they are so gross and ugly. I can't figure out why I have such an aversion to them though.
I used to like raw oysters in my meat-eating days...until I was served cooked oysters in a sauce in a Chinese restaurant. They were the size of mice. It had to be the most revolting dish I've ever had.
I love oysters. Why? When I was a kid my dad owned a boat shop and on Saturday, after he closed, he would take me with him into a local watering hole, prop me on a stool next to him, order me a coke in a frosted glass with a cherry and we would split a dozen oysters. That briny smell and taste still makes me think of my dad....with loving memories.
I loved Mac and Cheese until 6 months ago. I had my first and only gall bladder attack after eating it. It was so bad that it almost ruptured, caused liver failure, and gave me gangrene. I had eaten it many times and was completely fine until eating it that night. I was hospitized for 5 days and had my gall bladder removed as well as another surgery. Can't even stand the smell of it now. I thought I just was being silly.
I can't stand raw apples and apple juice. I hate them, and avoid the apple isle in the grocery store. It bothers me when people eat them around me. There is no known reason for this, except for an assumption that it is caused by my mother eating boxes of apples when she was pregnant with me.
Honey Smacks Cereal. I ate a bowl for dinner when I was about 7. I remember getting up from the table to go run to the bathroom, but I did not make it, and the whole bowl of cereal came back up, and all over the kitchen floor. Everytime I see that green frog on that box, I get the urge to hurl. This was 27 years ago.
Let's all have one big barf-o-rama! Breck! Hurl! Cheddarville!
Fwah! Wretch! Yak! Ralph! Blow chunks! Buick! Hork! Whistling Beef!
Shout at your shoes!
I guess this article explains some food aversions in my family: I have aversions to two foods: ginger ale (or anything ginger flavored for that matter): cause my mom forced me to drink every time I had an upset stomach
and Mott's applesauce: my mom mixed my pills into it when I was little, I can eat any other applesauce except Mott's
My brother has an aversion to milk: the doctors forced him to drink glass after glass of milk when he had a bad reaction to an antibiotic and ended up in the hospital for three days – they said they were trying to coat his stomach so it would stop bleeding
I feel you on the mixing of pills in food. When I was in 1st grade, I had to take rather large pills for a couple of months. Because I couldn't swallow them, my mom would mix the powder in with a chocolate pudding cup. To this day I avoid chocolate pudding, and if I chance eating it, I never fail to remember the bitter taste of those awful pills. That was 20 years ago.
those chalk-like mints at weddings and cantaloupe. i HATE juicy fruit gum because it tastes like cantaloupe!! GROSS!!!
My husband and I both can't stand the taste or smell of cantaloupe! It smells like a big cow fart and tastes horrible. I never thought Juicy Fruit tasted like it, but now that you mentioned it- I won't chew it anymore! I don't like any melons of any kind. Too bad because they're good for us!
"... big cow fart ...." ROFLMAO!!
I can't eat people's faces anymore. This one time I ate someone's face and got shot. Now whenever I eat them I feel like I'm being capped by the fuzz!
ROTF LMAO!!!
Your theory is interesting; however, no matter how much I poison myself with beer my brain forces me to drink more!
The reason you don't develop an aversion to Beer is because there were many times you drank it and DIDN'T get sick/poisoned. Your mind accepts the tradeoff that Alcohol has to offer. FUN with the possible side effect of a hangover if you over do it... I'll take that risk...
Amen to that!
Took me three times to decide I really liked sushi. FIrst time I was drunk, and I liked it. Second time, drunk again, and something upset my stomach, but wasn't sure if it was the booze or the food. Tried it for a third time (sober this time) to be sure, and I've loved it ever since.
Thats daring. I love sushi but would never eat it while drinking. For that matter, I won't eat any of my favorite foods while drinking out of fear that I'll develop a taste aversion, except for those foods that for some reason only taste good while drinking (fast food).
I think this applies to people as well. I know of people whom upon sight make me feel sick.
AGREED! i love it!
The coconut example was very apt in my case. My bete noir was "wild" cherry flavored drink mix mixed with rum. Got hellishly sick off of it when I was a party-going 20-something. The thing is, couldn't really taste the rum, but definitely could taste the cherry, and it's only now, almost 30 years later that I can really face cherry anything again.
For me it's the 9th. Any time I hear Beethoven's 9th I get physically ill, ever since the doctors let me out of jail early.
No matter how bad it gets, please just don't jump out the window!
One food has this effect on me – Coriander (Cilantro)
When I was 20 I was stationed at the Panama Canal zone. One day I went to a nearby restaurant that served 'pico di gallo' instead of salsa. I had never had it before but it was "OK' although I remember thinking to myself that I much preferred the tomato-rich taste of salsa over the almost overwhelmingly 'herby' taste of pico di gallo. I didn't eat but 1/2 to 3/4 of the small initial serving with my chips while waiting on the meal.
(usually I eat about 3 bowls of salsa, LOL)
The rest of the meal was FABULOUS following the pico. when I was almost done my mouth began over-salivating and I had no idea what was going on. I barely made it into the men's room before giving the entire meal back. When I was done and had recovered and my mouth and palate was again clear I went back out to pay my check and leave. As soon as I had entered the dining space and the smell of that pico di gallo hit me again the saliva reaction began anew. It was a test of my will to keep myself under control, pay my check and leave with dignity. As soon as I was in the fresh air after leaving and driving away I was 100% fine again.
In fact...since initially I had been so STARVED prior to going to that restaurant, I stopped on the way home and got 2 McDonald's Quarter-Pounder+cheeses, and Large fries and a large vanilla milkshake and inhaled it. No problems at all.
That was my VERY FIRST encounter with 'coriander' (cilantro) and it was a complete disaster. To this day I can smell coriander in the SMALLEST amounts in any food no matter how it is prepared. Sometimes I am not even 'aware' that I smell it. My body just begins that pre-emptive saliva response and THAT is what tips me off that coriander is nearby.
By the way...the smell of coriander is not unpleasant to me in any way and I love dishes that have that sort of 'fresh' taste the other 99.9% of the time...my body just doesn't play well with coriander/cilantro.
C'est la vie, eh?...
Ooh I hate cilantro- it tastes like soap suds! It is disgusting. I can see why you got sick! I made the mistake of using some one time in making some homemade salsa. Yuck- it tasted like I put Dawn dishwashing liquid in the salsa. I will use dried parsley instead, and very little of it.
me too!
Pseudo science at it's best!
I used to hate onions (don't know why). When I was 12 I thought that hating onions was stupid because the rest of my family ate them. So, one day I grabbed a huge white onion, peeled it until the shiney part, got a shaker of salt and bit. I forced myself to eat that whole onion. My eyes were watering, my mouth was on fire, but I kept on. I now LOVE the smell of onions being sauteed and I love sauteed onions. I can tolerate a moderate amount of raw onions on food, too. It's like Duh Man said, "mind over matter." Now I have to work on cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream. Good thing I like other rancid dairy products like fette, bleu, provelone, cheddar, Swiss...!
Ah the science of Learning! I think it was in MT in the 60s or 70s that some folks tried to condition a taste aversion in wolves to sheep and cattle – they avoided the sheep and cattle and the farmers didn't have to shoot them. If I remember correctly, it worked pretty well. Also, kids undergoing chemo are now routinely having novel, non-favorite foods prior to treatment to avoid the conditioned aversion. Funny article, because we've known about conditioned taste aversion for like 50 years, and the application has been minimal. How about an article about conditioning and drug abuse!, much more relevant?
A Clockwork Orange
I had the same reaction. Old story, been done. But that's true of so much grad work - you try to find a new twist on established science.
Aversion training has been used successfully on alcohol and tobacco addictions. The best description of extreme aversion training is in A Clockwork Orange. Yikes !
I live 7 miles from the Mexican border and I LOVE Mexican food of all kinds. However if it has one tiny piece of Cilantro in it I can taste it and puke! Can't stand the stuff!
There's a physiological reason why some people can't tolerate the smell or taste of cilantro (coriander). It's worth looking up. Really interesting.
I gotta' look it up. I adore Cilantro. Just smelling it has a very aphrodisiac effect on me. Love the stuff.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html – "Why Cilantro Tastes Like Soap, For Some", from New York Times website.
P.S. I'm not a cilantro hater, but I do really hate hominy.
Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects.
I can't eat lo mein because I got horrible msg poisoning the very first time I ate it.
I pigged out on candy corn when I was 5 years old. Ate a whole bag, threw it up all night!! 38 years later, I still get creeped out just thinking about candy corn!
those after-dinner mints they serve at weddings... just gagged a bit thinking about them.
When I was pregnant 31 yrs agoI got really bad abdominal pains after eating food with mushrooms in them and I always figured it was the mushrooms that caused that pain and haven't eaten mushrooms intentionally since and feel really sick if I eat something and find it had mushrooms in it. The pain was probably just that I was pregnant, but I still won't eat mushrooms.
Mushrooms are slimy and disgusting and unfit for human consumption.
Not fresh ones!
Note to self: Never have sex while feeling ill ever again, just in case.
Man, that is so, like, deep. Gotta get me one of them Ph.D.'s.
MILK (haven't drunk since I was 3) & MAYO- eewww!!
The smell and the look will just make me want to hurl. However, I do love all cheeses, cream cheese & yogurt...hate cottage cheese. My mom admitted to giving me (at 3yrs) a punch of milk w/eggs and apparently it was out to long before I drank it, so I vomitted like crazy. She says since then I hated seeing the sight of milk..no wonder I hate even cottage cheese and mayo....smells like vomit!
I didn't read all the comments, but did anyone mention booze?
Of course, Philip mentions booze just as I ask....
The first time I got drunk it was on Peppermint Schnapps. It took me years to try it again, still something I wouldn't drink today, but it doesn't gross me out anymore.
Tequila... first time I drank.... I puked it up... now even the smell of it makes me queasy.
About 14 years ago I had an after-dinner Drambuie (this after 2 glasses of red wine while eating).
I was quite sick the next day and knew then that liqueurs were not for me-too much sugar mixed with the alcohol.
I have never been sick off of tequila, but I don't think I could knock back a shot of the stuff. It has such a sharp, rubbing alcohol-like afterkick. Even in a mixed drink, it gives me the shivering willies from the alcohol taste in anything but a very small amount.
The grossest foods that I can't deal with are canned green beans, braised tofu, and RAISINS. I detest raisins. I don't get why people try get cute and put it in various dishes and deserts. They are oversweet and vile.
Oversweet and vile? Sounds like my first wife....
*rimshot*
Liver. I don't care how it's cooked or which animal gave it up. I cannot abide the smell, taste, anything about it. Not even in giblet gravy.
Not even with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti?
funny..
i so agree!!!! why would anyone want to eat a blood cleansing organ? never made sense!!
With you 100%. There's only one organ I eat and it's not suitable to discuss in this forum (pun intended).
Eggs creep me out only way I can eat them is scrambled and well done. Unless I monitor someone making them or make them myself only! Due to that disgusting curly que zygote looking thing attached to the yolk! If I don't se the zygote removed I can't eat scrambled eggs.
That is not a zygote, my dear (unless you're into homegrown chicken eggs that have a rooster present.) That is the "chalaza", a bit of membrane that helps to keep the yolk centered in the egg.
It's a zygote to my brain and my psychological food aversion won't allow me to think any different. Thank you for the info but I have no control over this issue. ~.~
It's a chalaza zygote to my brain and my psychological food aversion won't allow me to think any different. Thank you for the info but I have no control over this matter. Same way I can't eat a fresh fig but love Fig Newtons!
I don't care what it's really called, I just call it that "spermy thingy". Have to take it out and get rid of it.
I'm still laughing at the strange example of food-borne illness the author chose to use. The odds of becoming unwell from coffee creamer? Next to none. The odds of getting a GI bug from restaurant Indian food (most Indian restaurants just reheat vats of precooked curries and sauces when you order)? Huge.
Not all food aversions are experience-based. Since becoming a vegetarian many years ago I've noticed that as time goes by I am more and more nauseated by the smells and appearance of meat and seafood - especially fish and bacon - even though I've never gotten sick from eating those foods or eating foods that accompanied them. It's the fleshiness of the smells that gets to me. I do have food aversions based on actually getting ill from a food, but one of my strongest reactions is to something I've never consumed. The smell of Bourbon makes me cringe because that was the drink of choice for my alcoholic, abusive parent. It's associated with deep-rooted trauma.
cooked carrots, yuck. but love them raw.
That's not aversion... cooked carrots are just nasty!
Alliterative addendum: cooked canned carrots are crud.
When I was 7 I picked a huge bowl of raspberries from my aunt's bushes and selfishly refused to share any of them. I ate the whole bowl along with a big of sweetened heavy cream poured over them. I threw up raspberries for 3 days. I am now in my 40's and have just started to be able to enjoy raspberries again!
When my siblings and I got big enough that a suitable dose of baby aspirin would have required half the bottle, my mom would give us an adult aspirin. Since we couldn't swallow it whole and wouldn't chew it because of the bitter taste, she would crush it up in a spoonful of jelly. It just so happened that the jelly flavor we usually had in the house was grape . . . so now neither I nor my siblings will eat grape jelly.
ate tons of sweets and meat and some potato growing up in a large urban area on the east coast. very picky eater but ate a lot of food. the only veg. i would eat was cooked spinach. drove my parents crazy. by 1969 in boot camp @ paris island, s.c. i was continually feeling starved. guess what? i now eat everything, and i mean every thing! except lima beans and i can eat those! love pineapple and of course pizza. there's something morally wrong with putting the 2 together on a pizza!!
during my 30's i got a ton of viruses, flu's,bacterial infections.craved chinese food, mostly soup. no aversion there.
i think the theory is speculation and conjecture but one worth studying as it may lead to other brain brain regulated associations.
I had the exact same experience described in the article... but with Guinness. :(
I drank a glass of Guinness once, and it reminded of the acridness of liquid smoke, which I detest. It was the only time I drank Guinness.
MARSHMELLOWS.. ugh.. can't stand them, except in hot chocolate. BUt marshmellows out the bag make me gag. I remember eating a whole bag when i was little and yacking after because i had had too many. Other than that im happy to oblige any one willing to cook, by eating!!
I LOATHE cheese! Doesn't matter what kind, if the word cheese is in it, I don't eat it. I'm keenly aware that my cheese aversion is irrational but I just can't bring myself to eat it. I become naseous at the sight/smell of cheese and I gag/vomit at the taste. I can't even touch it w/o wearing gloves.
It started when I was 2 yrs old and had my tonsils taken out. I don't remember but my mother has always told me, after the surgery, I refused to eat eggs and cheese. I eventually began to eat eggs again but cheese will always be my no. 1 most hated food ever! (unless I go to therapy :)
I like raw marshmallows, but the cooked ones are nasty. Marshmallow candy is gross too.
I love marshmellows can eat them right out of the bag!
For me its brussell sprouts. Tried it as a kid and I remember the taste that wouldn't go away. Til this day if I see brussels sprouts or its cooked with other veggies or other foods I won't eat it.
Hashbrowns – I'll never forget throwing up those chunks in the 8th grade, and that revolting taste. Haven't touched them since.
hmmm...i had to take cherry flavored medicine when i was a kid and now cannot eat anything cherry flavored. (or cherries either, for that matter.) but that is the only aversion i have.
i ate m&m's until i threw up–they came out of my mouth AND my nose, for hours it seems. and the next day i was downing them again. new ones, i mean...not the same ones. i've gotten sick on m&ms more than once but have never been deterred from eating them. they are still my favorite candy.
i got sick at a potluck dinner one time and i still hate potluck dinners. i only eat my own food or food from a package (chips, etc) when i am forced to attend one. i don't have any idea what food made me sick, i just blamed it on the whole stinking event!
sooo, i guess the cherry thing is NOT the only aversion i have. LOL
I'm currently eating peanut M&Ms, now I'm trying to picture them in my nose. lol.
I know, I thought that was a hilarious post as well!
LOL!!
I'm with you on the cherry flavor. It will always remind me of taking Robitussin cough syrup when I was a kid. After reading this article I realize that my mom was trying to poison me!
It was strawberry flouride treatments at the dentist when I was a kid. I cannot eat anything strawberry flavored. Fresh are fine, but not artificial flavored.
I've gotten sick from eating too much chocolate yet I still eat it. I think the happy chemicals your body releases when eating chocolate outweigh the negative experience of revisiting it hours later.
"Cherry-flavored" medicine (including cough drops) doesn't taste anything like real cherries. I love fresh and packaged cherries, and I just stay away from fake-cherry stuff.
I have always hated tomatoes. My dad made me take a bite out of a raw one from his garden when I was little and it was the nastiest thing I have ever tasted. Ever since, I will meticulously pick out all tomatoes out of everything. For whatever reason, I also cannot stand salmon even though I know it's good for you.
I'm not a vegetarian. I drink milk, eat eggs and fish, but man, I hate the smell of meat. It smells like rot to me. Ever since I was a kid I hated it. The thought of the endless chewing on a piece of steak or anything like a porkchop makes me want to hurl.
i hate the smell of ground beef cooking. ugh. but i love the smell of a good steak on the grill!
The smell of ground beef cooking in a pan is the smell of blood proteins cooking, while the smell of a steak on a grill is mostly fat caramelizing .
One of my grandmothers considered tomatoes poisonous and would never grow or serve the, Turns out that she was second generation American from England where people were poisoned with lead from eating tomatoes and other acidic food off pewter plates.
Maybe this will work in reverse and work as a diet program. Avoiding your favorite fattening foods, by developing an aversion to them, can help you lose weight.
Been done. People just find other foods. You can overeat anything.
I had a horrible lasagna experience when I was 11 or so; couldn't stand it – couldnt' even stand the smell of it – for more than 25 years. Other Italian foods – no problem. Just couldn't handle the lasagna. I have been able to eat it for the last few years, but it was a terribly strong aversion.
After Iraq, I hated bottled water.
Why's that?
And thank you for your service!
I am also curious to hear some more on this aversion...
God bless you for your service! My nephew also had this reaction.
Oh and how about texture aversions? I wish there was an article on that because feel of cotton gives me chills. HATE COTTON!
I have the exact same reaction to yarn. I can't touch the stuff either rolled up or knitted into a piece of clothing without getting a shiver up my back. No idea why though, I can't think of an event that would make me "averse" to yarn.
What do you wear then? Jeans, slacks, most shirts all have cotton in the material if not 100%.
I feel the same way about coconuts... I like the taste of coconuts, but not the texture.
My family laughed at me for years growing up because I hated the feel of cotton. Turns out that my job of folding fresh diapers for numerous siblings 45 years ago, off the clothesline probably caused this aversion.
I also had the job of ironing sheets, handkerchiefs and my Dad's shirts! No fabric softener back then. (kind of sounds like child slave labor, but we all had chores!
For years my favorite burger was from the Canadian chain Harvey's. Couldn't get enough of it.
In 2004, on a visit to the West Edmonton Mall, I ate at Harveys and then got sick riding the roller coaster inside the mall. Have not been able to even walk into a Harvey's. I get sick everytime I go through security at Edmonton Airport because there is a Harveys right there.
The smell of Subway bread made me want to VOMIT when I was pregnant. Still at times I can't stand it. People think it smells good but I think it smells terrible.
This research is nothing new. It's been studied extensively for at least the last 40 years. In fact when I taught this in class, I typically used the same analogies as the author of this article. Glad to see it's a 'new' topic of conversation.
Touche, pony. I remember reading about this while in undergrad. It does show the incredible power of our body and mind and the interaction between the two. And although it's "old science" and has been studied and written about extensively, it's nice to see a piece on it so that those who aren't familiar with the subject can become more aware of something like this and get an idea of how primitive we still are in many ways.
I am a clinical social worker who does frequent trainings on trauma, and before the terrorist attacks on 9/11 I would search for participant's personal food trauma as a way to help them understand some of the aspects of trauma (physical response, unwanted associations, attempts to avoid re-experiencing the event, etc). Most people could identify withh that because everyone has one..... mine is Raisinets – my husband's is cracker jacks and my son can't be in a room with a tuna noodle casserole on the table! After 9/11 it became easier for people to understand a trauma response – because most of them could recall aspects of that event as a trauma response (images of planes going in to towers is usually what can trigger an emotional reaction).Thanks for filling in the blanks – and helping me understand the survival/poisoning aspect of food aversions. It makes a lot of sense.
I didn't have a food related reaction...but watched live the broadcasts as they unfolded and being on the West Coast, it was very early in the morning here...5 something a.m.
I developed something my husband called "Osmnia" in which I have never been able to sleep more than a couple of hours at a stretch since then. Not food related but one of us in the house always felt that we had to be watching the news on any channel!
Persists to this day. Not out of fear but 'aversion' to the fact that this could have happened in our country!
Okra. But that's a weed, not food.
Okra, fried in small chunks, is delicious and not the least bit gummy.
I'm puking out my rear this morning......I wonder what I ate.
Someone else's butt puke.
Are you living with 11 other people and you're all sewn together?
I have the same feeling for Obama, barf
this isn't about Obama....leave politics out, for the love of food.
Jell-O and Sprite – it was all I could have while prepping for a colonoscopy. Yea, good times. just the thought of either one again....
EGGS MAKE ME WANT TO DIE. i hate eggs with a passion. the smell, the look, everything. no eggs
ugh – I had that FOREVER, too. I'm almost 30 and I finally can stomach them again. I have no idea what happened. something so heinous that it's been repressed! But I HATED eggs until only very recently, where I'm trying to force myself to dislike them less.
I think we could put this knowledge to good use if it could be adapted for the weight-loss industry. For instance, I could definitely benefit from an aversion to chocolate cake! :)
Oops, didn't see that the first comment had gone through. Oh well, still a good idea! :)
I remember visiting the Museum of Natural history in the 5th grade, then heading to the Planetaruim..I lost my lunch on the bus and had enough money to get lifesavers at the gift shop...this was back in 69...I was hungry and ate an entire roll of wintergreen life savers. Fast forward 40 years, and the smell of the stuff gags me. I got so sick on the bus ride home I barely made it off the bus without heaving. Got home and was sick all night. Funny thing is...my kids would buy life savers and other candy and I would forbid them to buy anything wintergreen flavored! yuk!
Artifical Cinnamon and Apple Spice. The smell of fireball breath, Big Red Gum, & Hot Fries make me so sick. Christmas time at an Arts & Crafts Store is torture, too. When I was young, my mother would spray this overpowering cinnamon spice air freshener during Xmas that you could not escape. I have to hold my nose to avoid smelling those nasty scented pine cones at Christmas stores.
Can someone come up with a way to make this work to our advantage? I could use an aversion to chocolate cake, please! :)
LMAO! There are ways, but if they work, how are you going to feel about what you've done afterwards?
Eat all you want of your favorite cake and then down a dose of syrup of Ipecac..... that'll cure ya!!!!
LOL. Now that's something I have an aversion to: making myself fwah. I don't know that I could knowingly swallow ipecac.
BANANAS. Even as a baby my mother said I refused to eat them. My father was the same way. I can not stand the smell and can instantly taste them if they are in something.
SUSHI. When I was pregnant with my 2nd child a co-worker would eat sushi everyday. The smell would make my stomach churn. Still can not tolerate the smell of it today. She is 11 years old now.
Yes, bananas! I know I ate bananas as a child, and we always had them in the house. Now, I can't stand the smell (nauseating!), texture and taste of them. However, I like banana bread. Go figure.
I also can't eat Frosted Flakes because shortly after I ate a bowl, I got 24-hour flu and puked them all up. This was 20-some years ago, and I STILL can't eat them!
As I've gotten older, peppers give me heartburn. Now I can't look at them without getting sick to my stomach. I've always hated olives and tried them a few times to get over it, but I just can't like them – same with cooked carrots but LOVE them raw. This is all fascinating.
I gagged on some little bones in fish when I was a kid.
A year or so later my grandma told me I had to eat some fish or I couldn't watch a TV show. I told her if I ate it, it would just come right back up. I guess she didn't believe me because she told me I still had to eat it. Well it was no surprise to me when it came right back up after I tried to eat it. So now I not only associate fish with gagging but vomiting also! I have been trying to like fish for years. I can eat a small bite if it isn't fishy smelling but my stomach still wants to hurl even if it tastes good. I have to really talk to myself to keep it down or just not think about it. I hope I can get over it someday. I'm 44!
I used to love wheat thins. Ate them in my first trimester of my first pregnancy when I felt nauseous. They didn't sound good for a long time. But now I like them again.
I used to love dark turkey meat. Threw it up in my first trimester of my first pregnancy. Was a long time before I could eat it again. Now I like it again but maybe not with the same fervor.
I did an aerobics video for the first time during my first trimester of my second pregnancy. Went to do it again after the pregnancy and the nausea came back!
Listened to the music to the Disney Tarzan movie alot on a trip during the first trimester of another pregnancy. That music made me feel nauseous for years afterwards.
My mother would listen to that Tarzan soundtrack in the car daily! Adversion to Phil Collins.
Shrimp
first favorite food upon moving to coastal Texas (BBQ and tacos came later)
Then I had a second date with a really hot woman, had a bad shrimp, but refused to spit it out in front of her, and twenty years later I stll won't eat shrimp
I hate liver from any animal and beef tongue. When I see beef tongue, I start thinking what all has gone across that, and I get very nauseated. Of course, it is skinned either before or after cooking, but still the thought of eating tongue is awful. I also don't like raw tomatoes but I do like ketsup, tomato soup, tomato sauce, etc.
Bacon- Had food poisoning from it in 1997. I still consider all bacon poisonous.
BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Water. In advance of my ultrasound when I was pregnant I had to drink alot of water as the dr. advised, so much that I threw it up before getting to the appointment. For years after, looking at a glass of water made me gag.
That's probably a bad thing... You know, being that water is in every single food and is the most important substance for our bodies and all.
I am with you, I was the same way with water after having ultrasounds. It got to the point where I could only consume juice beforehand.
Mayo ( or M.W. ), no violent reaction, I just don't like it at all.
As a young boy I was poisoned by a baloney sandwich and I've always blamed the mayo.
So anything that involves two slices of breqad and stuff between them requires mustard.
The analogy you used to illustrate your point hit home so hard. I bought a HUGE bottle of Malibu to celebrate campus life at college. I matched my roomie shot for shot, drank lots of Baileys too (WHY???) then we went to a hypnotist and drank Smirnoff Ice all night. I was so sick (understandably) the next day, but I blamed it all on the Malibu. I can drink Smirnoff okay and just started drinking Baileys as a nice little dessert once in a while, but even walking by a bottle of Malibu gets those memories of that awful hangover flowing, and I vow I will never touch it again! My body will not allow it.
The first and last time I got roaring drunk was on vodka & orange juice. I still avoid vodka, and it took me years to like orange juice again.
I couldn't eat tuna for the longest time. When I was 5, I had been out running around in the hot summer sun all day. When I came in, I wanted a snack and I used to LOVE tuna out of the can. So I had some.. a few hours later I threw up. I couldn't eat tuna (or fish in general) for about 20 years.
Too all you tomato freaks out there. I LOVE RAW TOMATOES – straight off the vine even. I can eat them like candy, all day, preferably with a little salt unless they're cherry tomatoes. I love that crisp yet tangy pop of flavor when taking cherry tomatoes to the dome. I love taking a big bite out of a raw tomato and having the juice squirt out everywhere and the seeds splatter all over. I can devour a large tomato in seconds (and do so frequently).
Kudos to you. LOVE raw tomatoes too. There is nothing like a tomato right from the garden. As kids we used to steal them from the garden and eat them like apples. YUM.
I like them with salt, pepper, and a little bit of sugar! Tomatoes are super awesome!!!!!!!!
Really?! So you're telling me that If I eat something and get sick after eating it, I might not like it anymore? I'm glad I had time to read this article to learn this.
Gin left an impression and I've not bought more gin. Golly, now I know why!
Anything flavored with artificial Spearmint is absolutely repulsive to me. If I use toothpaste that has that flavor, I will instantly feel sick. Fake Spearmint candy, breath sprays, etc... all disgusting to me, however, for some odd reason, mint chip ice cream does not gross me out. I was a victim of some pretty intense child abuse, and I suspect that being beaten when I was brushing my teeth, or being screamed at during that time, might have given me this aversion. It could also be that my abuser chewed Spearmint gum.
Same for me with wintergreen. But I didn't have an abuser. Hope you got out and are safe. :)
Mint chip ice cream probably doesn't have the same effect for you because it's flavored with peppermint.
I. Hate. Milk. I can't stand the smell, the look, anything. I haven't drank milk since I stopped drinking a bottle. I'll use it in cooking, but I have to eat my cereal dry or with white milk.
Bleh.
Rice milk. Not white milk. Geeze.
I thought i was the only one that was grossed out by milk......repulsive.. I also can't any type of seafood "if its from the sea its not for me"
Thru a blood test, I recently learned that I'm allergic to cow's milk. When I tried goat milk, I couldn't tell a difference between it and cow's milk. And it didn't effect me at all. How about nut milk? Almond is the easiest to find, but there are methods on the nets for making your own out of almost any nut.
Duh, I just signed up for that reading comprehension class I keep hearing about. :) My apologies for misreading your post.
About 5 or 6 years ago I had Subway on a car trip home from Christmas, I started feeling sick in the car and after I got home I was praying to the porcelain god. To this day I cannot eat at Subway; even thinking about eating one of their sandwiches makes my stomach churn. I have never been able to eat whipped cream, custards, yogurt or any fruit pies other than apple. And I hate bell peppers, no matter how small of an amount is in something, I can taste it and I won't eat it.
Jelly Beans do it for me. When I was about 9, my mother gave me a big bag of jelly beans to share with my brother and some friends. I thought it would be better to go into the bathroom and eat the whole bag of beans myself. I was puking all night and into the next day. To this day, I can't stand them. My parents would have a good laugh every Easter for years after that incident.
Wow, same thing happened to my mother as a child. She's now in her 70s and still can't even LOOK at a jelly bean.
The exact thing happened to me, but with some yellow jellybeans. I'll eat a rootbeer falvored jelly belly now and then, but all others instantly make me feel icky. Those and Snow Caps. Ughhhhhh....
tomato... within 20minutes I will have severe stomach pain for about 5-6hours. I have taught myself to eat food items such as green,red,yellow peppers, squash, onions etc, items I did not eat when I was younger, but tomato- I cannot do. I had a bad experience eating one that probably wasn't ripe when I was about 8 or 9 years old and since then my body rejects it, makes this difficult now living in Mexico jajaja.
What about tomato sauce?
When I was in third grade I had a big bowl of Lucky Charms before school. I threw up within two hours of school, a weird multicolored mixture. I couldn't eat the cereal, and even seeing commercials for the cereal in the morning made me sick to my stomach.
Jagermeister. I cannot drink Jagermeister. The smell is awful and reminds me of black licorice (but I can still eat black licorice and enjoy it). I got really drunk at a party in October during my first semester of college and topped off the night with three Jager shots. I was home for Thanksgiving break a scant few weeks after the party, and my older sister had bought a bottle of Jager at the liquor store. I nearly booted on the spot just seeing the bottle. That was 11 years ago, and I still can't drink it.
If you boot twice, is that re-booting?
Jager is super nasty! If anyone ever offers you Zambuka, don't do it! The licorice smell is waaaay stronger and the texture is like maple syrup. *gags*
I eat absolutely everything and have no food aversions. I'd be the dead caveman eating the poisonous berries. Thank goodness I was born today and not back then.
Me too. I'd definitely be a goner. I've had food poisoning at least 3 times – and still eat the foods that make me sick – and I've certainly been drunker than I care to admit – which resulted in severe illness, and it didn't stop me from hitting any of my favorite alcoholic libations again! I'm grateful that I'm not a caveman.
Exactly, Sophia! Same here. They should do a study on the exceptions to the general rule. What about us makes us continue to eat foods that harm us (for me it's usually REALLY hot and spicy foods – ouch the next day, but I keep on going for more)? Same with Gin. I guess some of us are just gluttons for punishment.
Eggs in any form other than scrambled... and even sometimes that is even iffy
i hate eggs. I hate the way they smell, the way they look. I dont like them period
Fruit- I cannot STAND fruit! When I was little, my dad had so many fruit trees in the backyard and my sisters and I would run around playing. Tons of fruit (plums, apples, peaches, pears etc..) would fall on the ground and rot. When we would run around sometimes we would smash the fruit with our feet, the thought of the disgusting rotten fruit on my feet would make me soo sick to my stomach. Now I can't even LOOK at fruit without dry heaving and feeling nauseous. BLEHT!
For me, it's Kool-Aid. My mom gave me some orange Kool-Aid about 15 years ago when I had a virus. I threw up everything I had eaten before drinking the Kool-Aid. Now, I can't drink Kool-Aid and I can't eat or drink things that are artificially citrus flavored. I'll either get sick or have a killer migraine.
... it's not the kool-aid ....
keep away from starbucks sandwiches.
wow, glad i'm not you guys. Pretty much the only food I go out of my way to avoid is celery, and even then I'd eat it if it was presented to me at a friends' house or if I was eating out.
I wonder if you were stranded alone with the food you hate, if your body could overcome the urge to not eat it... I'm sure eventually you'd eat it but then you'd relive the trauma of starving every time you tasted it!
"...and now you can’t come near it?" should be...and now you can't GO near it. Why is proper English, syntax, and writing such a mystery to professionals and editors anymore, especially CNN of late?
who gives a flying c0ckroach?
a bunch of babies with first world problems. Food aversion? Probably not an issue in the Sudan or Sierra Leone.
This is supposed to be fun and light-hearted.
gotohe ll squared
It only sounds like that because you don't know how to read.
I was routinely severely beaten and raped as a child, and I think that is where my Spearmint aversion comes from. I would hardly call having a food or drink aversion due to child abuse associated with it, a "first world" problem.
For me, it was movie popcorn ... I went to a movie about 10, 15 years ago now and had a HUGE tub of buttered popcorn. Late that night, I got very, very sick and haven't been able to stomach eating the stuff since. I have no idea what actually caused me to get sick, but I bet it wasn't the popcorn!
Thing is, I actually sorta still like the smell of popcorn in the theater, but only in very small amounts. If I walk into the movies and the popcorn smell is extremely strong, I can't take it. So I basically have to avoid breathing in the lobby of most movie theaters because of the smell, which is ALWAYS strong enough to cut with a knife!
Many people have a corn intolerance because there is too much of it in various forms in our very processed food stuffs.
Got ya'. I haven't been in a movie theater in 30 years because of that damn fake butter goop that they use on popcorn.
Mashed potatoes. My grandmother always said I was the only baby she ever knew who didn't/couldn't eat mashed potatoes. It's something about the texture, and the aversion used to be so strong that the smell could make me ill, despite many people telling me they had no smell! I can eat them if they are crispy, so I know it's not an allergy.
Arby's or Hardees Curly Fries... I used to eat these all of the time as a child. Once my grandma let me order 2 large Curly Fries and I ate them all quickly. Later that day I was as sick as a dog throwing up, and to this very day (I'm 32 years old) I can not stand to even look at them, the smell is the worst though.
ha! for me its the arby's cheese sticks! Since getting sick after eating a lot of them while I was pregnant, I cant touch them. It must just be arby's food :)
i ate nachos with a lot of cheese and beans , and smirnoff a weekend night after being on a diet for 2 months and i got really sick since then i don't like nachos anymore haha !
I got some kind of virus in high school and threw up my morning orange juice. It came up so hard that some came out my nose. I couldn't drink it for years and years, but I like it again now.
Cheap Tequila got me one time and well, you can guess the rest...
I'm with you on this one Cheech...and it happened over 30 years ago....i can't even smell the stuff any longer!
Chocolate in any form other than hot chocolate is totally disgusting to me.
Catalina salad dressing is pure evil.
I feel as though I like most foods, but Oysters ... are a clump of wet snot on a shell. So absolutely nasty.
As a kid when I was sick my Mom always gave me 7-up and a blanket. Now if I want to feel sick I just need to grab a 7-up and a blanket and sit on the couch and I'll feel queasy instantly. No big loss though because Soda is really bad for our health.
I love tomatoes in all forms. However, I once had a friend who told me he hated tomatoes and for a while (I guess by association) I also grew to dislike them. When they were in my food I'd remember his description of not liking them and I too couldn't eat them. I noticed my reaction and reasoned myself out of it because I didn't want to lose something I'd always really enjoyed and I didn't want to be arbitrarily influenced in this way. I'm back to enjoying them again.
I think that I must have come into this world not liking eggs. That is one of the first foods that my mom attempted to feed me as I graduated from baby food. From that first attempt until today I have never been able to eat scramble, fried poached any kind other that boiled and only a bit once every blue moon. She would try to mix them with other foods such as rice becuase I loved rice and as soon as I realized eggs were in it she said the food would go flying across the room. The smell of cooked eggs nuaseates me. I have made attempts at times throughout my adult life to get over this but nothing works. It is strange because it started at such a young age so I don't have anything to point to as the possible cause.
Cilantro.
I was 15 and had eaten a ton of cilantro and tomatoes on a fried pork rind the size of a small dinner plate. It tasted pretty awesome and I had eaten the entire thing. Problem was, I went swimming afterwards even though I knew I had a stomach ache. Stupid. As I'm wondering if I'm going to vomit or not al I could remember was the overpowering smell of cilantro, which made me more and more sick. I left the swimming pool and vomited in the family van the entire way home. Til this day, van interiors and cilantro still make my stomach churn. Vans no longer exist pretty much so I'm okay with that. But cilantro is ever becoming more popular in American "contemporary" cuisine. I'm not a fan. Worse part, I'm Mexican.
Chocolate in any form except hot chocolate absolutely grosses me out!
Goldschlaeger and Southern Comfort. Got drunk on those two when I was in college – get queasy just thinking about it now. No big loss though...
Did you drink them together? I may get sick just thinking about that.
Tequila and I had a bitter divorce and we don't talk anymore!!!
For me it's Chanel No. 5 perfume. My first grade teacher wore it, and I got really sick at school one day. Now, whenever I smell it, I feel sick. I'm sure it's great perfume, just not for me.
This can sometimes work in your favor. I once had what was probably bad salmon, but because the smell of the sauce was so strong I developed an aversion to the smell of that particular type of cooking (and the food truck it was served from) but still enjoy salmon. I didn't really enjoy the lunch at the time, so no loss.
Avocados! Loved them as a teen, then one afternoon in high school, had a few slices and was very sick. Never again! Even if I don't know they're in something, I will get sick. Sad. My daughter got sick on tuna fish salad when she was in 1st grade...nope, still can't eat it without getting ill. She can eat a tuna steak, she can eat chicken salad. Go figure.
Also, in 8th grade, I was in charge of the Popcorn Booth at my school's Spring Festival. I made BUCKETS FULL of popcorn all afternoon. Couldn't eat popcorn for years and years. My first job, I had to clean out the pickle barrel every night..won't eat dill pickles to this day. These are not items that made me sick, but I got an aversion to them anyway. Does that count?
Is this THE Binny? from TN?
Potato Pancakes. We used to have them on Sundays. I ate myself sick on them when I was 8. Can't stand the sight or smell of them 34 years later.
eewwww to ketchup, if you eat it at my house you have to wash your own dish. I do love salsa's & tomatoes & sauces though. I also hate liver, it truely makes me barf. I will throw up if I see someone eating ketchup on their eggs. tabasco & salsa work great for me. over-ripe bananas are gross too, greener ones are ok. and I totally will not eat any kind of venison. milk is totally disgusting as well puke puke
Was your fridge dead for several months when you were young?
Are you six?
That's so funny. About 8 years ago, I went out to Hooka with my friends. The next day I was SUPER sick, obvious food poisoning. I don't even remember what I ate that day, but to this day when I smell Hooka it makes me sick. It all makes sense now. Hahaha
I eat everything, sometimes even after I barf it up
I wonder if smell associations are a similar effect? I can't eat bacon, not because it makes me sick, but because when I smell it, I smell pig, not bacon. Same for fish, if it smells like a fish I can't eat it. I basically can't eat meat that smells like the animal it came from. Wonder if that is an aversion thing or not?
No, thats just u being disconnected from the source of ur food. Go to a farm or slaughterhouse and see for yourself where ur food is coming from. Animals do smell but so do humans, u gotta retrain ur brain
Maybe it's your inner sense of compassion quietly recognizing the value of living beings and not wanting to be the cause of their loss of life? I'd say it means you ARE connected.
Lemon Grass Curry Coconut soup makes me absolutely sick to my stomach but I cannot stop eating it. It's worse than crack to me and I love it.
OMG..now I know what to order for lunch. Thanks
Barf.... Lemon grass curry coconut soup? That sounds like just about the most repulsive thing ever. You freak.
Really mature. I'm sure you eat some pretty repulsive crap yourself.
Wow, nice job bashing someone's favorite food. Kinda douchewaffley of you.
Alcohol is mine! I was forced to drink some hot old beer as a kid and since then I get sick if someone has a drink within 10 feet of me.
Who on earth made you drink hot old beer? That sounds absolutely awful!
"AllThatGlitters21
Who on earth made you drink hot old beer? That sounds absolutely awful!"
Someone who is, in fact, absolutely awful, I'd wager.
When I was 6-years-old, I got sick with "stomach flu" (because no one can easily say, gastroenteritis) while I was eating candy buttons. That was 44 years ago and the thought of them makes me ill even though I've always known they weren't the cause.
My husband & I used to eat clam linguine, but when I became pregnant, I couldn't stand it anymore. The clam sauce smelled like motor oil. I tried it again – 10 years later, and I still couldn't eat it, because it still smelled like motor oil.
I absolutely, positively despise the raw tomato. I absolutely despise it - the texture, the taste, the little bits of red chunks and seeds that get onto your sub roll. The very thought of a tomato makes me nauseated - in fact, I vomited after i wrote that last sentence. Yet, I've never had a conditioned response to it like other people here - I didn't eat it in Kindergarten or get beamed with one during Mischief Night. I've always hated them and always will. Thing is, I love tomato soup, ketchup, and marinara sauce, so go figure. It's the rawness and texture that makes tomatoes the Devil's food, and it kills me that I live in Jersey and can't eat them. Great article, Tank.
"in fact, I vomited after i wrote that last sentence." LOL!
OMG I'm the same way!
Frickin' love raw tomatoes. Will eat them straight off the vine all summer long. Despise and i mean DESPISE tomato soup and sun-dried tomatoes. BARRRRRFF. That's so funny.
Sun-dried tomatoes are like befouled raisins gone wrong ... it's not an aversion they just taste bad.
I'm the exact same way. Something about the texture and taste of raw tomatoes, although I've gotten to where I can handle one on rare occasions on a burger or something, until it starts to get to me. I'm starting to think I may have Asperger's Syndrome, though, and if so that might help to explain certain texture-based aversions.
I can drink beer until I puke and still drink it again the next day no problem.
Hell yea party on I can do the same .
Eggs, Tilapia fish, and Vodka. Not that they all came about from the same experience, but each one makes me ill as can be. I thought the egg and tilapia thing was allergies, but I can eat eggs if they are mixed/cooked into something and can eat other fish so food adversion sounds more like it. As for the vodka, I know why I get sick from the smell of that.
*aversion*
Just the thought of scrambled eggs makes my stomach lurch
My husband hates all fruit. And he is a vegetarian.
He is weird.
I got sick from tacos as a kid and I loved them. Afterword just the thought of them was torture! Eventually it did wear off years later and I began to like them again but boy was that aversion was strong!
For me it's Vienna sausage...Just the sight of the can does it for me...
Oh, and I forgot oatmeal...no matter how you dress it up (berries, cinnamon, honey) whatever! It all stems from when we were little and my Mom 'glopped' that stuff in bowls for us to eat. And don't even *mention* it getting cold!
Can is ok it"s the nasty gell that holds all them together that"s gross. Then the smell of them my dog vomit if I open a can within 10 feet of him.
Seriously, when did they start putting gel in cans of Vienna sausage? Last time I had some was years ago but they used water as a filler.
Now let's talk about how gross the gel in spam & canned ham is ....
Egg salad! When I was a kid, I was home sick with the flu. My oldest sister sat beside me eating an egg salad sandwich. The smell made me throw up! Now every time I smell it, I get nauseous!
Same with me! I never like it though. My dad relishes eating it and it totally grosses me out.
Onions and Tomatoes. I can stand either of them, and being that they are two of the most common food ingredients, I find it limiting me options often. I eat tomato sauce, when not chunky. I eat ketchup and use onion powder with a lot of cooking. But when raw, or not blended enough, it's enough to make me gag. Always been that way, and I find myself wanting to break the habit of reacting that way, but it's going to take some time.
So pico de gallo would be a DOUBLE whammy for you!
I just threw up in my mouth.
What a crock. I've eaten various foods when it and though they sometimes taste different (depending on what illness was) I've never grown to hate any of them. I HATE few foods, corriander (cilantro) being one I cannot stand. I love Indian food, but that crap PERMIATES it with a flavour that ruins it for me. I've heard hatred of it is genetic relatiting to a susceptability to the particular flavour.
Ah yes, because if something isn't true for you then it can't possibly be true for any of the other 7 billion people on the planet, right?
When I was in the Navy, one of our meals was lamb and curried rice. I ate both and thought they tasted great! After dinner, we hit some severe weather and I was feeling a bit seasick. Add that to the fact that I was an engineer and had to take care of a black water (sewage) spill due to the rough weather. The seasickness along with the sewage smell caused me to get extremely sick and I threw up all night. That was 10 years ago. To this day, I still cannot eat lamb or anything with curry!
Cant stand Cottage Cheese, makes me puke. Cant stand Lime Jello, makes me puke. Mix together add some pineapple and cherries, and its a Thanksgiving specialty I cant put down or get enough of.
I wouldnt say I have aversions to foods because I got sick from them, Id say the taste of them made me sick or I had true allergies thus I stay away from them. I never had food that I just got sick from randomly and dont eat. I learned what foods I didnt like by taste, not by stomach sense.
Cooked spinach, lima beans, brussel sprouts, asparagus those things all have a foul flavor and I puke if I eat them. Not because they make me sick, they dont. I puke cause the flavor is rancid and disgusting and the smell is gross.
That last sentence sounds like something else I don't eat...which is probably why she's my ex,lol
LM AO!
Tequila always smells like the dumpster outside the Days on the Green concerts where they searched people and threw away their contraband. Added to the bad is the fact that that area also smelled like vomit because people were trying to finish off their booze before it got confiscated.
Watermellon is my killer food. When I was young at a BBQ I had a friend tell me "you don't need to spit out the seeds, just eat them". I did, and a little later gave them back. Since then I haven't been able to smell a watermellon without feeling nauseous. The couple times I've tried to eat it I violently salivated... it was like foaming at the mouth, as my body tried to get rid of that watermellon all together!
I was feeling unwell, but was dieting and had some cottage cheese and promptly vomited. To this day I cannot even look at it.
Coconut. I tell everyone I'm allergic to it. I've eaten 2 coconut candies in my entire life and both times puked my guts out. I'm afraid of tying it because I don't want to relive the throwing up, but I highly suspect that I'm not allergic to it.
Forced to eat lettuce by my big brother when I was about 8. 40 years later and I have NEVER eaten it again...along with most other vegetables...
My aversion is peanut butter...I cannot stand to be around it and anything that has peanut butter in it. An incident when I was around 7 caused this and I have never been able to handle being around it, even cookies and or desserts...which made it difficult when i waited tables and we served peanut butter pie..I would have another waiter serve it for me if I could...
I can eat Peanut Butter out of the jar but not baked in anything -gross
I can't eat really slimy foods. Okra – no way! Tapioca – yuck! Dim Sum – strike out. Bubble Tea – nope. I just can't stand slimy texture.
I have learned to eat flan and creme brulee as long as they are cooked well.
If your okra is slimy, you've prepared it wrongly.
I used to love Biscotti. I once ate them during a round of chemotherapy and began to cry, on sight, if I saw them after that. I knew that it wasn't the cookies and probably some type of memory that the cookies triggered. So, I began to nibble on them until I overcame the aversion. Great article.
Good for you!!! Way to re-train your brain!!!!
My dad went through chemo a couple years ago. His girlfriend would bring him food from Panera all the time. He hasn't eaten at Panera since he stopped chemo. Sad, since he used to love it. But the smell brings back all his memories of treatment. Maybe he'll be able to do what you did, Diona.
I can't stand lettuce. I had it on a burger as a child and it made me very sick. (Not sure if it was the lettuce or the burger)
I have tried to eat salads to change my habits, but I can't even have a shred of lettuce within tasting range or I will puke.
Mind over matter, enough said
gotohe ll
Shut up, enough said.
For as long as I can remember I've had problems with eggs, mushrooms and olives. While I forced myself to eat eggs as a child, I used to gag from the consistency. I went to a couple camps and to a school that used the powdered eggs. The sulferic smell was so awful thatI couldn't stomach any eggs anymore. With mushrooms, I can only have them if they're very, very finely chopped into a dish. The consistency of the mushroom makes me gag and unable to swallow them. I don't recall ever getting sick with them, but the cooked mushrooms seemed slimy to me, and I couoldn't put one in my mouth without gagging. Tofu has a similar reaction, but sometimes I'm OK with it. The taste of olives are something else I can't stand. I would bite one and freeze. I'd feel shivers go up and down my body, and I honestly could only spit them out. I tried several times in my life, and the reaction has always been intense. I never got sick on them, but I don't remember ever being able to actually eat them.
Yeah, mushrooms are a big one for me too, and just as you say, it's the texture that's the problem. Fungus is not food! :-)
I once ate left over egg foo young from my fridge when I was about 16. I screamed for about 3 days from the food poisoning. I can't even look at a chinese menu without feeling my stomach twist. That was 30 years ago.
WHen I was little, I ate an entire solid white chocolate Easter bunny – I can't even smell it now.
ALso – at a Neil Young concert a few years back they served warm, flat, dark beer. I had a few, lost them and haven't been able to even be near the smell of beer. Beets – they taste like dirt.
Funny about beets. My son and I add them to our juicer and are fond of saying "time to add some earth"! You are spot on with your "dirt" description but we like it. The wife? Not so much...
I went to a Neil Young concert a couple years ago. I can't listen to Neil Young without vomiting anymore.
Boo-rah!
Got sick on Southern Comfort at age 18.
Haven't touched it since nor will I ever. I'm 55 now and the aversion to it is as strong as ever.
I've heard this story so many times. There is just something about So Co that no other drink seems to have. I know alcoholics that won't drink this stuff.
Ohhh...I'm hearin that! Many birthday drinks called a sloe comfortable screw up against the wall (o.j. comfort, grenadine), 6 straight shot race with another birthday celebrant, and a bottle under the table at the bar, and to this day I run screaming if anyone offers me a drink with THAT devils poison in it !!! LOL
I'm totally with you on the aversion to So Co. Whenever I even get a whiff of it I could literally puke. In fact, just the label on the damn bottle gives me a chill.
Southern Ginger anyone? OMG, I can actually taste it over the coffee I just had and it makes me queasy. Never again! And no great loss either.... :)
I love SoCo but I know a lot of people who even the sight of it, makes them sick. I've never gotten sick off of it, even after downing an entire bottle one night. Jameson on the other hand... downed almost a whole bottle of it and I can't even smell it. That and Jack Daniels.
eww me too!!! I got so sick once in my late teams. it has been decades and I will wretch at the sight of the bottle.
With ya on that one Bud. Rum does it for me. Heave ho!
got food poisoning from a tuna melt over 20 years ago, still can't eat them
BTW it was at vichery's in atlanta – don't go to that dirty dive
I cannot stomach the smell of peas and I got sick from Shake N Bake at age 5 and haven't been able to eat it since- I'm 30! Blech!
I actually vomit at just the smell of cooked peas. I have had to run for the bathroom at restaurants. I've been told it isn't just that I dislike them...but the smell triggers this reaction. Even since I was a baby my mother couldn't even give peas to the rest of the family or I'd spew my formula all over the dinner table from my high chair.
Where's Evil Grin? :D
Steak. I absolutely LOVED steak, any cut, and always medium rare, but as a poor college student I bought some "slightly outdated" steaks at a lowered price thinking I was getting a deal, well got them home, opened up the package only do get slapped in the face with the smell of decomposition so horrific my entire tiny appartment smelled like something had died in there for over an hour. I imediately trashed the entire package, but everytime I was even around steak after that for over a year just the sight of it made me violently sick to my stomach.
It took alot of time, alot of tasteing, and alot of attempts but I was finally able to eat a steak again, but only ribeye and only if its cooked on a charcoal grill.
I can't stomach untoasted bread. I'm OK if I'm at a restaurant and they serve high-quality untoated rolls or Italian bread, but the pre-sliced loaves are out. I got sick after eating a sandwich when I was around 5 yrs old. Since then, the only sandwich I'd eat would be grilled cheese. I also avoided bologna and liverwurst after bad experiences. Perhaps it was a precursor to me becoming a vegetarian, who knows.
Bread snob.
No she isn't. You are just a d ick.
I can't eat tomatoes and eggs scrambled together. Tomatoes in any other form, awesome. Eggs cooked any way, awesome. Eggs with something like salsa on top (say a cheese omelet with salsa), awesome. Scrambled eggs with cooked chunks of tomatoes, NO. I ate that one morning in third grade and then went on a long, backward-facing car ride in a station wagon up to Door County and got sick all over my dad as soon as I got out of the car. That was 35 years ago.
Our elem school cafeteria served stewed tomatoes and green beans. I stuffed it in my empty milk carton. Just the smell... yuck! I still can't eat tomatoes, although by-products like spag sauce and ketchup are fine. Whiskey sours was my other aversion. Got stinking drunk on them. My girlfriend gave me a paper bag to use in the car, and the next time I tried to drink one, it was no go. I'm 60 and still don't like tomatoes or whiskey sours.
I remember one night my mom made hot ham and cheese sandwiches, and I had the flu. Of course after eating what little I had an appetite for, I chucked it up. It was over 20 years before I could eat another hot ham and cheese again. And I knew it was because I had the flu and nothing else that made me sick.
I can't stand Jello, but after seeing the picture the heads this article, I'm going to go to Wyoming and meet the aliens!
I get that reference!! Great movie it was and i support your trek!!
Close Encounters –
Happened to randomly watch that on Netflix not too long ago ... it was still good even by today's standards.
I like Jello,but I don't like Jello with fruit in it.
I like raisins out of the box or in Raisin Bran,but I do not like them in cakes or cookies.
I like tomatoes,but prefer to remove all that goopy stuff/seeds out of the middle first. (same with cucumbers)
I think that's about all of the weird food aversions I have.
Hahaha! Very funny! And conrad, it is still a great movie, you are right.
Devil's Tower was the first thing I thought of when I saw the picture too.
Hey, maybe those of us who see it that way are invited?
I believe taste adversions may be heriditary. When she was 2, my sister was forced to eat Bananna by the sitter. After being spanked for gagging then spitting it out,sis spent the rest of the day in a battle of will,she held that mush in her mouth for the rest of the day. (This told 2 mom by the sitter at pick-up time.) Mom loves Bananna. She tried in vain over the years to get sis to eat bananna,forcing,cajoling,begging. As a adult with her own girls,sis could not get them to eat bananna either. I can't (shoud'nt) eat bananna because of a potassium- restrictive diet. Mom is always left sitting at the table alone eating bananna on her cereal.
For me it's eggs and asparagus. The look of cooked eggs makes me sick. I can eat stuff made with eggs if it's blended thoroughly but if I see even 1 SPECK of eggwhite in my food I am done. My adversion must have happened later in childhood becasue my Mom said she gave me eggs as a baby. As for asparagus even the smell gets me nauseated.
When I was about 12, I had a terrible, nasty stomach bug (maybe it was Norovirus?). I had recently discovered the joys of Samoa Girl Scout cookies, since I didn't/don't really like coconut. I can't smell them nowwithout gagging a little. I also had to get rid of the shirt I'd been wearing when I got sick. It seemed tainted, I guess.
I don't know why I hate milk. I can use it in cooking, but that's all. My aversion is so strong that I don't even want to touch it–if I get milk on me I have to rush to the sink and wash it off immediately. Having babies (and breast-feeding) was quite a challenge! I can eat yogurt, cottage cheese, etc., but not the beverage in a glass. Shudder.
same thing for me with mild and without any trauma
Overall, I believe that I am what they call a supertaster. Certain things just taste more bitter to me. Also, there are a lot of things I just don't like the texture of – the fibrous nature of celery and asparagus, the tannic texture that pumpkin leaves on the back of my teeth, or the sliminess of the seeds in okra, squash, and raw cucumber. I cannot stand the smell of cooked broccoli, or the taste of bell peppers, and can find no redeeming characteristics of raw onions. Most alcohol tastes terrible to me, I occasionally take a little sip just to amuse my husband with my yuckfaces.
My father is extremely picky, and some of it may be inherited from him. I'm not as picky as he is though, I swear.
I can relate. I think I may be a super taster as well.
I can eat certain things if they are really small in another dish: Onion, Celery, Mushroom (all must be cooked)
I can eat tomato products (marinara if only small chunks of tomato, ketchup) but not raw tomato – salsa is major yukk!
And tomato LOOKS so appealing I WISH I loved it!
I can eat dill pickles but no other kind of pickle and not cucumber. Oh, and the pickles must be by themselves or in tuna salad but I hate hate hate pickles on sandwiches and burgers.
Speaking of green things: lettuce (iceberg and romaine) is great and like I said dill pickles/celery but any other thing that is green does not pass my lips. As a child, I was served every type of green vegetable you can imagine and I puked up onto my dinner plate about 90% of them. Something mild like a green bean I could wash down with a drink but if the smell is really strong (brussell sprouts) just having it hit my tongue would make me throw up.
Worst of all, I can't take vitamins. They make me puke also! I just generally have nausea problems, I guess, and I am very surprised that at 44 years old I am a very healthy normal weight woman. You would think I would be very sickly but I guess green vegetables are not so important after all!
Alcohol tastes gross to me. It doesn't matter what the drink is if I can taste a hint of alcohol I can't drink it because it's gross. I've had 3 alcoholic drinks that I've actually liked and 2 of them probably wouldn't be the same if I had them anywhere else but at the bar I had them at the first time. I can't stand wine because it all tastes gross. I get no hint of the other flavors everyone else can taste. Expensive, cheap, white, red, it all tastes the same.
It doesn't really bother me because I don't need to drink and I find it too expensive anyway and I'd rather spend $8 on food than on one drink, but over the years it has really bothered people. It becomes a "thing" because I'm the person at the bar with friends not drinking which usually results in someone pushing a drink on me I feel obligated to drink because they paid for it even though it's gross. I'm thinking I'm just going to start telling people I'm a recovering alcoholic.
The worst for me is nightshade berries. I ate them one time and started having hallucinations and almost died. To this day I can't touch the things.
I had a bad experience with Canadian Club once, but I wasn't using it for food.
I don't like wine and anchovies.
EGGS! I'm curious how my aversion developed, however, since I never liked eggs, not even as a baby.
I've got the same issue with eggs. And I can say the same about cilantro. I get the whole negative association thing. It doesn't take a doctoral student to figure that out. But I've never had bad experiences with eggs or cilantro. I should say that I have exclusively had bad experiences with eggs and cilantro. But it is only because of the eggs and cilantro. I keep trying to correct this without success. As an explanation for "food aversion", I find this article to be very unsatisfying.
As a teen, I got a job at a fast food place where you could freely eat all of the food you wanted on-site during your half-hour break or at the end of a short-shift. I thought I was in heaven and wolfed down a three or four Gino Giants -the equivalents of today's "Big Mac." I got sick to my stomach that evening and could NOT stand to eat another one for about a year!
Melon. I can't stand any melon. Neither can my Mom or my brother. I would love to have a fruit cup, but they ALWAYS have melon in them. If it sits around, the other fruit gets the taste of the melon, so even grapes and berries taste like melon Also the smell of the melon: YUCK!
Also, neither my brother or I can stand green beans. For me if they're in something like soup, that's fine, but by themselves, yuck.
Ironically – chicken soup. My parents gave me some when I had a bad flu as a child. I threw it up all afternoon while burning up with a high fever. That was almost 40 years ago and I haven't touched it since. Don't even like the smell.
My aversion is to bologna. I used to love it as a kid, and would eat it all the time. We got it from the local German butcher and it was sooo good. Until one day when I had it for lunch, then later came down with a stomach virus. What's funny is a used to babysit all the time in HS, and inevitably, if I had to make lunch, it was Oscar Meyer bologna sandwiches. I used to breathe through my mouth as the mere sight and especially the smell made me gag. 40-odd years I still have that reaction.
my wife is the same way with bologna,if she had to make someone in her family a sandwich she quickly stabbed the bologna with a fork or knife and dropped on the bread,she hates the sight,smell,and taste of it.
For me, it's seafood. The smell of seafood makes me gag. I'm slowly working on it. I can sometimes eat salmon–if it's fresh caught, wild-caught, and pacific-caught. A lot of qualifiers. And, I have to cook it myself and if there is any HINT of smell, forget it. The dog gets a gourmet meal. My Mom grew up on the coast and loved to make seafood. I remember one time where she made some battered shrimp and then we had a family emergency. We had to leave for a few days and when we came back, the batter rotting in the bowl was enough to ruin me forever.
I cant eat seafood either, except for tuna in a can, or fish n chips. The smell of salmon/lobster./crab makes me sick to my stomach.
I was forced to go into a fish market when I was 6. I begged my dad not to make me go because when we got to the door I could smell how terrible it was. I told him I was going to throw up (not a fake kid threat this time). He said everything would be fine, I walked into the Market and threw up. I can't stand fish to this day. Except canned tuna and LJS heavily battered fish filet with about 3 gallons of malt vinegar on it. Funny how I never connected that experience until just now.
I like crab (meat),lobster (meat),scallops,and wild salmon,but not in it's original form.
I can deal with the meat,but when I see the actual crab or lobster,it grosses me out.
The smell is OK I guess,though like anything,if it has gone bad,it can be nauseating.
For me it's honey. I tried some honey cough once when I had broncitis. It came back up instantly and I haven't been able to eat uncooked honey ever since. I can eat honey flavored stuff like Honey Nut Cheerios but that's about it.
Mayonnaise makes me gag like no other food.
Me too! Everyone thinks I am crazy (sandwich has mayo, send it back, picnic salads-no thank you). I have thrown up after a sushi dinner not realizing that one of the rolls had spicy tuna in it (had one piece and ate it to be polite). Also cannot do cheeses (milk products get me, but cheese makes me want to gag unless it is mild like mozz)
Actually, I don't like anything with that type of color or consistancy – no ranch, blue cheese (yelch), aolis etc. I ask for everything dry and cheeseless lest a salad dressing have some kind of cheese base or a sandwich topping have mayo base.
Thank you for posting mayonnaise...I was scrolling down and could not believe that I was the only one! Literally, if I sit here and think about mayonnaise long enough, I can make myself gag. I don't know why....I just hate it.
yep me too,the smell of it especially,when the jar opens i actually gag.....
I second the mayo disgust. Just the smell when you open the jar can turn my stomach. My husband dips his artichokes in mayo and it's the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I have to leave the table.
Then I take it that you 4 only spit?
Interesting! I once had a stomach virus, but I was still able to go about my day. I ate a chocolate muffin for breakfast and threw up promptly. Ever since then, I have not been able to eat a chocolate muffin. Separately, I love chocolate and I love muffins, but all I have to do is see or smell it and I feel nauseous.
Mine is not so much an aversion as it is an association. When I was young my parents would host SuperBowl parties at which my mother always served shrimp. My mother would cook the shrimp by boiling it in a bottle of beer, rather than water, to give the shrimp more flavor. Absolutely delicious! The problem is that as an adult, I can hardly stand the taste of beer! Even though I know that the shrimp I had tasted like beer and not the other way around, I always associate a beer with tasting like liquid, bubbly shrimp... disgusting!
I can't eat ground turkey. I had it one night for dinner, then came down with the flu....merely thinking about eating a turkey burger makes me naseous.
Hmmm... this article interested me. but I'm still looking for reasons I will eat peanut butter on a pb&j sandwich, but not on or in anything else (like celery or crackers or with chocolate)... and why I'll eat ketchup but not tomatoes, and spaghetti, but only if there are no chunks of tomatoes... and no fruit except apples (red), oranges and bananas (ripe) and only peaches and pears and green beans if they're canned, and no mayonnaise or anything made with mayonnaise, and no vegetables except corn on the cob and the aforementioned canned green beans and no fish except shredded tuna fish in oil made with mayonnaise(?) Only 3 cereal types, two bread types... and it goes on and on... what gives? I'm not 5, I'm 55! Why haven't I outgrown this? Attempts to expand my menu result in gagging or projectile vomiting.
Sometimes I think it's the "consistency" of the food that makes the difference. I can't stand avocadoes because they just seem slimy. Doesn't matter if it's fresh peeled or in guacamole. The color could have something to do with it too. My son won't eat what we always called sunshine salad. It's made with jello, pineapple bits, and shredded carrots. Made him gag as a little kid. He likes all the ingredients separately, but not in a solid jello salad. Just the way it felt in his mouth made him sick.
I have a very strong aversion to mint – the taste, the smell, and just the though of it. It makes my stomach turn, I get a headache, and it causes me to shiver like I just heard nails on a chalkboard. My senses of smell and taste are so strong that if someone has chocolates in a bag, and there is one mint in there as well, I will taste the essence of the mint on all of the chocolates and they are "ruined" for me. I remember being about 10yrs old and eating mint gum and it dawning on me that every time I chewed that gum, my stomach got upset. So I stopped chewing the gum and anything else minty. I don't know if it was an aversion caused by something prior to that or not. I don't remember ever over-eating mint and getting sick from it. I have heard of other people being nauseated by mint, so I know I am not alone.
That's really odd Serena, I have head that peppermint at least is a stomache soother, that if you feel nauseaus, you should eat or drink some mint. I haven't tried it myself, but that's the old wives tale.
I can't stand peppermint hard candies or Altoid mints. During the onset of a major Kidney illness,I developed this awful amonia taste in my mouth that could not be tamed. I would eat so much Altoids and Peppermint that my mouth blistered. 12 years later, I still feel a twinge! The only thing I find worse is hair in my food. The longer the hair,the worse! Will turn me completly off forever.
Bananas has to be it for me. I remember always being put on the BRAT (bread rice apples toast) diet when I had a bug as a child and I LOVED bananas. Now just thinking of eating them makes me want to hurl. And the texture, bleck!
That's a great example, Kimmy. The bananas were meant to calm your stomach, but your brain began to associate feeling sick with the taste of bananas.
Beg pardon, Kimmy, but the BRAT diet is Bananas, Rice, AppleSAUCE, Toast, not apples. The applesauce (as well as apples) contains pectin which acts as a binder and applesauce is more digestible than whole or cut apples because it's cooked. Just FYI.
I had food poisoning as a child. My mother made me some hot tea, and being already ill, I couldn't keep it down. This happened when I was 5. Since that moment, the mere SMELL of tea got my stomach queasy. I just recently started (forcing) myself to drink iced tea. I KNOW it's because I had food poisoning but my body refuses to accept this reality. It feels the need to remind me that the hot tea got me ssiicckk. =(
It will take a lot of time to overcome that strong of an aversion, MsAttitude. However, eventually your mind will stop associating the smell of tea with feeling sick. Good luck!
As a kid, I once got sick and vomited after washing down a meal that I didn't like with some hot tea. Ever since then, even the thought of drinking hot tea makes me want to hurl even though I had drank it plenty of times before then with no problem. I can't even be around it or smell it without feeling nauseous.
I actually do have food allergies to a lot of raw fruits, like tomatoes. Just seeing them also makes me quesy.
When I was sick as a child, I was forced to drink tea, so to this day, I really don't like tea. This explains it.
Liver – can't stand the texture. They tell me it tastes good, but I can't get past the texture.
They lie! It tastes like chalk.
What about braunschweiger? MMMMMM <3 meat paste.
Oh god, the texture is nasty.
When I was a child, we went to K&W Cafeteria for dinner. My mother ordered liver and onions, and told me that if I didn't take a bite, I'd have to quit swim team. I took a bite, and promptly vomited all over the table. (Go me!)
When I got older, I learned what the liver does, and I just don't simply understand why people eat them. It filters out the toxins. Why eat that? Wouldn't it stand to reason that there would be some trace amounts of bad things?
Same here, I threw it up at the dinner table as a child one night. Never had to eat it again. My parents still make liver and onions, just for themselves however.
I hate liver! My dad forced me to eat it as a child until one day I almost brought it back up at the dinner table. I made it to the bathroom just in time. I also cannot see or smell a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I ate so much of it as a child, that I just gag if it's around me.
Liver's one of those things which has to be cooked exactly right or else it's as you say – quite foul. But a good calf's liver charred to a rose pink colour with a bacon and onion sauce is most delicious. To develop a taste for it, though, start with puff-pastry pies containing duck livers and a rich Bearnaise sauce... most excellent.
I don't have any really strong food aversion so far other than bananas. They make me queasy. But I think it's a true intolerance developing. I used to not mind them, but slowly over time I noticed I'd feel more and more sick every time I ate one. I looked into that and discovered a banana intolerance is not unheard of. So now I avoid them. But I've known a couple of people who have a strong aversion to seafood, one to mayonnaise, and my father used to love fresh apple cider until one time it made him sick. After that, he couldn't stand the thought of drinking cider ever again, and never did.
I'm allergic to latex and the allergy is sever enough, that my body thinks I'm allergic to bananas and kiwis. There is a protein in these fruit that is similar to latex. So, I also can't eat them without getting sick. Maybe you should test and see if you have a latex allergy.
I've heard that Cindy, although I think I'm okay with Kiwis. As far as I know, I've never had any reaction to latex, but I do know it can develop over time, much like with bananas. Better to avoid it all than take the risk (thank god for non-latex condoms!)
Interesting! I have a latex allergy, too, and while I can eat bananas, they always make me feel bad. I figured it was the high sugar in them. Allergic to strawberries and tomatoes. Hate the smell of cucumbers and cantaloupe so much that I won't eat them.
I HATE bananas as well. I can't stand looking at them and it's strange because I never had one before. I can't even get close enough to try to eat one. ugh
I have always felt that way about bananas.
Spaghetti with parmesan was the first food I remember making me sick so that explains that, but I also have a loathing of raisins so strong that I actually spat them out on a date with a wonderful man I was hoping to impress. Easy come, easy go. Anyone else think chewing raisins is akin to chewing dead flies?
No. But I do know someone who equates chewing lima beans to eating caterpillars. Have either of you actually eaten said bugs? Probably not. ;) But I'll wager there's something in the psychology that makes you both think that way.
When I look at a platter of shrimp cocktail all I see is a platter of giant grubs....you know those white bugs that live in the soil under your lawn. Even shrimp barbequed on skewers look like barbequed grubs to me. yuck. makes me sick just to think about it.
emma – I haven't been able to eat raisiins for the last 30 years – and I wasn't even eating them at the time: A friend's sister had taken a box of raisins away from him to munch on – right after he head taken a HUGE mouthful of them. She gets the box, looks in and says: oh, looks like there are maggots all in this box! EEEWWWW
All I remember is him spewing those raisins (and yes, those maggots) all over his mother's beautiful white formal living room carpet.
Looking down and seeing that – killed any liking of raisins I had – still can't smell them without gagging......
Make sure you always look closely at what you eat. I found a moth in some General Tso's not once but twice in an open bar al – a – cart restaurant (i'm not saying it was Market Basket...). I guess they flew in with the people traffic and got caught in the sticky sweet food. I only got a partial refund! I now know why the manager's stir the food frequently.
I loved raisins before I read that post. Thanks a lot emma.
I love cuc umbers. I've never gotten sick from one and would eat one now. My aversion is to Summer & zucchini squashes because they are almost the texture of cucu mbers. That "almost" factor is what repulses me. They feel like rotten cukes in my mouth and to this day, I can't even put a fork in them. Something like zuccini muffins are fine – because that rotten cuke texture isn't there.
Oh, and gray food. I can't eat anything that's gray. Grampa used to make barley soup that Daddy would inhale, claiming it was the best ever. I couldn't get past the color. To this day, just can't do it.
I hate cucumbers and watermellon. Always have. But I really like dill pickles because they don't taste like fresh cucumbers.
Dill pickles have been cooked.
I had a good laugh at this, must be my dirty mind. Not many food fetishes with a squash, but oh the cucumber.
LOL! That's twice that someone has caught an innuendo from my one of my posts that I completely missed. Mas cafe! :D
I have an aversion to gingerale from drinking so much of it when I was sick as a kid... yuck.
Me too. I don't really like it anymore, but the rumor was it was supposed to make you feel better :(
Ginger is an effective and proven treatment for nausea. It works.
It only works when the ginger ale you are drinking actually has ginger in it. A lot of today's "Ginger Ale"s are just artificial flavoring and sugar.
It sucks when it happens to a food that you actually really like. This past summer, I got on a yellow summer squash kick and tried using it in every way I could. I came across a soup recipe that called for summer squash and I tried it out. It smelled good, looked good… but as soon as I ate the first bite, I felt instantly sickend and disgusted. I didn’t peel the summer squash like I usually did, and it resulted in a rubbery, unpleasant texture on my teeth. Imagine biting into a rubber band. It was awful. I tried to make myself eat the soup because, well, I made it and didn’t want to waste food. But I ended up picking out all of the squash and swearing it off for the rest of eternity. Yuck.
Jello=Barfsville.
My hubby has a similar aversion to Jell-o. ;) In his 20's, a very long time ago, he was in the hospital for a many, many weeks. Because the dox couldn't figure out what was wrong with him, all they would feed him was jello. To this day, we won't touch it. ;)
He also isn't fond of rice because of a 30-day rice diet he tried when he was in his 30's. He never got sick from it, but it's not his first choice of side dish. ;)
Bleck, he had to eat jello for weeks? Krist almighty on a surfboard, I'd rather die a slow death. I hate the stuff.
I had a bad experience with applesauce, I don't think it ever made me sick but I will not eat it. The smell and sight of strawberry yogurt makes my stomach turn, I had a teacher in high school who ate it every morning and would throw it away in the trash barrel in front of my desk and now the smell makes me nauseous. And then there's buffalo wing pretzels which did make me sick and I will never touch them again.
My mom had bought this blueberry muffin cereal. I loved it so much that I ate it every meal of the day. I am, as I found out years later, lactose intolerant. I became so sick that the next week, when my mom bought another box, just thinking of their smell made me cringe and feel nauseous. I don't think I'll try to like them again though, because they are extremely unhealthy, so I guess it kinda worked out ok.
I totally relate to the lactose intolerance thing. I used to love cheese, ice cream, yogurt... I would eat these things regularly but I would be sooo sick all of the time. As an experiment, I stopped eating dairy and have felt so much better, but I was really sad to give up these foods that I loved. But now I am beginning to not even like these things at all just knowing how sick they can make me.
Use the lactaid pills, they're very effective for lactose intolerance. My wife is lactose intolerant but looooves most anything involving cheese, and is still able to eat dairy regularly with the pills. They also make a milk, and Breyers makes a lactose free vanilla ice cream.
Lactaid pills are only _sort of_ effective – They work great for some people, and not so well for others, and then sometimes they work and sometimes they don't, it all depends on your body and what else is going on in it at the time. Also, if you have a milk allergy, which is different from lactose intolerance, lactaid pills won't help you at all. Lactose intolerance means your body doesn't produce enough of the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose, so lactaid pills are just the enzyme in pill form. If you're allergic to milk (meaning allergic to the casein protein in milk and all dairy products) you're out of luck, allergies are entirely different from intolerances.
I hear that – I found out I was lactose intolerant about a year and a half ago and quit eating dairy, and I've felt so good ever since (and lost about 15 pounds without even thinking about it) that even the smell of dairy products makes me ill now. Just not worth it to me anymore.