You know how sometimes children refuse to eat a specific kind of food for no apparent reason? I’ve been “blessed” with this as an adult. Quite often, there’s a very good reason, they’re just not self-aware enough to express it.
At least, I was not, until I was in my late 20’s. One day, I asked my brother “hey, how do peppers taste for you?”. Knowing me well enough, he figured that I must have a good reason to ask, so he answered honestly: “refreshing, and a bit spicy”. My immediate reply was “wait, so they’re not bitter?”. On that day, I realised that the reason I couldn’t eat peppers was that most other people perceive a completely different taste than I do. For me, they’re like distilled bitterness. Yes, red ones too. Yes, even the rice cooked inside of a stuffed pepper. Yes, I’ve tried it several times.
Since then, I started experimenting by re-adding previously banished foods to my diet. Most people dislike okra because it’s hairy and slimy, though this isn’t the case if it’s prepared correctly. The okra I tried in India was neither hairy nor slimy. Just extremely bitter. Okay, back to not eating it, I guess. Aubergines, on the other hand, were a pleasant surprise. They can be non-bitter sometimes, especially the white, green, or stripy ones. It also depends on the way they’re cooked. I still don’t rely on them for a meal, but I take one bite or two.
When I was a child, I used to pick both mushrooms and peppers out of my pizza. Later on, I started tolerating and even liking mushrooms. My body could still sometimes say “okay that’s it, no more mushrooms for this meal”, and in those cases I’d shrug and finish my meal with something else that was on the table. Except that one day where I was strictly fasting and my only office lunch contained mushrooms. I tried force-feeding myself and my body rejected them quite strongly. Right, no lunch for me today, I guess.
Later on, I found a nice shop that was selling delicious mushrooms of their own production. It was both fasting and mushroom season, so I was happily having mushrooms at least a couple of times per week. Until it happened. I couldn’t finish that meal, and the no-mushrooms-please sensation didn’t just go away. I then remembered that friend of mine who always said she couldn’t have mushrooms, and asked her why. “They make me gag”, she said. Yep, sounds familiar!
It’s been a few years since then, and I’ve come to slightly tolerate them after a long abstinence period. I can have mushrooms on my pizza, if they’re sliced thinly enough, though I might still stop halfway and start removing them. If someone tells me “these mushrooms are delicious”, I might take a bite and say “yes, indeed!”, but not a second one. A quick internet search told me about “sensory processing disorder”, though I haven’t researched it further.
As a conclusion, all I have to say is: Give those children a break. If they’re refusing to eat something, try asking them why, you’re helping them. Just no pressure. Would you eat food sprinkled with the most bitter medicine you’ve ever tasted, or food that triggers your gag reflex? In most cases, they can avoid those foods and still have a balanced diet.