Childhood food battles

On Metro Morning today they were talking about food battles in parenting. The lady said that children sometimes don't eat what their parents tell them because they want to be in control. The problem was that she presented that as a childish rebellion phase instead of a natural human reaction. Of course they want to be in control of what they eat, because they're human beings, not robots. How would you feel if you ordered a meal in a restaurant and it came with a side of brussel sprouts that you didn't ask for, and then when you ask for the cheque the waiter says "No, you're going to sit here until you eat at least four of your brussel sprouts." How random and arbitrary does that sound? Why do parents do that anyway? What positive result do they expect from having their kid eat four brussel sprouts? What negative result do they anticipate if the kid doesn't eat any brussel sprouts? Why aren't they concerned about trivializing the kid's perfectly valid feelings of being full and/or not liking brussel sprouts? What do they hope to achieve?

Anyway, the radio host said to call in and tell them about food battles that you had with your parents, but I've decided to blog mine instead.

- Peas! Even though they were "really good, fresh from the garden," they're still peas! My parents honestly did not seem to understand that I simply do not like peas!

- Tomatoes! Mom thought the really really red, ripe, juicy tomatoes were the best ones and kept pushing them on me. I prefer the slightly less juicy ones that have a hint of orange. During tomato season, there was nary an orange tomato in the house, but we had a surplus of the juicy red ones and they kept being pushed on me. The result is that now I'm just not too fond of tomatoes at all. I can eat them in something, I can eat tomato sauce, but just by themselves I have tomato fatigue.

- Bread! My parents are obsessed with bread! They make their own, both by hand and with a bread maker. They can seriously eat bread, just bread, for a meal. Without even butter, because butter is fattening! Every time I sat down with some salad or vegetables it would be "Don't you want some bread with that? What? You're going to eat a salad WITHOUT bread?" And they have a think for thick, heavy, coarse, grainy breads, which I can handle as part of a sandwich as an adult, but which were very difficult for me as a child, when white bread was much easier on my undeveloped palate. (Even now, I can't stand rye bread, which my mother was always trying to get me to eat.) With all this, they either refused to believe or belligerently ignored the fact that I would much prefer a piece of white bread with butter to a piece of rye or pumpernickel just plain, (or perhaps even something entirely different that isn't bread at all!) Recently my mother was at my apartment and saw a loaf of white bread, and said "What's that doing here? You don't like white bread!" She seemed genuinely shocked that I have, in fact, preferred white bread my entire life, and she'd just never seen me eating it because they never had it in the house. The other result is, because the bread machine would always be going in the morning, I can't stand the smell of baking bread. I have it mentally associated with early mornings and being coerced to eat coarse grainy bread plain when it's too early for my stomach to handle anything more difficult than fruit, and heading off on a noisy, bumpy schoolbus full of pubescent delinquents to my hellish middle-school.

- Stir-fry! For years, my mother tried to feed us this stir-fry of veggies and tofu in some kind of red sauce. I wasn't too fond of it. This wouldn't have become an issue, except apparently she had several thousand recipes for the same dish, and kept saying it's a new recipe! It's completely different from before! Try it! It's good and new and different! And it always ended up being the exact same thing.

- Milkshakes! My father likes milkshakes. I can't stand them. But whenever we'd go on a long car trip, he'd stop in at Harvey's to get a milkshake. It was always presented as a treat! A dessert! Something really good! Since this started at a very young age, I kept expecting it to actually be something good, and being gravely disappointed when it wasn't.

- Pierogies! Pierogies were always served with sour cream at our house. I can't stand sour cream, so I couldn't stand pierogies. It wasn't until I was about 21 that I realized that I like pierogies without sour cream.

- Beans! This came about after I became vegetarian and the whole entire world became convinced that I was going to DIE if I didn't get some protein or whatever RIGHT NOW! (Seriously - on band tour and stuff people would always offer a lovely beautiful vegetarian pasta or lasagna that was the exact kind of food I'd been fantasizing about all day, all while apologizing for not having any beans or lentils or tofu). So my mother would always try to feed me beans. I don't really like beans. I can tolerate them in a complex dish, but not by themselves. But she'd always try to either give me straight beans, or try to sell me some dish on the merit that it contains beans. I might like things DESPITE the fact that they have beans, but not BECAUSE of it.

- Favourites! As a child I had certain favourites: spaghetti, cheese, peanuts, chicken noodle soup (I didn't start being vegetarian until the age of 13), green salad, garlicky pickles, peaches. If I didn't get these things for a while, I would crave them. Literally. Like a PMSing woman. (Still do, in fact. There must be something in these favourites that my body needs). Now these cravings sometimes last a few days - they can't be satisfied by just one meal. But whenever I'd eat something two days or two meals in a row (unless it was bread), my mother would always pressure me to have something else, something "different", so I could have "variety". I didn't know about variations between different people's levels of novelty-seeking at the time, so I thought that for some reason she was trying to torment me by having beautiful leftovers of the very food my body craves right there in the fridge, but not letting me have them because I already had some. Actually, my parents didn't seem to understand how much having the foods that I craved affected my mood. When we'd go on vacations, they'd try to save money by buying food in a grocery store, which was problematic because our motel rooms wouldn't have cooking facilities or a fridge or even a kettle sometimes, and we didn't have any dishes or utensils or even a can opener. They tried to let us get whatever we wanted from the grocery store, but you try wandering into a supermarket with the knowledge and life experience you had at age 8 and a desperate craving for spaghetti, and find a meal that will satisfy you and doesn't require heating, cooling, dishes or utensils.

- Hydration! For some reason my parents thought we were going to die of dehydration from our normal daily activities, and kept making us drink beverages. Like constantly, beyond the point of comfort. They seemed to believe that we were belligerently not drinking to prove some kind of point instead of just being sated. This was especially problematic when the beverages were caloric (like milkshakes!) and I was well and truly full. Aside story: I once remember my father insisting that I drink my milkshake (in a Harvey's cup) until the water level was "below the bottom of the hamburger". The problem was that I didn't realize the Harvey's logo was supposed to be a hamburger!

**Sigh**

And my parents weren't even all that bad, food-wise. They never made us eat everything on our plates or eat fish if we tried some and didn't like it. My father was always ranting about how we were spoiled because we had food other than bread and our chicken was boneless or something, (although I'm sure he still rants about how I'm spoiled when I'm not there to hear, even though I'm supporting myself entirely now) but we didn't actually HAVE to eat a lot of stuff we didn't want to, it was just being constantly presented as something good and special and tasty when I knew full well it wasn't.

But still, that is one of the things I enjoy most about being an adult. I can eat WHATEVER I WANT! I can eat the same thing every day! I can eat nothing but asparagus all day! I can go to a restaurant and order whatever I want, without anyone ruining my meal by ranting through the whole thing about how I'm spoiled! Or I can stay home and cook experimentally and then throw the whole thing out if it doesn't work out! I can eat spaghetti for breakfast and eggs for dinner and no one cares! I haven't eaten beans, rye bread, peas or a milkshake at all in the 21st century! it's all very luxurious.