Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me – Food Edition

These Top 10 Tuesdays make it easy to come up with good blog material, no? So today I'm going to give you the food edition of things you didn't know about me. I don't consider myself to be an extremely picky eater. I like a lot of different kinds of foods and I'm willing to try things with new flavors and textures, but I definitely have my own food quirks. Let's get started!

1) I'm a pescetarian.

A lot of people have questions about this, so I'll just put it out there. I'm a pescetarian. I used to be a vegetarian for over 10 years, and my husband used to be vegan. But a few years ago, I decided I really wanted fish back in my life. I grew up eating fish a lot and a lot of other meats but somehow I missed fish the most out of everything. I attribute this to being Japanese in a former life. :) There was a time when I sneaking fish into my diet behind my husband's back (lol) while he was traveling, and then one day he confessed he was actually eating fish while he was traveling! We had a good laugh at each other and started eating it at home too. Now I cook fish regularly. My husband is still dairy free though. So I don't eat meat excepting fish.

2) I could eat rice every day.

Yep, I love rice especially sushi rice and could eat it every day. I'm not sure I could ever grow tired of it. (See number 1 about being Japanese in a former life). My rice cooker gets a permanent spot on the kitchen counter.

3) Peanut butter is my life.

I'm really glad neither of my kids is allergic to peanut butter because I eat it every day. Every weekday morning I eat toast and peanut butter with a veggie sausage for breakfast. I love chocolate and peanut butter together. Peanut butter in waffles, on noodles, in pastries. I love it all. It's my favorite thing ever.

4) I always eat the bottom of the bagel first.

I'm not sure when I started doing this, but when I eat a bagel on the weekends and it's sliced in half, I always eat the bottom part first. The top is my favorite part so it's a whole “save the best part for last” thing.

5) I actually hate cooking.

Really, as much as I love food (and I do love it), I think I'd be fine with food in pill form. I really do not enjoy cooking at all, even though I'm good at making a few standard dishes. I just hate how laborious it is, all the chopping, the cooking, the hot burning oil. If I had a million dollars, I would totally hire a personal chef. I'd rather clean than cook any day, but it's my job, so I do it. I try to make the time of cooking enjoyable by listening to audiobooks while I do all the prep.

6) I'm allergic to avocado and cantaloupe and aspartame.

I became allergic to avocado after I gave birth to my oldest child. I would eat it and be in pain a few minutes later, all through my esophagus and my upper digestion area. It felt like really painful heartburn so I thought I would be fine if I ate Tums or Zantac prior to eating avocado because I really loved avocado! But no, that didn't help either. It was just too painful. So I looked it up and it turns out that if you're allergic to avocado, you can experience bad digestive pain. So I tried to stop eating it. I would try it and be in pain, wait a few months, try it, and be in pain again. This went on for several years before I gave up and stopped altogether.

Then recently it was melon season and I saw cantaloupe at Whole Foods. It looked so good and I hadn't had it in a long time (cue doom music) so I got some. Oh my god, I thought the painful reaction to avocado was bad but cantaloupe was a hundred times worse! I was in so much pain I actually vomited it up and had to take Benadryl in the middle of the day and pass out before I felt okay again. Turns out that avocado and cantaloupe are related. Who knew? Well, I do now. Sigh.

I'm also allergic to aspartame, that artificial sweetener stuff they put in all the diet drinks and gum. I have to read labels now to make sure it's not slipped into random foods. I wrote my first two books fueled on Coke Zero and one day I was drinking it and suddenly everything tasted weird. Everything I ate or drank tasted strange and sickening, to the point that even my sinuses were weird (I wish I could describe it more than “weird”). So I stopped drinking it for a few days and tried again. Again the same issue. I tried chewing gum and it was there too. That was when I realized it was the aspartame. And now I use Splenda in my tea and haven't had a diet soda in several years.

7) There are several foods I used to hate but love now.

My husband likes to point out that I used hate mushrooms, HATE THEM, and now I love them and can't get enough sometimes. I also used to hate olives and I love them now. This is why I continue to keep trying things I may not like or haven't liked in the past. I always give it a try to see if my tastes have changed. I can be flexible like that.

8) Lunch is the hardest meal for me.

I often will stand in the kitchen and despair that THERE'S NOTHING TO EAT when in fact there's plenty to eat, I just don't want to make any of it (see number 5). The main problem here is that I'm often alone and have to make food just for me. Breakfast is easy because I eat the same thing almost every day. Dinner is a bit easier. Often my husband will mercifully tell me what to make so I don't have to decide. But lunch? It's all on me. I therefore try to buy things that'll be easy to make. Salads are a mainstay throughout the summer but I often don't want them in the winter. If I eat processed foods like frozen pizza or burritos, it's mostly at lunch. Also, I try to eat leftovers at lunch though I don't like leftovers much either.

9) I get nervous eating meals while out with other people.

I'm always afraid people will be confrontational about my lack of meat eating or I'm afraid I'll have a reaction to the food (ala avocado or cantaloupe, because those came out of nowhere) or, this one is the worst, I'm afraid I'll swallow too much food at once and it'll get stuck in my esophagus. Does that ever happen to anyone else? I HAVE TO EAT SLOW and remember to chew really well or food gets stuck on its way down to my stomach. Not choking like stuck in your windpipe, but in my esophagus. This is also really painful and causes nausea because my body wants to get rid of it. Sigh. Thankfully it's only happened at home because it's not pretty at all.

You thought this was just going to be about the food I like and don't like, right? HELLO.

10) I haven't eaten McDonalds in over 15 years.

Yep. People talk about stopping off to get fries or a milkshake or a Happy Meal for their kids, and I think, “I haven't stepped foot in a McDonald's in over 15 years.” My kids only know Happy Meals from the TV. Lol. It's for all the reasons you would imagine (see number 1 above): factory farming, chemical laden food, animal cruelty, etc. I'm a firm believer in voting with my wallet, so I don't give them my business. This is how I deal with most everything I don't agree with: certain books or authors I don't agree with or like, certain companies I don't like, certain charities I disagree with, etc. They don't get a penny from me. McDonald's is something I can live without. I should note that once or twice on a long road trip I have eaten at other fast food establishments but still not McDonald's. It's just the way it is. My husband is with me on this so it's a family decision.

So there ya go! Ten food related things about me you probably didn't already know! Drop your comments in below. Did you suddenly become allergic to foods out of the blue? Do you like to cook? Let me know!