I have been living with my best friend Taylor since freshman year of college. This year, however, is our first year living in an apartment together–so it’s our first time having a kitchen to cook for ourselves.
We each have a separate side of the fridge –I have the left and she has the right. The right side is ALWAYS full because Taylor’s mom delivers to her endless homemade meals (packaged with love). These meals are covered with tin foil, labeled, and have re-heating directions neatly hand-written on the top. There are enough of these to feed an army.
Taylor has always grown up eating her mom’s homemade cooking–which, I must admit, is phenomenal. However, it has kept her from trying new things. Sometimes my roommate will stare at me weird when I’m eating something she has never tried and say, “Eww I hate that.” Nothing bothers me more than when someone says they don’t like something they’ve never tried.
However, over winter break this year…something magical happened. I think Santa may have stuffed a few new taste-buds into Taylor’s stocking because she’s now onto a “trying new foods” kick.
Her new favorite thing is chili–which we made from scratch last week. She has also been following a new healthy and creative eating regimen (I wonder where she got that idea?!) where instead of eating energy-dense sides she eats things like fruits and vegetables with interesting dips and adds new flavors to her sandwiches.
Taylor admits to liking this new way of eating and says she feels a lot better after eating these things. It is so interesting to see how someone so picky can suddenly be on their way to being a food connoisseur.
There’s hope for all the picky eaters in the world–but it’s all about readiness to change. No matter how many times I tried to get Taylor to try eating new creative things, she wouldn’t budge. In order to assess your readiness to change or the readiness of someone you know, take a look at the Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model that I found on the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition website: http://www.cellinteractive.com/ucla/physcian_ed/stages_change.html
This is a great way to think about whether or not you are ready to make changes in your diet like Taylor did or maybe make changes to other aspects of your life like amount of physical activity or stress-relief activities you do. Give it a shot!
