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Sunday, April 15, 2018

Sum It Up Sunday-Personally, Food

Why we love the food we love is very much a combination of nature and nurture. There is no one thing that will tell us what we like to eat and cook, but rather many influences, some from before we are even born!


When we are taking that nine month holiday in our mother's womb, what she eats during that time sets a course for us. The more varied her diet, the more apt the child will be to try a varied diet later in life. Her hormonal fluctuations might throw a major wrench in the works because what she wants to eat then may change drastically from what she was eating before that baby was just a twinkle in her eye.


Once you are out in the great big world, nurture kicks in as the family will then guide you, for better or for worse. One of my favorite questions to ask guests on the podcast is "When you were growing up, who did the cooking at home?" If one or both of your parents cooked, you are often more apt to cook yourself and to generally enjoy eating.


Not always, though. I have a friend who's mother would come home from work and cook for the family as a duty rather than as something pleasurable. Flash-forward to my friend as an adult- I would cook for her and she just couldn't enjoy the meal because she felt guilty. We found that going out together to eat worked best for us, because she wouldn't feel the guilt and I would feel that sense of community eating around a table with someone that my family instilled in me.


Food is so personal. On the nature side of things, some DNA tells folks that cilantro tastes like soap or that beets taste like dirt. For me, squash is repellent after not wanting to finish a serving of it when very young and throwing up because I was so upset from fighting about it with my mom. To this day just the thought of squash makes my jaw tighten (as it is right now as I type this...ugh...). So, again, a negative nurture influence.


I find the connections we have to food and how it connects us to one another fascinating. It doesn't just fuel our bodies, it fuels our lives and more often than not our relationships with one another.





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