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Read MoreReview: Paleo Pals
Update 2/17/12: We have a winner! Thanks, everyone, for sharing your food horror stories — they were run to read! Congratulations to our randomly-generated winner Michelle M., and here’s hoping being a winner today makes up for having to eat liver as a kid. Her comment:
Liver. Gag. The one time my dad made it for the family was the last time. My younger sister and I sat at the table a LONG time that night. I’m still leery of organ meats to this day, especially since my husband doesn’t care for liver, either.
Dave and I don’t have kids, and honestly, I don’t have much experience with them. But I know how challenging it can sometimes be to manage our adult food preferences. I can’t fathom the difficulty of trying to get a wee one to eat something they don’t want to eat… especially on a particularly trying day. I can only imagine that the desire to shove some McNuggets at them can sometimes be pretty strong.
For those times, Sarah Fragoso’s new book Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship will surely be welcome.
In her first book Everyday Paleo, Sarah told the story of how she transitioned her family from the standard American diet to their paleo way of life, and she provided plenty of advice for adults ready to make the change. With Paleo Pals, she’s created a story to help get the kids on board by speaking to them directly.
She’s created a fun set of characters — Jimmy, the boy who’s not convinced he wants to eat “oopity-goopity,” healthy food, and the Paleo Pals, a team of superheroes dedicated to real food. The Paleo Pals take Jimmy on a big adventure from a dismal food factory to a sun-dappled farm to show him where real food comes from. Along the way, Jimmy learns all the benefits of paleo food: lots of energy, mental focus, no post-meal tummy aches, and the confidence of learning to cook.
The story is fun enough to keep wee ones engaged and the bright illustrations make it accessible to little ones who aren’t ready to read words for themselves yet. It’s got a beautiful family vibe and playfulness — kids won’t even realize they’re learning. The story is bolstered by a few easy- and fun-to-make recipes like “Rockin’ Rocket Stuffed Sweet Potatoes” and “Courageous Coconut Cookies” to encourage kids to join you in the kitchen.
Win a Signed Copy
To celebrate the launch of the book, we’re doing a giveaway of a copy signed by Sarah. Just post to the comments and tell us what the one thing was that you refused to eat as a kid.
Deadline to enter: 11:50 p.m. on Wednesday, February 15. I’ll announce the winner on Friday morning (February 17).
I’ll start… my parents had a rule that we had to try all foods. We didn’t have to like them, and we didn’t have to finish them, but if a food we’d never had before showed up on someone’s plate, we were required to try a bite. I complied happily until the day my dad ordered sweetbreads at a fancy restaurant in Philadelphia. I think I was about 9 years old. The “conversation” eventually escalated to raised voices and then to me giving my dad the silent treatment with my arms firmly folded across my chest. It ended with me stomping out of the restaurant, refusing the entire time to try even a tiny nibble. I won that battle and firmly cemented by reputation for being a very stubborn little girl (and, as it turns out, a stubborn big girl, too).
OK; your turn!
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The Open Book in Wigtown, Scotland
Let's travel back in time to winter, 2016. My husband David and I were living in White River Junction, Vermont; he was studying for his...
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Hot dogs and Chinese food. Needless to say, eating whole foods has come pretty easy for me.
I’m like you…we were required to try whatever was put before us. To my great surprise, I found a bunch of foods I liked, but would never had tried…like beef heart, tongue and liver. But for some reason, there was something about fish I really couldn’t handle…not sure what it was…because I really like fish now, but when I was a kid, the only fish I could stand was salmon (guess if you must like a fish, that’s a good one to like…lol) Unfortunately, we RARELY ate salmon…
And I think this give-away is a super idea. I have two grandsons this book was written for specifically…if it doesn’t come from a fast-food chain, or isn’t loaded with grains and sugar, they don’t want to eat it…
I was ironically blessed to have two gifted amateur chefs for parents, who regularly whipped up various curries, stir fries and culinary oddities like 100 year old eggs. Unfortunately, I was not interested in those types of epicurean adventures at the tender age of 8, but was more focused on consuming as much Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Coca-Cola as was humanly possible. The stand out standoff in my mind was my dad trying to force me to touch some plate of what I’m sure was a lovely Indian dish involving beef and a thick gravy with vegetables ladled over fluffy white rice. I got so upset I barfed all over the plate. I would kill to try half the dishes I rejected back then!
Brussel sprouts. My mom use to make us sit at the table until we choked them down. Think Mommy Dearest. It took me years to get the courage up to try them again. At 39, I finally did, andbim happy to say I LOVE THEM!
When I was a kid, I couldn’t stand greens such as kale, collard, and spinach.
Lima beans. Hated them so much. Cooked carrots are a close second. Had a VERY bad experience with them when I was little and it took me almost 2 1/2 decades to get over it.
Black olives!! I can remember being really young, maybe 6 or so and I hated black olives and mushrooms. I now love mushrooms, but black olives have something about them I still can’t eat to this day!
My Mom always liked to use what we had when cooking so we had a chicken coup, a small garden & a goat in our backyard. One night she said we’re having “Nopales” with red chile & shredded beef. I was about 10yrs old & sked what’s that? She said cactus! I said cactus! Eeeew!!! So she brought the flat round pieces of cactus in, scrapped the thornes off & cut them into squares & cooked them with the shredded beef & red chile. I sat & picked every green piece out of my food that night. Another night she said we are having chicken with mashed potatoes & green beans! Yum I said! I sat & ate the whole plate of food! Afterward I found out the green beans were really cactus cut into long strips cooked in butter! She was sneaky but man it was so good!! That’s the only food I didn’t wanna touch & it turned out to be good!
Funnily enough, lettuce was the one thing I refused to eat as a child. I would tell people I was allergic to it. I’d even eat brussel sprouts before lettuce. Now I eat anything green and leafy.
Scalloped potatoes, yuck!
Live & onions. Worst dinner ever as a kid. Now I’m much older & wiser, but man that was a 2 hour dinner battle every time my mom cooked it when I was growing up.
Aw, my Mum used to cook liver for hours until it was the texture of dry dusty boot leather with rubber bands round the outside. I used to think liver was a punishment for bad behaviour. Then, in my twenties, a gamekeeper boyfriend got me to eat pheasant and venison liver raw and I couldn’t believe how it just melted in my mouth. Now I always cook the sauce first then just show the liver to the frying pan to sear the outside. Yummy scrum.
Mushrooms. Squid.
Now that I am an adult, I like mushrooms. But not squid.
Spinach, one time I spit an entire mouth full into my sitters face, she never came back. Now I love it. In fact I made spinach and shrimp curry for dinner last night.
My grandma made cauliflower by dumping one whole head into boiling water without breaking it down into florets. Then she would boil all of the water out until it was burned and expect us to eat it. NO THANKS!! It has been just this past year or so that I will willing to try cauliflower but prepped in different ways!!
I hated fish as a kid. Oddly, I now love sushi and tuna tartar, but still don’t like cooked fish.
brussel sprouts and olives! since I started paleo, I’m all about new way to make veggies, and it was brussel sprouts sauteed with bacon that hooked me… still not a fan of olives, but I love them in a tapenade! totally strange how our tastes change over time!
Salmon loaf. My aunt gave the portions my siblings and I wouldn’t eat to my mom. Poor mom.
Definitely despised avocados and had 5 trees in our backyard. Now i wish I would have known then what I know now!
Zucchini and tomatoes sautéed from the garden. My dad loved to make this at the end of the summer when both were plentiful. I thought it was the grossest thing ever!! Now I make the same combo many mornings for breakfast 😉 thanks Dad!!!
Liver and Onions! A favorite of my Mothers and a regular at our table. I would literally work myself into such a frenzy I would end up ralphing up what ever bites I was required to eat. It was a combination of texture, smell, watching her pull the white veiney things out prior to cooking, all of it just grossed me out.
Okra. Still dislike!
Sweet potatoes! The one and only time my mom tried to make them for us, my sister threw up all over the dinner table. No more sweet potatoes for the Hunt family! As an adult, I learned about their nutritional value and was determined to like them somehow – I’m proud to say that I now keep a bag of sweet potatoes in my fridge at almost all times and I LOVE them!
I hated peas, my mom wouldn’t let me leave the dinner table one night until I ate them. Well, I refused and I think I even made marks on the table I was so mad (guess I’m stubborn too!) I’m still not a huge fan of peas but I love lots of other veggies now which seems to be rubbing off on my girls. I have 2-year old twins. They crack me up because I was eating a salad last night and they kept asking for more of it. I don’t think there is much of anything they have refused to eat and they love cabbage!
Like you, we were required to try everything and I typically complied, but I never enjoyed MEAT – in any form, but mostly steak and burgers from the grill. There was definitely some arguments at the dinner table as a teenager as I SO WANTED TO BE A VEGETARIAN! Then, in my early 20’s, I got a taste of rare-cooked prime rib, and discovered a brand new world. I still went back and forth, with a 5 year stint in my mid-20’s only eating “white meat.” Boy did I get sick of chicken! I can now say with pride and understanding of why I eat all meat. Now, if I could get my dad to quit cooking it well-done.
I don’t remember hating much of anything, except lima beans. But the most memorable incident was over bratwurst, of all things. It was early middle school, and I had decided I was no longer eating pork. I don’t remember why. My parents inexplicably thought it was I was trying to be Jewish (I was raised Catholic). They have a pretty strange worldview sometimes. It turned into a huge fight and they wouldn’t let me leave the table until I ate it. Finally, at nearly 1 am, they gave up and went to bed with me still sitting at the table. I threw it out and went to bed myself. Never heard another word about it as far as I can recall!
Eggplant parmesan. I actually had a physical reaction to it when I put it in my mouth…. I still shudder when I think of it!
Needless to say my very Italian father was furious with me and my antics and promptly sent me to my room with no dinner. That was one of the best gifts he ever gave me! LOL!
I really couldn’t stand peas and bananas…something about the squishy texture just freaked me out!
I refused to eat my mom’s meatloaf, which was made with oats and lots of store brand ketchup. I remember my parents getting me to take a few bites when they rebranded it “roast beef soufflé”, and it was a family joke for a long time that if you gave something a fancy enough name I would eat it.
Catchup!!! My brother ate it on everything from bread to FRUIT! Grossed me out for life! Looking forward to the copy of Paleo Pals I’ve ordered for my 3 kids! 🙂
We were not allowed to leave the table until all the food was gone from our plates…I refused green peas nada lot of dinners sitting at the table staring or sleeping until my mom would excuse me from the table…usually at midnight!
Oops!! Had a lot of dinners…instead of nada
One day in the early 50’s, when I was a little girl, your grandfather came home with a can of rattlesnake meat. I know he didn’t find it on the shelf in our local A&P Store. But, at the time, it didn’t occur to me to ask where it came from. Dad was pretty mad at my Mom and me because we refused to taste it. Now I’m thinking …. your Grandfather Stramara was Paleo!
Spinach, and it was from a can. Ugh, could it be any worse?! LOVE fresh spinach now, so good!!
Hey Mel, remember when you were in pre-school and you refused to eat your oatmeal?
How fast can you say STUBBORN!!
Calamari- being Italian, Christmas Eve dinner was a big deal. My mom spent the entire day in the kitchen. At the dinner table, I can remember my mom bringing a large platter of what I thought were tiny onion rings. I greedily filled my plate.though, My mom said “try it, you’ll like it”. I did but it was chewy…then my brother said, “yea, it’s octopus”. How GROSS!!!, I just ate a tentacle? Couldn’t even try it again until I was 40!
Until I had my tonsils out, I would only eat white bread and mayo sandwiches with the crusts cut off. After that, I ate most things, but didn’t care for bananas and had a bad experience with pineapple and orange cake (still wont eat pineapple with meat–don’t know how that translated to meat, but ewww).
My stand-off foods were chicken tetrazzini (that stuff was nasty) and brains and eggs (never passed my lips!).
I absolutely refused to eat pears, starting from the first time my mom fed me strained ones from a jar. I’m still not keen on them – it’s a texture thing.
Kokoretsi: A Greek concoction of lamb kidney, liver, heart, all tied together on a skewer with ropes of intestines and cooked on hot coals. Brought out at Easter and relished by all the adults — not me! Now I would chow it down.
(over-cooked) brussel sprouts and (canned) spinach. Gosh.
My parents used to have a clean plate policy. You had to sit there and eat.it.all. Even if it took all night. Even if it was cold. Even if it made you gag. My gag reflex was formed by consuming cold, congealed BAKED BEANS. To this day, the smell is enough to make me ill.
Chicken. And really any meat that wasn’t a hot dog or taco meat. Definitely had some crying, sobbing, dinner-table stand-offs. My mom is still bewildered when I call or text her now about eating and cooking chicken (I’m 26). I was VERY picky as a kid and ate tons of bread, mac and cheese, baby carrots. Now my palate has greatly expanded, thank goodness.
First let me say that my mom was a school cook…back then, the cooks could split up leftovers and bring it home with them…needless to say we had to choke down lunch at school and the same thing for dinner that night. UGH!
Liver definitely was the one thing I would never never eat even after sitting at the table for hours (until bedtime) because I would not eat it.
We had to eat everything on our plates and I can remember battles over this rule, but I can’t remember what the foods were. I can think of plenty of things mom made that I liked, but the only thing I can think of that I didn’t was the lima beans in the mixed veggies. So glad I’m through with canned veggies!
Frozen fish sticks!!! Blech!! Thanks to Sarah, now I know why!
Sunburgers….a nasty vegetarian hamburger that my dog would not even eat!
Chick peas, yuck. And dates. Little did I know then how insanely tasty dates – when whizzed through a food processor – can be. But for the record, chick peas are still gross.
My dad had a little saying when I was growing up: “Trust me. I wouldn’t ask you to try it if it was bad.”
As a kid I HATED that saying. I trusted my dad and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so I tried everything from meatloaf to lobster. I still remember the horrible looks I used to give him when he said that! Much to his delight, I liked 99.99% of what I tried. That 0.01%? Green beans! I fussed, gagged, and cried any time they were put on my plate. Fortunately, as I got older I learned to love them.
I think it was my dad’s persistence that turned me into an adventurous eater and sparked my love for cooking and trying new things in the kitchen. You can imagine his face when I made something out of the ordinary for dinner one night and said “Hey dad, trust me! I wouldn’t ask you to try it if it was bad…” ☺
I was a stubborn little tyke, too. I remember a standoff with my mom over something I refused to eat. I was told I couldn’t leave the table until I ate it. I sat there through supper, through the dishes, they turned off the lights and left the kitchen, and still I sat. They eventually had to give in or I would have sat there through bed time, too. Funny thing is, I can’t even remember what it was I wouldn’t eat!
I never ate spaghetti-the noodles were icky. I never ate hamburger pie because Bisquick is gross and so were canned grean beans. I also refused to eat bean soup because it smelled horrible. I also reused to eat all canned vegetables I would only eat them fresh and raw which ironically got me in trouble.
I have never ever eaten beets in my life and I’m not gonna. I also don’t like prunes, licorice and warm milk. OK, I better stop, I’m grossing myself out.
Liver. Gag. The one time my dad made it for the family was the last time. My younger sister and I sat at the table a LONG time that night. I’m still leery of organ meats to this day, especially since my husband doesn’t care for liver, either.
My folks were pretty good – we had the whole ‘you have to try something once’ rule, after that, we were let off the hook fairly easily. However, one night my mum had had it. I refused to eat the sausages that were for dinner because I had chomped on a “bit” & it was game over. This time (like lots of other folks) she told me I had to sit there until I finished my whole plate. I sat there, and sat there, the sun went down, she got fed up & decided to have a bath. I opened the screen door as quietly as I could and tip-toed out into the backyard where my next door neighbour’s German Shepherd Bronson was peering over the fence. He didn’t have any problems with the sausage “bits”. I snuck back in, sat down quietly, waited another minute or two & promclaimed “I’m done!”. My mum knew that I hadn’t eaten them but couldn’t figure out what I had done with them. She let me go to bed. I finally told her the truth a few years ago. She smiled & said “smart”.
LIMA BEANS… hours at the table, tears, gagging and running to the sink to spit them out. I still want to gag when I think about them. Why they were ever invented I can’t imagine.
Well, lima beans ARE actually disgusting. And I’m someone who’s a little sad to take beans out of my everyday menu. But limas are the worst possible beans imaginable. Bleeech!
ANYTHING green. Period. End of story. Shh – don’t tell my daughter…
This is super strange, but I ate ANYTHING as a kid. The only food I really didn’t like was raw onions, but I *still* would try them every now and then. For the most part, I refused to eat them, so that’s the best I got 🙂 To this day, I hate them and make myself try them every once in a while hoping my palate has grown an appreciation.
Liver! Oh how I hated it. Turns out my mother pretty much over cooked all meats so of course it wasn’t going to taste good.
I had a long list of things I refused to eat as a kid (chicken, mushrooms, apples!), but the silliest one was artichoke hearts. My mom and I both loved artichokes, but I was totally grossed out by the idea of eating something’s “heart”. My mom never argued one word with me… she just took mine off my plate and ate it. Then one day I decided to try it, and I was SO PISSED that she’d been taking the best part of my artichoke all those years.
Oh man, the tuna burgers my mom made out of canned tuna! Yech! But mom was poor and frugal, along with a healthy dose of hippie quasi-vegetarianism. We never had beef once in 18 years. Tuna burgers, bean burgers, tofu hot dogs, whole wheat bread with wheat from our 2,000 pound food storage that she ground herself. Not a lie.
Liver. I cut it into 1 cm x 1 cm pieces and put it through a river of ketchup. Yuck. I always had to sit at the table until I was finished to. Then there was the tomato soup… watery with big canned tomatoes floating in it.. no amount of crackers helped, just made the crackers wilt and it was worse, I think I actually fake gagged to get out of eating that night! Mom tried!
My mother was a horrible cook and my father never cooked. I’m surprised I actually like any foods! Her worst were peas in milk sauce (think wallpaper paste), Chicken Haddy (still have no idea what it is exactly), Roast beef (think shoe leather), Liver and onions (overcooked dried out chalky shoe leather), Roast chicken/turkey (always overcooked and dry and like others was forced to sit at the table until it was gone or it was bedtime. I could probably write a novella on her horrid dishes.
If it wasn’t for my grandmother, aunts and uncles (the majority being farmers), I probably would have never appreciated food. Thanks to them I ended up loving food so much I spent 15+yrs working in restaurants as a professional cook/Kitchen manager. There are so many foods I love now, even more so since going paleo!
I grew up on a hobby farm. We raised grass-fed cows, pastured chickens, and pigs that ate all of our tables scraps. My parents butchered our animals and fed us. I refused to eat this type of meat because I no one else I knew did this. I would cry and ask for store bought meat.
Now I drive an hour every week to by farm meet. Go figure. 🙂
My parents were adventurous health nuts so we ate all kinds of weird stuff as kids and our standard dinner was meat & six veg. I grew up loving any food that grew out of the ground or off a tree, although I thought carob a very poor substitute for chocolate. I still recall experimenting with cassia and tamarind off trees and being worried about their purported laxative effects, which luckily never struck me.
There were two things however, that I inexplicably could not stomach: Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup and TVP (texturised vegetable protein or ‘nutmeat’). I would willingly try to consume them, but the aroma, particularly of warm ‘nutmeat’, had me dry retching before they could even reach my tongue.
I have never bothered to try them again. I doubt that I’m missing any important nutrients there 😉
My grandmother always made two gravies at thanksgiving and Christmas…one with giblets and one without. I never even gave the one with giblets a shot…no way!
Two things stand out – one time I really wanted to try the cactus paddles that my uncle fried up, but my mom wouldn’t let me because she didn’t trust that he had gotten all of the spines off of them.
Then another time I decided that I hated chicken pot pie and I would not eat it. Mom said that was fine, but she wouldn’t make me anything else – it was chicken pot pie or nothing. She put my plate on top of the refrigerator and said that if I got hungry later, I could have it. About bed time I couldn’t take it any more and said I was starving so I’d eat it. She said it was too late – she’d thrown it out. That’s the last time I went to bed hungry, I’ll tell you that.
Definitely liver and onions- I once had to stay at the table till midnight because I wouldn’t eat it. I finally fed it to the dog…
Also overcooked mushy lima beans and over cooked brussel sprouts.
Love all of them now (cooked slightly better!)
Liver and raw tomatoes. To this day I have a tough time with both.
I have a chinese father and an australian mother, so was brought up not to be ignorant about food. We had to at least try all foods.
Once we were at a fancy buffet restaurant in Hong Kong and I was following my father along the line – as he lectured me on the importance of trying all types of foods… when we happened upon a plate of something that appeared line skinny worms STILL WIGGLING on a plate. My father conveniently skipped that plate. Needless to say, so did I.
I am know raising my children the same. They must at least try different foods – but I guess there are always exceptions!
Liver! I would eat most things as a kid, but after that first nasty bite of liver when I was little, I refused to have anything to do with it. I still don’t care for beef liver, although I like pate, liverwurst, things like that (and did back then too.)
My sister and I normally got to spend at week at my Aunt & Uncles house each summer. For the most part we really enjoyed our time there except that my aunt liked to make olive and cheese sandwiches. She would take velveta cheese and mix it up with black olives and I think pimentos and put it in a sandwich, seriously one of the grossest things I’ve ever eaten!
refused to eat any and all meat when i learned its origin. now, i love meat, but i still care about where it comes from.
Potatoes; mashed or baked (French fries and hash browns weren’t a problem). I was raised in an Hispanic family so I’d eat tripe (in menudo) and beef tongue happily, but would gag and then hide bites of potato in my napkin at dinner. I grew to love them as a young adult – with lots of butter and sour cream – so they have been hard to give up since going “Paleo”.
Always loved liver-great with onions and bacon….but bacon can make ANYTHING taste good…and loved lima beans. But I despise walnuts ever since my mother put them in brownies, but stored them in a cupboard next to the stove so they were bitter and rancid. Nutmeg grosses me out. I was never a fan of bananas and it turns out I’m allergic to them. Otherwise I always ate pretty much anything!
My parent would buy Turtle eggs once a month and we had to eat them. They were really bad. As a grown up I don’t think I would try them again.
My diet as a kid consisted of cereal, jelly on bread and raviolis. I refused to eat meat since it took too long to chew. It’s hard to believe I eat 100% paleo now and eat meat all the time. I’m still a lazy eater so I eat ground meat instead of things like steak, but no more dairy or grains. I only wish I knew about Paleo as a kid. With my kids in the school system, it’s really hard for them to watch all their friends eat junk all day while they get healthy lunches packed daily. I know some day they will look back and be thankful.
I used to refuse anything green. Broccoli, asparagus, peas .. oh, especially peas! This is so exciting, teaching kids not only what are healthy choices, but also WHY and where it all comes from! Awesome!
Green Beans. I would swallow them whole with milk because I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until they were gone. To this day the smell of them makes me want to…well, you know. I feed them to my kids, but by some miracle, all three like them! So I don’t feel like it’s child abuse. Book sounds amazing-maybe as much for me as for the kiddos.
I hated carrots, mushrooms, asparagus, onions, fish (except fish sticks and tuna), kiwi, cabbage, peppers… plus there were loads others that I wasnt even exposed to because my mother was so picky (brussel sprots, eggplant, winter squashes) Now I eat just about everything except cabbage and peppers. Although I can handle a lot more spice then I used to be able to.
I have pretty much always been willing to try anything but I went through a period where the consistency of mashed potatoes totally freaked me out. When I refused to eat them after eating them for years, my mom made me do it. I gagged through the whole dinner. Now, while I don’t eat them very often, I sure do love them!
I loved liver! I am so surprised at all the (erstwhile?) liver hate here. Keeping kosher meant liver was a pain to prepare, and quite a treat. I would order it in restaurants.
Once a year for Tu Bishvat we would have “bukser” which was
yukky, old carob with a six month gap between when it had been picked and when we ate it. Imagine my surprise when I grew up and got to eat one straight from the tree, and it tasted like, a fruit (not a great one, but a fruit nonetheless).
Anything black. There was some purple, almost black color fruit I wouldn’t touch. Black lentil rice..Still don’t like it 🙂
It was beets! Those came right back up and they never asked me to try them again!
I wouldn’t eat raw tomatoes. I love things made with Tomato, but the flavor and texture of the raw ones made me cringe!
My mom would boil bricks of frozen veggies (spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc) until they could have been mashed with a fork and were pale yellowish green. I thought I hated veggies, until I started eating them at restaurants, or trying bites of roasted veggies that friends of mine made. Now I love all the veggies I used to gag at.
Oh, and my mom would make frozen whitefish fillets broiled into jerky and then sprinkled with lemon juice.
Mama has some really good recipes, but she definitely had a heavy hand when it came to cooking times.
Eggs. I absolutely despised them! I am still not a big fan now, but am working them into my diet more and more since I’ve removed things like pancakes and oatmeal from the breakfast rotation.
I refused to eat bologna (thank goodness) – I bit into a chunk once and it made me so nauseous
I didn’t refuse to eat them, but man, did I hate every single bite of lima beans that I had as a child!
In my house we called it a “no thank you helping”. It’s amazing how many things you think you’re not going to like, turn in to being something you really enjoy after just a taste. I will have to say I did not like brussel sprouts as a kid, but I sure do love them now. I’m so excited to share this book with my niece and nephew.
liver and veg-all. We had to sit there until it was all gone….A young victim of the clean plate club! Can do the liver now but veg all? no thanks!
I refused to eat the chicken livers and gizzards that my Dad loved to fry up and taunt me with!
Deer liver…my dad shot a deer every year and we would eat the whole thing but for some reason, I would cry and cry about the “poor little deer” if I had to eat the liver.
As a kid I would hardly eat anything. I think I subsisted on tomato soup and scrambled eggs. I can recall thinking Quiche was horrifying, odd considering the scrambled egg angle. Of course, it’s difficult to talk kids into eating anything they don’t want, as I have now learned the hard way!
Canned green beans or mushrooms. I remember one night where I sat at the table for three hours after arguing with my dad. No dessert or night time snack if I didn’t finish all my food… and I wanted those cookies damn it!:) I think my 5 year old is even more stubborn than I was…
Overcooked asparagus and chicken cacciatore. Those were the two that would appear with some frequency.
I was told that as a young child I refused to eat potatoes. I do not remember this at all… the only potato dish I recall never liking was German potato salad, but that was because of all the other ingredients. 🙂
Brocolli! My dad blended it up one time to try to make me drink it since I wouldn’t eat it. I love it now – I don’t even remember why I didnt eat it then. All I can remember is a blended up green goup. Funny that HE doesn’t remember that!
Chicken livers and brussel sprouts. Love sprouts but still can’t stomach livers.
I wouldn’t eat turnip greens, a staple for the year and a half we lived with my southern grandmother (we were building a house). I was made to eat it one time, and – warning to all you parents out there – I still won’t eat ’em to this day. I’ll eat collards, spinach, kale, etc., but no turnip greens.
We had the same one bite rule in our house; unless you said eww, yuck, or gross before you tried it then is was 2 bites! 🙂 I fortunately like almost all foods. My mom is an amazing cook; however she has a recipe for eggplant that is AWEFUL! I am convinced still to this day that I don’t like eggplant even though I have had it prepared many different ways that I do enjoy. I also thought for year that lobster tasted like dirt literally. Now I manage a seafood resturaunt and eat it about once a week.
I love the idea of this book. I have a strange need to encourage people of all ages to try and enjoy healthy foods especially children. I am constantly making people try thing prepared in new ways and many times they are pleasantly surprised.
I hated tofu (my hippie mother tried to get us to eat it and only my sister liked it) but I would eat it if served to me. The worst though was TVP (Texturized Vegetable Product) that she tried to introduce to the family. She never tried again. Blech.
I recall eating at a friend’s house as a child. He hated vegetables so his parents had him drink V8 instead. I got to eat his veggies, which was awesome! Now he loves his veggies but if you bring up V8 he gets a bit green around the gills.
As a kid I hated broccoli. Now I love it!
Canned spinach, still do not like it. Although I love raw spinach and cooking my own, frozen not too shabby. I also hated liver. You don’t even want to know what happened when at 6 years old, my then step-father made me eat canned spinach…let’s just say it came right back up all over the dinner table. Disgusting story I know!
BTW, I just ordered your book from Amazon and am expecting to receive it tomorrow. I went through all of the reviews and that is what made me purchase it amongst all other primal/paleo books! I own Everyday Paleo, so yours will be my second of this type of cookbook. I have four kids and homeschool but I love healthy food that is healthy, grain free, ref sugar free, etc. Love to cook but need some more inspiration. Really looking forward to it. I have only been to your blog once before this post. Thanks to those who reviewed your book! Hope :o)
Green beans. Love your new book and just completed my first Whole30!!
Squash! My aunt and uncle said I had to eat it if I wanted dessert. I love my treats so I was determined to choke it down. My stomach didn’t agree with my choice and I threw it up.
I still got my dessert. 🙂
When I was a kid I could not imagine actually swallowing a raw tomato. Beefeater, cherry, whatever, it didn’t matter. If it was raw it just didn’t look like food to me.
I just wanted to add that this is my new favorite website. One of my children is autistic and whether you are following a theraputic GFCF, SCD or GAPS diet to treat your child one thing is the same. Autistic kids should never eat milk or grains (sound familiar?).
Up until a couple of weeks ago every meal at my house was a battle. Since I’ve found your site and started serving your recipes all of my kids are actually asking what is for dinner and meal time is pleasant again. Thank you so much.
As a kid, I would not, could not eat okra! Just the smell would turn my stomach, and the slimy liquid inside always triggered a strong gag reflex. The few times I actually tried to eat a bite, my eyes would water horribly and sometimes dinner came back up onto my plate! Mom and dad eventually gave up that battle…
We too had the clean plate policy in my house, but luckily I have always been pretty adventurous about food. One thing I could never stand though was my mom’s meatloaf. I still don’t know what it was, but now its one favorite foods, though I still won’t eat my mom’s… sorry mom!!!