Second averse, same as the first.

[madbaker]

Martin E. P. Seligman (president of the American Psychological Association in 1998) has described how, in 1972, he ate sauce béarnaise on steak and then became ill with what was definitely stomach flu (his colleague at work who had not eaten the steak came down with the same affliction, and his wife who had eaten the steak did not). Yet, even though he was absolutely convinced that the sauce béarnaise did not cause his illness, Seligman acquired an aversion to it.

The fuzzy upstairs neighbor and I were discussing this recently. Has this ever happened to you? If so, did you ever reverse the aversion?

Mine was Jordan almonds. When I was a kid I got violently carsick; it was not the fault of the Jordan almonds, but rather trying to read in a VW microbus driving in high winds. But there were Jordan almonds in the microbus, so I associated the smell/taste with the carsickness. I never tried to get over the aversion, mostly because outside of weddings I don't tend to see them...

Comments

[semy-of-pearls.livejournal.com]

Yup. Peppermint candy (the hard red and white kind) with air sickness. Still can't stand them, but I like peppermint chocolate.

Can't eat the peppermint candy canes either.

[farmount.livejournal.com]

Yes. It was a combination of scrambled eggs and apple juice. Took me a while (a few months) to re-try scrambled eggs, and several YEARS for apple juice. It took a few tries of "no, really, I'm not going to get sick" before I got over the aversion.

When I was 5 I ate WAY too much chocolate on Halloween and did my best Exorcist impression in my parent's bathroom. Chocolate is OK, but I do have a healthy respect for not overdosing.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Beef/barley soup. I had the flu, and my boyfriend fixed soup to make feel better. It didn't work. :-)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I seem to be immune to this sort of thing. I don't tend to get vomiting stomach troubles, but I do sometimes get "gas and violent runs" from certain foods, and I had to work very hard to start avoiding the foods in question because even though I'd identified them intellectually, I had absolutely no subconscious programming connecting cause and effect that helped me avoid them when not paying attention.

I almost wonder if the vomit-aversion reflex involves hard-wiring, given how useful it would be on evolutionary terms for avoiding toxic plants.

[tsgeisel.livejournal.com]

Not a problem with vomiting, but after an experience with a long hike and much trail mix, I still don't eat the stuff. It's been over 20 years.

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! My whole family ate an Easter ham, and I got deathly ill in all manners of disgusting ways. No one else was sick, but somehow I was sure the ham did it. It was probably an appendicitis inflamation.

It was years before I could make myself eat ham again. I like it now.

[mad-duchess.livejournal.com]

Ouzo. A friend drank too much of it at a prty and barfed it all up in my vicinity. Never saw a good reason to try to overcome the resulting aversion.

[j-i-m-r.livejournal.com]

Yes, the first time I had codine and discovered how badly it reacts with my system was also the first time I had lobster. I therefore had an aversion to lobster for the longest time. Fortunately, I've gotten over it. However, friends please note, do not ever give me anything with codine in it.

[wingedcorset.livejournal.com]

I got the stomach flu after eating salad with cambazola on it last year. I haven't been tempted since.

[cathyn.livejournal.com]

Jaegermeister. Can't even smell the stuff. I'll spare you the gory details.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

...I wasn't thinking along those lines, but ever since the "TQ Nite" party in college I won't touch tequila.

[blkeagl.livejournal.com]

Bamia.. oh.. in english you'd call that okra. The association is traumatic and actually not related to a bad food reaction, but the smell made my gorge rise for years and I did try to overcome it from time to time simply because that is the sort of thing I do.

I finally did overcome it, but only by having it in formats entirely different than the original.

Bad food reactions have never caused this for me, except that I'm more inclined to pay closer attention to how certain foods are prepared and to not trust certain kinds of foods except when absolutely fresh and prepared by MOI.