Maybe you’ve experienced it: you hate some kind of food and by eating it occasionally, one day, you realize it is delicious. It happened many times for me since my mother made me eat three spoonfuls of a food I didn’t like every time I refused to eat it. I learned to love royal couscous, and it took more than 5 years!
But is the contrary possible? Can you stop loving something because you stop eating it? Well, science aside, I would way yes – since it also happened to me. Since I’ve turned to a healthier way of living, I rarely eat bought sweets at home since I love to make my own desserts. And those don’t contain high amounts of sugar. And what happens when I eat an extra-sweet treat that I used to like? I find it quite disgusting. I bought a Mars candy bar this summer and was quite surprised some people call this chocolate! All I could taste was the sugary taste. More recently, I bought a Turtles candy bar since it is my favorite and I realized it isn’t anymore. The 85% dark chocolate in my pantry is much better.
I also used to drink Nestea like if it was water – this thing is just incredible. I had one today. How could it be my favorite drink before? It seems that my sense of taste changed, sugar is not the same.
But can your body adapt too? Maybe you’ve read The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone (or something else approaching the subject). According to Alicia, people on a vegan diet are sick when eating animal products again. Reading this as an omnivore, I was skeptical but also thought it was possible. Diran has a vegetarian friend to whom it happened:
But does it happen only with meat or animal products? After tonight, I can tell you: any bad-for-you food that you stop eating will make you feel sick if you eat it again.
I went at St-Hubert with Diran. I’ve always loved this restaurant but it is a rotisserie, so it is not easy to eat there since being a vegetarian. Still, they have an appetizer that I’ve always loved: a combination platter with waffle potatoes, onion rings, and a choice between cheese sticks, jalapeno peppers and vegetable spring rolls.
And I shared one with Diran, along with nachos. This is something I used to do often before: lots and lots of greasy cheesy appetizers as a meal. Which is lots of greasy fried foods. And when I came home, I had an horrible heartache, that is slowly going away.
I’m telling you, you probably won’t ever caught me eating that kind of meal again. A handful of fries isn’t the same as a meal made of fried foods. When you stop eating greasy cheesy foods, your body adapts to the new healthy wholesome foods you eat and it protests when you don’t give him juicy delicious fruits and veggies.
It’s called behaviorism people: I’ve had my punishment, now I won’t do it again.
Has something like that ever happened to you? Has other people’s shared experiences help you avoid it?
Now that I am low carb (due to pre-diabetes) I find that even a single regular semi-sweet chocolate chip tastes WAY too sweet to me. It's amazing how quickly our bodies adapt!
Hi Charlie, I am a Kind Lifer too! Since you asked for people to share their experiences, I will tell you mine. I've been vegan for 8 years, but I am also addicted to chocolate. Giving up milk chocolate for dark chocolate was difficult for me. Well, people know I love chocolates so I often get them as gifts. I thought a particular item was dairy-free, so I bit in…I was wrong, it was definitely MILK chocolate, and I couldn't believe how strong and off-putting the milk flavor was to me after so many years without it! All of these years I have been missing milk chocolate, but once I tasted it again – yuck! I thought, "maybe this is rancid" so a non-vegan friend offered to taste it for me, but she thought it was just delicious. The strong dairy/rancid flavor stayed in my mouth for a while – and it is a flavor I don't want to have again!