My least favorite vegetable is broccoli. It is unpalatable.
It’s followed closely by kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage. I hate them all.
I would like to like them. I really would. But I don’t. I can’t imagine why anyone likes these green, leafy monstrosities.
Yesterday, I may have figured out why I hate these vegetables so much.
It turns out that all of these vegetables were genetically modified from a single plant. Over generations, farmers and botanists manipulated a single plant to create all the vegetables I despise most.
That plant: Wild mustard.
And what is the only food that I am allergic to?
Mustard.
No wonder I hate those leafy piles of garbage.
Scientists have already found evidence that broccoli (and its leafy cousins) is actually toxic to more than a billion people worldwide because of a compound in the vegetable that inhibits thyroid function, and that these people also find broccoli unpalatable.
Is it too much of a leap to presume that I find this food unpalatable because of its link to a food that causes me to break out in hives and compromises my respiration?
It’s a good reminder to all the food snobs of the world (and there are a lot of you) that taste is not a choice. We cannot control the foods that we like and don’t like, and if you enjoy the taste of many, many foods, you probably have fewer taste buds than a person like me, a confirmed super taster, who doesn’t like a lot of foods.
More importantly, perhaps my dislike for so many foods is my body’s way of protecting me from their adverse effects.
