(Just thought I'd start the ball rolling on "Spirituality 2.0".)

How do we decide what foods we like and don't like?

Would you say you're open to trying new things, or is it to some extent predetermined?

Lameshoe questions, but I felt like making a thread, and I wanted to steer it away from "veggies vs omnivores, vegans vs everyone" territory.

I try new things as often as I can.
Which is not very often, but I do at least try

Why do i find bread sauce gross and other people love it?
What determines individual difference, an unpleasant taste in ones mouth is like a lovely banquet in another........someone give me the science bit. PLEASEEEE.

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Thanks kr for the subscription! Much love..

I don't really know how to answer this question in a philosophical manner (what I'm saying is probably more sociological?) but I'd say that it probably is to some extent pre-determined, in the sense that you pick up a lot of the random likes/dislikes of your parents. If your parents told you they would never try X b/c it looks gross, there's a good chance you're going to think X looks gross as well. And you might not even realise your parents' influences in that area.

Took me until I was about 15 to actually try brussels sprouts, b/c my mother had insisted they are hideous, to the point where cooking them makes her feel a little ill. I in turn thought they would be horrible.

I fucking love brussels sprouts.


Yeah, Oph, don't mention the V word. Can o' worms.

I got to wondering about this in our "Psychoanalysis and Cinema" module. There were references to a theory concerning "abjection", formulated by Julia Kristeva and relating to why we're disgusted or appalled by bodily fluids and things that remind us of the permeability of the body (and thus induce death anxiety). I mention this because, during one of the seminars, we all had to say things that we found disgusting. My pet hate is, and has always been, baked beans, which apparently fits quite nicely into Kristeva's theory.

I've always been a bit of a fussy eater, and I know that sometimes, it's because of specific things - I nearly choked on a load of really badly cooked pasta when I was a kid of 7-8, and it's taken me a good 15 years to actually eat it again (I still don't much care for it, though). On the other hand, I saw a show about child development, where they were saying that kids (toddler age, this time) develop likes and dislikes almost arbitrarily, as a means of creating an identity for themselves.

I find this sort of thing interesting. The dreaded "big questions" aren't so interesting because we know pretty much from the off that we can't answer them or even really come close, but questions about why we do the things we do at least seem like they're worth trying to get t the bottom of.