Food Apartheid

I was reading a thread on Datalounge (as I often do because the site is largely hilarious) and came across a thread about picky eaters. Someone posted about his/her brother who was a picky eater as a kid and how their household was forced into a food "apartheid" because of this. (The picky eater would get different meals from the rest of the family.) I found this funny mainly because I also grew up in a household where I was catered to because of my picky eating habits as a child. Because I didn't (and still don't) eat mayonnaise or any kind mayo-like product (Miracle Whip, etc.), when my mother made potato salad, she'd make me a side of mashed potatoes to deal with my eating habits. 

As an adult, I do eat more things than I did as a child, but I still avoid many of the things I refused to eat growing up. For example, I don't like many condiments. Aside from mayo, mentioned earlier, I also don't eat ketchup or mustard. I also don't eat pickles or tomatoes (but I will eat salsa). I have to get plain burgers or burgers with barbeque sauce on them. I also don't like watermelon (or melons of any kind), cherries, strawberries, or peaches. Also on the no fly list are boiled eggs, corned beef, jelly in flavors other than grape or apple, Greek yogurt (it smells like spoiled milk: ugh), orange juice with pulp (the consistency is gross). 

I'm so grossed out by some foods that I don't even want to touch them or wash dishes that has remnants from them. If I got a burger with pickles on it, I couldn't just pick them off and keep eating (because the pickle juice would still be there). I could pick tomatoes off and keep eating, but not pickles. Also, the mere smell of mustard makes me gag. 

But there are many foods I do like also. I can go to a restaurant and order a meal that's not chicken tenders! I eat fish, beef, Mexican food, etc. (I was off Chinese food for many years but that was due to having a barfing episode after eating a bad batch of lo mein from my neighborhood place when I lived in Brooklyn, but I bounced back from that.)

Given my own food preferences, I can't really criticize anyone else's. I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like.