> But I feel the ship has sailed on my food habits. No! NO NO NO NO! It's never too late! Will power, yes, but you can do it, and I'll tell you, no exaggera

> But I feel the ship has sailed on my food habits. No! NO NO NO NO! It's never too late! Will power, yes, but you can do it, and I'll tell you, no exaggeration, your life depends on it. I know it doesn't feel like it at age 26, when the shear force of youth can power you through tremendous abuse and neglect. But that won't be true for long. Your brain is an adaptive, plastic, brilliant fucking miracle of a learning machine, and you've spent 20+ years training it on a tiny, bland set of flavors and textures. It makes sense that retraining it will take time, but I think it'll happen faster than you imagine. I have often heard that children become accustomed to new flavors and foods within a small-ish number of exposures -- around ten or so. I believe this is true for adults as well, at least nearly so. Start small, and make it easy on yourself. Pick a dish or type of food you find challenging. A good prepared dish, not something spare and ruthless like a bowls of spinach, but rather dishes prepared with taste in mind, like a good curry. Eat at a reasonably priced restaurant or get it from a store so you can work on it with minimal effort. Appetizers. Don't force yourself to clean your plate, but give it a good try, every time. Take your time, let the flavors and textures become familiar bit by bit. I bet it won't take more than a dozen tries. Then move on to the next thing. All kids can be made into picky eaters. The most stubborn picky eaters are created in an instant the first time parents give in and allow the kids to determine the menu. That's insanity. Every two-year-old understands clearly the kind of power they've thus been given, and they'll fight hard to keep it. For my kids, we enforced a simple rule: we never made them eat their entire meal, but they had to try everything. And I mean really try, not a token lick. We put some effort into learning how to cook tastefully, and we we made each meal for everyone, no substitutions, so we didn't train them to win PB&J by refusing to eat dinner. I forbade kids-menu food when we went out to restaurants. Starting as soon as they could eat solid food, they ate what we ate. As a result, I had kids I could take anywhere and eat any almost kind of food, even when they were toddlers. There were struggles, and they still have their preferences; my youngest still doesn't like salads, but she eats them without gagging or complaining. Most importantly, we've given them the foundation for expanding and refining their tastes. They're not hesitant to try new things because their palates are experienced, and they know they won't be punished if it turns out they don't like something. My oldest in particular loves food. She eats blue cheese with a spoon. She loves caviar. Fucking caviar. This took patience and consistency on the part of my wife and me, and it's still a work in progress, but it's a fundamental, critical part of parenting. It's one of the few things I feel I didn't fuck up as a parent.