At a recent work meeting I was again reminded that I’m a picky eater. We were having one of our potluck lunches and I was gagging over the baked beans. 

 

Yes, I hate baked beans, one of the staples of most potlucks or picnics. I also hate one of the other staples, coleslaw.

 

Growing up I had to clean my plate every night at supper before I could leave the table, no matter what was being served and no matter how much I disliked it. My dad was a firm believer in not wasting food.

 

When I would come home from school and smell liver cooking I’d go up to my room and cry, because I knew I’d be sitting at the table in front of a plate of uneaten food all night long instead of playing or watching TV. I wasn’t trying to be a difficult child, I just couldn’t make myself swallow it.

 

One night sitting at the kitchen table by myself in front of a plate of cold liver, I thought I’d come up with the perfect solution. I stuffed all the liver into my mouth, went into the bathroom, and spit it all into the toilet. The problem was, I didn’t check to see if it had all gotten flushed down. My dad was not pleased. He came pounding over to where I was playing, grabbed my ear and pulled me into the bathroom to face my crime. 

 

Although I never could make myself eat liver, I never tried that again.

 

I had the same problem in Kindergarten. We weren’t allowed to leave the table and go out to recess until we’d eaten everything on our plates. I didn’t like most of what was served and my parents didn’t believe in bringing bag lunches when a hot meal was available, so at the beginning of the year I spent many a recess sitting at the lunch table, staring down at my divided plastic tray of food surrounded by scary older students.

 

As the year wore on, I started devising creative ways to dispose of my food that didn’t involve attempting to eat it. I’d fill my spoon up with whatever food was being served that day, glance around surrepititiously to see if anyone was watching me, and then quickly flick my food under the table. Another trick was to cram the slice of thickly buttered white bread we were served daily into my empty milk carton. I felt like a criminal.

 

Should a five-year-old be forced to eat? I don’t think so. I firmly believe young children will eat when they’re hungry, and forcing them to at other times can lead to poor eating habits.

I also firmly believe the reason I’m such a picky eater today is because I was forced to be part of the clean your plate club when I was a child.

 

I didn’t realize how picky I was until one day a number of years ago, a co-worker pulled out a list of food I wouldn’t eat that she’d been secretly recording. It was three pages long.

 

Part of the problem is that I don’t like many of the foods most people enjoy. Along with baked beans and coleslaw, I hate whipped cream, apple crisp, apple pie, pumpkin pie, barbeque anything and sweet and sour sauce. In my book, sweet and meat don’t belong together ever. 

 

Coffee and mocha anything is disgusting. Cake and ice cream should never be served together, the crumbs floating in the melted ice cream is enough to put me off eating for the rest of the day.

 

Raisins can be eaten alone or in Raisin Bran, but never, ever in cookies or breads.

 

I think part of my problem is texture. I like raw carrots but hate them cooked. The same goes for apples. I love crisp pea pods but hate mushy cooked peas. I like fresh fruit but won’t eat it canned.

 

Yet I love food many people don’t, like sauerkraut. When I was a kid in the 1970s, the school cooks actually served sauerkraut, but because so many kids didn’t like it, it was actually an optional lunch item. The cooks were so used to kids rejecting it they were always surprised when I said yes, and would heap my plate with it.

 

The only other school lunch items I actually liked were the government tuna sandwiches (my friends didn’t like them so I’d eat theirs) and frosted graham crackers, which was apparently supposed to be some kind of dessert.

 

When I became a parent, one of the things I vowed never to do was make my kids eat everything on their plate. And I didn’t. Growing up they had to try a bite of everything, and if they didn’t like it, they could find something else to eat.

 

If my children don’t thank me for anything else on Mother’s Day, they should thank me for that.