What do you prefer?

Everyone has food preferences. This is different from food allergies. From what little I remember from Paul Rozin's Psych 101 class, food preferences can be formed for any reason. You might be eating a blueberry muffin with a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the milk you put in your coffee is past its prime and that makes you ill. But from that point on, you don't like blueberry muffins and yet you still have the the morning cup of java. The adverse reaction makes an imprint on a person. For more on this, you can read Prof. Rozin's essay, Food is Fundamental, Fun, Frightening, and Far-reaching.

I am generally not a finicky eater. But I have preferences for certain items. These are the items I will not touch. Some items can be explained, others defy explanation.

1. Bananas. I have no idea why I hate bananas. I haven't had one in over 20 years. I sometimes tell people that my sister beat me silly with a banana when I was young. While that's not true, you wouldn't put such behavior past her.

2. Mayonnaise. I like the cousins of mayo (aioli, ranch dressing, hollandaise), but I hate mayo.


3. Natto. Consider the soybean continuum, where edamame is at one end and soy sauce is at the other. Natto is rotten soybeans and would fall right in the middle. In the words of my former colleague Andy, "It tastes like ass."

Be afraid of natto, be very afraid.

4. Bittermelon. Nuff said.