The week after spring break, I returned back to school with some fresh vegetables, tortilla wraps, and my favorite Buffalo Light Ranch dressing that I had just recently discovered. As I live in an apartment and do not have a meal plan, bringing back with me these groceries that my parents so generously paid for was a huge bonus. I returned back Sunday afternoon and by dinner time could hardly wait to dig into my new items. I decided a sautéed vegetable wrap with a topping of my newly favorite dressing sounded beyond delicious. Needless to say, after I made it and scarfed it down, I was nothing less then pleased. This pleasure was short lived, however, as the next morning I woke up with terrible stomach pain. I was unable to eat and began to uncontrollably vomit. As it turns out I had contracted the stomach flu from my cousins at home who had also just gotten it.
Well after a long three days of no eating and too much sleeping, I finally felt better. However, I had a dilemma I faced every time I opened our refrigerator, I simply could no longer look at the vegetables or lovely buffalo ranch dressing that I devoured just days before. Every time I did I felt the nausea come over me again. I wanted so badly to crave this food as it was just sitting in my refrigerator going bad, but no matter how hard I tried I could not think of eating it again. It was then that I realized I was experiencing taste aversion, or the idea that humans are prone to have an aversion to foods if they become sick shortly after eating them. Since this was the last food item that I ate before becoming sick, my mind instantly associated the vegetables and dressing with my ill feeling of days prior. I became very sad to know that trying to eat these foods again would be a lost cause for a while and that I would have to throw them away. If only it had been something like brussels sprouts that I ate before getting the flu, then maybe I would not resent this taste aversion quality that we possess so much.
It was interesting to read both of your personal experiences with taste aversion. I actually wrote my last blog about this as well. My experience deals with the liquid grape tylenol that you two may have used when you were a kid. Before I learned to swallow pills, my mom would give me liquid tylenol in grape flavor to bring my fever down. However, when you have a fever, you are often sick in the stomach. Many times I would throw up shortly after ingesting this awful medicine. I grew to develop an aversion to the grape medicine. Now if I even think of the smell or taste or texture of the tylenol, I start feeling sick. This experience has even turned my off from eating grape flavored candy or drinking anything grape flavored. I find it amazing how we can develop such a dislike to something just because we were sick shortly after having it. However, I also wonder if we can ever get rid of this reaction and come to like these foods again?
Alyssa,
I liked the humor in your post and the way you related your story to the understanding of taste aversion; I don’t really think there is a clearer way to explain it other than sharing a short story like yours to people who might not have heard of it before. I decided to reply to your post because when learning about taste aversion in class I thought of a similar experience I had but instead of with a yummy vegetable wrap mine was with pizza from my family’s absolute favorite pizza place at home. After one softball tournament in high school my family decided to pick up a bunch of pizzas on the way home and having been starving from playing all day long I scarfed down a few slices but with the hot weather all weekend and another girl on my team falling sick from the flu I think my body just couldn’t handle it anymore and I spent the next few days not able to keep much down. All I could think about when my family ordered the pizza from our favorite place again was those horrible days of being sick in the hot middle of the summer. Taste aversion is definitely not a fun thing and like you, I would have preferred getting sick from something I didn’t like anyway so that I wouldn’t mind it as much. But once again, I think you explained the topic very well and I really enjoyed your post.
Kiana