![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jun. 5th, 2013 10:33 amSo, my doctor said I need to eat more green things, and avocados and mint chocolate chip ice cream don't count.
The problem is that I'm a supertaster, which comes with some quirks. Like it's difficult for me to distinguish between orange and peach because all I taste is citrus. Or like how you can't actually hide vegetables in other things with me, because the vegetable taste is so strong it's all I taste. Most veggies taste exactly alike to me: faintly rancid, with an overtone of grass. Supertasters tend to stick to bland foods because anything else overwhelms them or tastes terrible. (Some lucky ones get the ability to distinguish between foods as well or instead, like how I wrote Steve in Feed The Body. I am not one of them.) It's not just vegetables; I also have to avoid cinnamon and processed (ie, not whole-grain) wheat bread, since burning sensations in mouth are unpleasant. And in general spicy foods. Hiding vegetables in curry is great, but the amount of spice it would take to "hide" the veggies would make it inedible anyway, for me.
Imagine the food you hate the most in the world. Now imagine that half the food in the world is made up of that food -- imagine there are whole restaurants dedicated to that food, that half the food available in any given restaurant is that food. Imagine you've spent your entire life being mocked and punished for not eating it because everyone else does. That is my world.
But I am tired of doctors telling me this bullshit, so I've started a CULINARY ADVENTUR, whereby I am working my way down the list of vegetables, alphabetically. It's not really that I expect to find myself enjoying eating green things, but at least this way I'll have a spreadsheet I can show my doctor.
I made artichokes last week. That's an awful lot of work for a food that tastes like slightly soggy baked potato and must be dipped in some form of liquid fat to be edible. I made brussel sprouts this week, which are tiny little shitbombs of reeking sauteed bitterness. They smell like rotting flowers but don't actually look unappetizing until you put one in your mouth and realize you are eating something nature clearly intended you not to eat. THE SMELL WAS A WARNING.
I still have half a bag of them. I'm trying to decide what to do with half a bag of tiny toxic bombs.
I'm skipping things I either a) have eaten recently enough to know that either I don't like them (asparagus) or b) can eat under certain conditions (beans, but sadly not the green ones) and have arrived at my next foe: Cabbage. I'm pretty sure I don't like cabbage. I find coleslaw and sauerkraut repulsive, and cabbage has ruined many a fine potsticker for me. But Jean has suggested kimchee, which I know most people find gross to start with but hey: I have to have some results for the spreadsheet. And I haven't actually ever eaten kimchee.
I'm going to be not-eating a lot of vegetables in the near future.
The problem is that I'm a supertaster, which comes with some quirks. Like it's difficult for me to distinguish between orange and peach because all I taste is citrus. Or like how you can't actually hide vegetables in other things with me, because the vegetable taste is so strong it's all I taste. Most veggies taste exactly alike to me: faintly rancid, with an overtone of grass. Supertasters tend to stick to bland foods because anything else overwhelms them or tastes terrible. (Some lucky ones get the ability to distinguish between foods as well or instead, like how I wrote Steve in Feed The Body. I am not one of them.) It's not just vegetables; I also have to avoid cinnamon and processed (ie, not whole-grain) wheat bread, since burning sensations in mouth are unpleasant. And in general spicy foods. Hiding vegetables in curry is great, but the amount of spice it would take to "hide" the veggies would make it inedible anyway, for me.
Imagine the food you hate the most in the world. Now imagine that half the food in the world is made up of that food -- imagine there are whole restaurants dedicated to that food, that half the food available in any given restaurant is that food. Imagine you've spent your entire life being mocked and punished for not eating it because everyone else does. That is my world.
But I am tired of doctors telling me this bullshit, so I've started a CULINARY ADVENTUR, whereby I am working my way down the list of vegetables, alphabetically. It's not really that I expect to find myself enjoying eating green things, but at least this way I'll have a spreadsheet I can show my doctor.
I made artichokes last week. That's an awful lot of work for a food that tastes like slightly soggy baked potato and must be dipped in some form of liquid fat to be edible. I made brussel sprouts this week, which are tiny little shitbombs of reeking sauteed bitterness. They smell like rotting flowers but don't actually look unappetizing until you put one in your mouth and realize you are eating something nature clearly intended you not to eat. THE SMELL WAS A WARNING.
I still have half a bag of them. I'm trying to decide what to do with half a bag of tiny toxic bombs.
I'm skipping things I either a) have eaten recently enough to know that either I don't like them (asparagus) or b) can eat under certain conditions (beans, but sadly not the green ones) and have arrived at my next foe: Cabbage. I'm pretty sure I don't like cabbage. I find coleslaw and sauerkraut repulsive, and cabbage has ruined many a fine potsticker for me. But Jean has suggested kimchee, which I know most people find gross to start with but hey: I have to have some results for the spreadsheet. And I haven't actually ever eaten kimchee.
I'm going to be not-eating a lot of vegetables in the near future.
