Wow, my food tastes have changed. Like so many children, I had a sugar tooth. I look back at what I ate and drank as a youngster and think, “How totally foolish!” Fortunately, my parents made me eat many of the foods I used to dislike and limited my intake of the crappy foods. I am proud to say my eating and drinking habits have transformed. Here is list of the changes with the period when I dropped the unhealthy aspect of my diet in parenthesis (in reverse chronological order):
Sugary cereals (Undergrad): This one is huge. I used to eat Lucky Charms, Fruit Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Frosted Flakes; some of the sugariest cereals on the market, and I would eat it at least twice a day! Sometimes I’d eat two bowls in one sitting! This reached its peak the first year of college and then I switched to granola. After a phase of excessive granola consumption, I went to oatmeal packets (still sugary), and now I eat plain oatmeal. Oatmeal is an oversimplification because I mix it up with quick oats, traditional oats, and steal cut oats (all are healthy).
- Nuts (Undergrad): My aversion to nuts has moderated considerably and I can now consume and enjoy many varieties.
Pizza (Undergrad): I loved pizza and the grease didn’t bother me. Now, most pizza is too greasy for me.
Sugary Drinks (Undergrad): When I was really young, I drank pop, particularly Minute Maid, Cherry Coke, and Root Beer. Then, I shifted to super sugary juices like Aronia Berry and Grape Juice. Now, I basically only drink water and tea.
- Chocolate (Undergrad): I used to have Nutella spread like three times a day and chunks of Belgium milk chocolate. First year of college, I ate like 5 fatty Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookies after dinner. We would hover around the oven waiting for the cookies to come out in the cafeteria. Chocolate is not bad, but I was eating it too much. All that funny business is long over. Believe it or not, I am indifferent to chocolate now. Cookies just don’t do it for me anymore.
- Bread (High School): As a child, I refused to eat anything but white bread. Now I eat only whole grain wheat bread with oats, flax seeds, and as many other grains as possible.
- Salad (Junior High): I used to dislike eating salad, now I love it. The more different types of vegetables and colorful the salad is, the more I enjoy it! Forget about salad dressing, I actually enjoy the taste of the vegetables.
- Cooked vegetables (Junior High): Who knows why I didn’t like cooked vegetables? Now, I devour cooked broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, spinach… the list goes on.
- Sugar candy (Junior High): Skittles, licorice, gummy bears = straight sugar. I must be less wired now?
- Candy Bars (Elementary): Yea, I enjoyed Kit Kat, Twix, and Three Musketeers. When was the last time I had a candy bar? A long time ago. This was the first sugary item to go.
As you can see, it really took until second year of college to make the major changes in my diet. Three years later, I really don’t miss eating any of those sugary and unhealthy foods.
Check out my other ever-popular “top lists.”
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