I must confess that I used to be an extremely picky eater growing up. I had major sensory issues with food, so I did not have the best diet. Vegetables and meat were terrifying, so I ended up eating a lot of spaghetti. Soooo much spaghetti, actually. Since then, though, my taste buds have slowly but surely developed over the course of my 21 years of life, and at this point, I feel like I have a pretty diverse palate. I’ll try basically anything once, except for maybe fugu–pufferfish sashimi that has an actually high chance of killing you if prepared incorrectly. I’m really not that much of a thrill seeker. Other than pufferfish, I am willing to try almost any food! Just the other day, my dear friend Cindy and I had dinner together and I tried fried pork intestine for the first time, and it was tasty! I feel like a lot of Western palates would not be inclined to give intestine a shot, but I’m glad that I did, because I enjoyed it.
Being a self-described “picky eater” after the age of like, 14 at the LATEST, is kinda silly, in my opinion. Food sensitivities and allergies are NOT included in the realm of picky eating, by the way. Trust me, I understand that there are a million reasons why someone could be picky when it comes to food–as a former picky eater myself, I GET IT. But at the same time, there is a certain level of maturity that comes with it, too, that as an adult I feel like you are expected to have. I had a friend in the past who was INSANELY picky, he basically only ever wanted to eat pizza. Like greasy American pizza, nothing with any semblance of real veggies. He made doing things in the friend group really, really annoying because we always had to accommodate him and his weird pizza thing. Anytime we went out anywhere, we had to make sure that there was a pizza place relatively nearby. How ridiculous is that?? I get not liking certain foods and stuff but, man. Boxing yourself into one singular safe food item is strange and impractical. Not to mention really unhealthy, too. Anyway, he was an extreme case, but he definitely contributed to my relative lack of tolerance when it comes to adult picky eaters.
If you are a picky eater, I am going to ask you to perhaps try a vegetable sometime soon, and get back to me.
