Today's topic Food.  Since I wrote the blog post on junk food I thought I would open up and let you know about all my food issues.  I like food, I like healthy food and I like junk food.  I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating.  Now that we have that out of the way I can get to the nitty gritty of my personal eating issues.

OK, here is the thing. I have quirks with food. NO SWEET on my regular food.  If it is something that is supposed to be sweet like sweet potatoes, sure, but don't do something crazy like put bacon on them.  Don't put honey, or a glaze on my meat, no sugar on my meat, in my vegetables, in my salad dressing. I have come to realize I am in a minority. To put sweet and savory together is very, very popular. It makes me want to hurl.  I have to be very careful at restaurants "tangy" is code for sweet and sour. If you ask the wait staff if something is sweet, they don't think so, but more than half the time it is. So, it can take me a minute to get through a menu and find something I will eat.  I don't eat ribs because they are sweet, I don't eat fruit in my regular salad, because it is sweet etc. I hate sweet pickles, I remember as a young child a relish tray at some holiday or family party. I was looking at what I thought were tiny dill pickles only to find out they were Baby Gherkins, yucky pooh.  Most people you ask will say that General Tso's Chicken is spicy. I think it taste sweet and so I don't eat it.  I am constantly looking for food with the least sugar content when I shop, particularly pasta sauce and soup.

 As stated in my previous post I am a junk food junkie.  However, I like healthy food too.  I love vegetables.  I don't eat okra as followers of my blog know (see post regarding near death experiences).  I don't like Brussel sprouts, but will eat them if I have to.  I don't really eat rutabaga.  I don't like broccoli cooked soft, yuck.  Other than that I am pretty open with vegetables. I like lettuce, salad is so good.  But, I don't like cheese on my salad.  So, when I go out to eat I have to ask for no cheese.  I know I am crazy but I will eat a Cobb salad or taco salad which both come with cheese but that is how they are supposed to be served.  When I was growing up, in my early teens maybe, to put cheese in your salad became very popular and I liked it the first few hundred times I had it and now I just can't stand it. 

I don't like ketchup on my cheeseburger, or heavy sauce on my pizza, it grosses me out.  When I was in school the cafeteria would serve us cheese burgers, with ketchup.  Now, the "meat" was some kind of grossness of hamburger mixed with soy or something which gave it a gross flavor which was made grosser, in my opinion, by the ketchup.  I would ask them to put no ketchup but the worker would insist that we had to have it on the burger.  Because of this, to this day I hate ketchup on my cheeseburger.  And, frankly, ketchup is pretty sweet, so I eat it sparingly.  I usually eat fries with no ketchup, no ketchup on hot dogs etc. 

 We were poor, Thousand Island dressing is a mix of three things we kept in the house all the time, ketchup, Miracle Whip and sweet relish.  Easy to make for a cheap salad dressing. I hate Miracle Whip and sweet relish.  You can imagine how much I like TID.  My mom would make it and put it on my salad even if I said no. Thanks, Mom, for the scars.  Because, of Miracle Whip, I spent so much time trying to get the sandwiches at home to taste as good as the ones we ate out.  I finally, after years of searching and experimenting with sandwich ingredients I realized the difference was mayo. I have never looked back. 

I love fruit.  I don't eat papaya.  I didn't know I didn't like papaya until I went to a Mexican restaurant and got papaya water to drink.  I saw the person taking my order get a look on her face when I asked for it.  I knew why after I tasted it, that stuff was gross!  I wandered if  they were playing a trick on the gringa by giving her dishwater.  I told my sister how gross the papaya water was and she told me that is what papaya taste like (dishwater, in my opinion).  She served a mission in Brazil and a common prank on Americans was to give them papaya.  Apparently, it is an acquired taste.  I think I will be OK not acquiring one.  Other than that fruit is so good.  Some of my favorites are the worst for you in terms of glycemic index. Bananas, watermelon and pineapple, I am not a diabetic, so I eat them, but not as guilt free as I used to.  

I don't like vanilla ice cream.  When I tell people they say things like, French vanilla?  Old fashion vanilla? homemade vanilla?  Like that will make me say yeah, I like that kind.  Or try to make me see how wonderful vanilla is, when I know it isn't.  I will eat vanilla if there is something on it to kill the taste, like chocolate, strawberries, caramel etc.  I had yet another traumatic experience in my youth that directly caused my dislike of vanilla.  Long and short, my teacher was truly being kind, she bought the two kids that didn't have an ice cream treat after recess a Dixie cup of, you guessed it, vanilla.  When she told us she was going to treat us, I started thinking about the delicious chocolate ice cream, yummy!  Only to have her give me vanilla.  What a let down.  I was taught to be grateful and polite so I ate the vanilla, but from that moment on I didn't ever like it again.  
   
You will note that most of my food issues stem from my youth.  But, I think most of all of our food issues do.  I am grateful that mine are so few.  I get sad when people won't try new foods or don't like fruit and vegetables.  I am sure people get sad when I tell them how much I hate sweet on my regular food.  When I eat at someones home and they have sweet on regular food, I just eat it, I don't like it but I eat it because it isn't their job to worry about my weirdness.  I am gracious about it and just keep my mouth shut except when I put in food.