Culinary Preference

I really enjoyed the lecture slide about the motivation of foods. Why do we eat what we eat? Why do some people like sushi and others (like myself) gag at the sight of it? Most of all why is the stuff we find to be so delicious so bad for us? There are so many questions wondering why we have certain culinary preferences. The first thing I found interesting was food neophobia which is the "tendency to avoid novel foods and prefer familiar ones" (Berg). It explains that food neophobia developed as a defense against illness or death from foods. I thought this was cool because it makes me think of foods I do not like: for example sushi. It is probably an unconscious defense mechanism of my body to protect me from the possibility of getting sick off of raw fish. This brings me to the subject of food aversions which is when you once ate something that made you sick and it was such a horrible experience you will never go near that taste again. For me that taste is Southern Comfort. When I was 19 years old my cat had just passed away and I was very upset, so I decided it was a good idea to get drunk. My friend had a bottle of SoCo and I took ten shots within a twenty minute period on an empty stomach. Needless to say I got very, very sick. I threw up about a million times that night and for twenty four hours after the fact. Although I have gotten hung over on many of alcoholic beverages before, I have never had such an awful experience as with SoCo that horrible night. I have not and will not go near the drink ever again. I believe that everyone reading this is thinking of a food or drink that they will never go near again because of an experience where they got so sick it scarred them for life. The whole concept of food neophobia and food aversion is so interesting to me. We think of eating as such a simple thing but really its such a complex psychological matter that has a lot more to it than just filling up our stomachs. Feel free to comment about what your food aversion is!!

Berg, M (2014). Foods. Retrieved from:      https://sites.google.com/site/markrscnj/Home/motivation/motivation-lectures

Solot, D. (2011, November 2). The psychology of food aversions. Retrieved July 20, 2014, from http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/11/02/the-psychology-of-food-aversions/