Hereditary Picky Eating

My sister is known for her aversion to bananas. She pretends to gag every time she says the word. She shudders in horror every time she visualizes it. She runs away screaming every time she comes across one. She has no kind words for it. She says it’s a smelly, moldy, beat-up excuse for a fruit and should be banished forever from this earth.

You have to feel bad for the poor banana. It’s an amazing fruit that brings such healthful benefits to the body. It’s definitely not its fault that it bruises and browns easily, appearing extremely disgusting to my crazy sister.

Then again, I can’t really admonish her about her unreasonable dislike for those innocent bananas. I’m the same way, albeit at a lesser degree of stark-raving-crazy (I swear), about ketchup. I was worse as a kid. I think the aversion stems from it looking like blood. I couldn’t even touch it back then. For some reason though, I didn’t mind tomato sauce.

These days, I’m still not in love with ketchup, but I’ve mellowed in my aversion to it. I can even consume it, but only when I don’t have a choice and can’t do anything about it, like if the burger or hotdog I ordered comes with it. I’m not about to throw perfectly good food out just because it has ketchup. I just try not to think about it. I have to admit though that I still don’t like the smell, and seeing people eating food with it kind of turns my stomach.

The difference here is that my sister would gladly throw good food out if it touched a banana. Anything contaminated with bananas is garbage.

By the way, don’t let my ketchup peeve deter you from eating it in my presence. You have a perfect right to eat whatever you want. My sister doesn’t agree. You’re forbidden to eat a banana in her presence.

Such picky eaters. We’re probably just the kind of people you have no patience for. My eldest child is just as finicky. I suppose it’s genetic. When she was little, she hated white- or cream-colored food. From having no issue with cheese and white chocolate, suddenly she wasn’t eating them. She outgrew that phase. Next, she decided she was vegetarian. She didn’t like the idea of eating dead animals, but has always love bacon, so she was in a quandary. She fixed that by convincing herself that bacon is made from tree bark. She may have gone back to eating meat now, but she still prefers not to if she can help it. She says meat is just so hard to eat. I’ve already told her about the starving children in Africa dozens of times, but she just feels bad for a minute and then continues eating willfully.

It’s a good thing I don’t have feeding issues with the boys. I guess they didn’t inherit that trait. The main thing about them though is that they’re bound to eat us out of house and home. Everything they say about growing boys is true. The good thing about them is that they’re quite lean for such big eaters. I guess they burn it all off or just poop everything out? I suppose that’s why I’m always up to my chin in kid’s crap.

I really should stop writing about how much my children poop. Who wants to read that?

In any case, drowning in poop aside, I really shouldn’t complain. The kids are healthy, even the picky eater, and that’s the important thing.