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Because it's such a part of me that I don't really think about it...
I suffer from Selective Eating Disorder as well as Food Neophobia (they both usually go hand in hand).
SED is not to be confused with your usual Eating Disorders. It has absolutely nothing to do with weight control, but rather, has everything to with food squicks or potential food squicks.
When I was a child, I ranked as moderate to severe. I would have trouble even eating a food that would be prepared differently than how my mother would prepare it. That could be as simple as the seasonings used. I was on the opposite spectrum of most children with SED in the sense that I preferred my foods with high flavour, despite having been a bit of a supertaster. I liked vegetables on the bitter end of the flavour scale (broccoli, brussels sprouts, Swiss chard), and loathed sweet vegetables if they were presented to me cooked (such as carrots and peas), though I was fine if they were raw. Meat had (and still has) to be super-salted for me to be able to get it down. It tastes like, well, dead animal if it's not overly salted! And those are just a couple of examples of why I would refuse to eat something.
As for Food Neophobia (which basically means "fear of new foods"), it was usually really hard to get me to try something new. Still is, but now, it's mainly so that I don't waste money getting a product and not eating it because I don't like it.
I've gotten curious and more adventurous as I grew older, and now absolutely love the opportunity to try a couple of bites of something I've never had before. Pot-luck parties are my favourites because I can do that, and take only what I think I can handle eating if I don't like it. If I do like it, and there's more left, I will go back.
But still, I struggle with those two conditions on a daily basis. I have my food routine, and I like to stick to it.
It's another thing that makes my transitioning to vegetarianism hard.
I suffer from Selective Eating Disorder as well as Food Neophobia (they both usually go hand in hand).
SED is not to be confused with your usual Eating Disorders. It has absolutely nothing to do with weight control, but rather, has everything to with food squicks or potential food squicks.
When I was a child, I ranked as moderate to severe. I would have trouble even eating a food that would be prepared differently than how my mother would prepare it. That could be as simple as the seasonings used. I was on the opposite spectrum of most children with SED in the sense that I preferred my foods with high flavour, despite having been a bit of a supertaster. I liked vegetables on the bitter end of the flavour scale (broccoli, brussels sprouts, Swiss chard), and loathed sweet vegetables if they were presented to me cooked (such as carrots and peas), though I was fine if they were raw. Meat had (and still has) to be super-salted for me to be able to get it down. It tastes like, well, dead animal if it's not overly salted! And those are just a couple of examples of why I would refuse to eat something.
As for Food Neophobia (which basically means "fear of new foods"), it was usually really hard to get me to try something new. Still is, but now, it's mainly so that I don't waste money getting a product and not eating it because I don't like it.
I've gotten curious and more adventurous as I grew older, and now absolutely love the opportunity to try a couple of bites of something I've never had before. Pot-luck parties are my favourites because I can do that, and take only what I think I can handle eating if I don't like it. If I do like it, and there's more left, I will go back.
But still, I struggle with those two conditions on a daily basis. I have my food routine, and I like to stick to it.
It's another thing that makes my transitioning to vegetarianism hard.
