I’m not sure that unacquire is really a word, but I can’t think of any other word to describe one’s losing a taste for a certain food. This thread was inspired by another recent thread about why we taste things, so has anyone ‘unacquired’ a taste for something he or she used to actually enjoy eating? Or maybe I should say, has anyone acquired a distaste for something that was once a favorite food for many years?
For me, a few things that come to mind are pepperoni pizza, yogurt, licorice and egg nog. I used to love these things but eventually noticed I really can’t stand the taste of them anymore. I have no idea why. Anyone else?
When I was a kid, I liked Brussels sprouts. Now, I can’t stand them. On the other hand, mushrooms made me barf when I was a kid, and now I like them. I suspect, in both cases, it’s a matter of the method of cooking.
I’ve lost all interest in a few things for a sustained period of time because I ate them just before being sick. Sick as in nausea.
When I was pregnant the first time I tried to get into gourmet cooking, and made an absolutely scrumptious veal dish. Unfortunately, it gave me unbearable heartburn and eventually nausea due solely to my delicate condition. I was unable to eat veal for years and years, and never made that particular dish again.
Same thing happened once with eating hot dogs with pickle relish and then picking up a stomach flu. Couldn’t eat them again for years and even now I don’t really like them.
Oh, and one time I was stupid and ate an incredible amount of chocolate because I was mad at someone. :rolleyes: I actually couldn’t eat chocolate for, oh, a month or so. I got over it, though.
When I was very young I liked shrimp. Except for New England clam chowder and my grandmother’s scallops, it was the only seafood I’ve ever liked. Then one day while I was in grade school, my family was out at either a Long John Silver’s or an Arthur Treacher’s and I ordered the shrimp like usual, and didn’t like them. Never got the taste for shrimp again, though I’ll admit that after a year or so I stopped trying.
My friend used to love Chinese food. Lived for the stuff. One day she ate at a Chinese buffet that had apparently been out too long or something. She puked her guts out, complete with bamboo shoots coming out her nose.
Milk chocolate. No bad associations–I was just eating one of those mini-bars you get for Halloween candy and suddenly… blegh. The taste and texture of it in my mouth was unpleasant. I switched to dark chocolate, and haven’t been able to abide milk chocolate since.
The first thing to come to mind was how I flip-flopped tastes for two kinds of greens. Early on I loved cooked spinach and detested turnip greens. But then one day, since I was unable to keep from being served some turnip greens (it was at some catered dinner or something like that) I looked around for something to kill the taste and spotted some pepper sauce. That’s the vinegary stuff with hot green peppers floating in it. A liberal sprinkling of that on the greens made them not just tasty but scrumptious. Since then I can even eat them without the added flavor of vinegar, but if there’s some around I’ll use it.
To be fair, even thought the cooked spinach now seems icky to me, I really do like uncooked spinach in salads. Same for mustard greens and kale.
Potato chips and Spam (not together). Used to love them when I was a kid, now even if they’re offering free bags, unless I’m hungry, I won’t move to get them.
Booze. Rye, rum, beer, etc. I used to drink, and I almost got to where the taste didn’t make me shudder. Then I stopped drinking. Twenty years down the road, even the smell is nauseating to me.
Potato Chips, Spaghetti on Toast, Milk and Parsnips
The first two were ruined after I got very sick (probably for other reasons) after eating them. Milk is hard to go back to drinking if you leave it for a long time. Parsnips just started tasting too sweet for the meals they were appearing in.
And of course, the obligatory drinks: Guinness and Whiskey-Coke
I knew that I’d finally grown up when I got to college and willingly ate (and enjoyed!) Grape Nuts.
As for me, I loved cherries as a small child, but when I was four or five I ate a whole can of them and it made me nauseous. I remember looking at the juice swirling at the bottom of the empty can and thinking, “I don’t think I’ll be doing this again.” Since then, the mere smell of cherries is enough to make me gag.
Sushi was one of my favorite foods up until about four months ago when I got very ill one night after eating it. I don’t think there was anything wrong with the sushi, I just had some kind of virus. Anyway, I’ve forced myself to eat it a couple of times since then because I used to like it so much, and it’s just been hard work.
I’ve lost my taste for casseroles and vegetables prepared in the midwestern or southern style. My husband and I make mostly Indian and Chinese food. When my mom comes to visit and wants something like fried chicken or a big slab of meat on a plate, I have no idea how to spice the vegetables in such a way that they would go well with the rest of the meal yet actually taste good but not be covered with mayo or some kind of oogey creamy soup or just steamed or boiled. And, while salad is delicious, it gets old. So I avoid midwestern or southern-prepared veggies like the plague.
As a sidenote, my distaste is probably because I rarely cook that kind of food anymore, but I’d much rather have broccoli with ginger and soy than the vegetables I used to have in my childhood (steamed and plain, boiled and plain or covered in butter or in a casserole made with some sort of creamy liquid). Unfortunately, broccoli with ginger and soy, IMHO, tastes a bit weird with fried chicken.
It’s funny, but for all the times I’ve gotten sick and puked my guts out, I’ve yet to develop a food aversion, even when it actually was the food that made me sick.
The thought of chocolate milk turns my stomach now, though I loved it as a kid. Strawberry milk even more so.
I’ve been deliberately trying to get off fast food burgers and fries, and I think it’s finally working. I don’t feel any cravings anymore when someone brings in their lunch from McDonalds. I think I’ve also managed to kill off my taste for Doritos.
That’s because milk chocolate is evil and only a pale and inferior imitation of the only true chocolate goodness, which of course is dark. All hail the dark chocolate!
