> From:    Richard Geller <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Yucky taste in general

> But the converse is not true for
> me. I still love foods
> that are bad fore me,

I think that's going to be true for most people. Not
that I'm a scientist or anything but I think  we were
designed to enjoy more foods than we dislike, to help
us survive. If under the threat of starvation, we
could palate some food that was only marginally
nutritious, that may have made the difference between
life and death. So having an open ended taste sense
was good biology.  And as people on this list have
said many times, we were designed to be eaters in an
environment where finding food was a great challenge
-- supermarkets never figured into this.

At the same time, having your sense of taste clue you
in to things that aren't good for you is also good
biology too!

From personal experience, I know that people can train
themselves to endure and even enjoy things which
aren't initially pleasant. In the food department, I
was raised as a vegetarian. We didn't add salt to
anything.  Early on. my mother decided she didn't want
to use milk products, so I got to taste the whole
gambit of milk-like replacement foods, from the evil
early canned soymilk conconctions, and just about
every whole grain organic cereal product made between
1971 and 1989.

When I was a kid, that canned soymilk was some of the
most evil, dreaded stuff on the planet. I think my
"untrained" taste buds knew the difference between bad
and good, and they really weren't interested!  But my
mother felt strongly this was good stuff, so I found a
way to get it down even not liking it much at all. Now
soymilk has evolved, and the stuff WestBrae and
EdenSoy sell is miles away from the old yucky canned
soymilk. So I used to drink the new soymilks as an
adult with no prompting from a mama-figure. But one
day I was drinking soymilk, and I concentrated on
really tasting it, and I realized, I really didn't
enjoy certain aspects of the flavor at all. Once I
went paleo it was easy for me to give up soymilk,
partially because of the soy, and also because I
realized I no longer liked it, maybe never had really
liked it.

Another example -- I used to fight and fight about
eating the whole grain cereals. I wasn't allowed to
put sugar on them, and they tasted like cardboard.
(And then to add insult to injury -- I was supposed to
dump soymilk on them -- YEEUCH!)  But eventually I
trained myself to be able to eat the whole grain
cereals "because they were good for me" and I never
gave the taste issue a second thought.  But in
discussing the taste of these cereals I preferred with
my dear husband, he informed me that the cereals I
liked "tasted like cardboard" Apparently I've
developed a taste for cardboard, because these kinds
of foods still taste good for me, but I know they
really aren't so I've just given them up.

so, no I don't trust my tongue to tell me what foods
are good for me, but I do trust my taste to tell me
about foods I shouldn't eat.

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