Awww Nuts

One of the most interesting side effects of this whole food thing has been how my tastes have changed.  I have been trying to document that a little bit in some of these posts.  I am amazed how there are food that I used to avoid that I eat now.  And then there are tons of foods I adored that I completely avoid - some due to the addiction stuff, some for other reasons.  One of the strangest examples has been nuts.  Literally - nuts.

I used to think that nuts were just about useless.  Sure, peanuts were useful once in a while - for peanut butter, or to cram into a Snickers.  But in general nuts were just something to ruin a good brownie or cookie.  One of the most disappointing things was when someone gave me a can of chocolate chip cookies or brownies.  Only when I went to bite into one, it was littered with walnuts or some other crunchy teeth cracker.  There were so many potentially great desserts that got ruined by a chef with a nut fetish.  I remember that Ben & Jerry's had this problem frequently.  Their Chunky Monkey ice cream had so much potential.  It was banana ice cream with fudge swirls and chocolate chunks - and freaking walnuts.  Then they actually came out with a flavor called Totally Nuts and another called Rainforest Crunch.  Since I was a pathetic loser and was trying to eat all of their flavors, I tried both of them.  Crammed with nuts.  Why would you ruin a good ice cream like that?

There was a brief flirtation with almonds when I was younger.  Blue Diamond put out these smaller cans of different almond flavors - smokehouse, bbq, stuff like that.  And I got those for a while.  But eventually I got burned out on them.  Later on I discovered macadamia nuts and was quite fond of those.  From time to time I would get a jar of them.  But they were far from something I really wanted too often - something my mother found out when she had the nerve to get me chocolate covered ones instead of cordial cherries one year for Christmas.  In short, nuts were useless to me.

• I'd eat them in a Snickers - but I far preferred Milky Way.
• I never got them on or in ice cream, in cookies, or in brownies.  If I got one of those things with nuts, I would pick them out.  
• The only way I would have chocolate with nuts in it was if all the good flavors were gone.  Like when a bag of Hershey's minis was out of Special Dark and Krackel and all that was left was Mr. Goodbar.
• I ate peanut butter - but not the crunchy stuff.
• I would eat pecan pie if there was nothing else to pick.
• Plain nuts were for airplanes and that's it.

Fast forward to today.  Through necessity, I started eating nuts as a snack or a topping for salads and/or dessert.  At first it was peanuts, since they were the least traumatizing.  But once I started having weird issues with peanuts, I started to switch to almonds and cashews.  Now, I go to Sam's and get a big container of Planter's Cashews and go through it in about three weeks.  This last time, I also got a container of deluxe mixed nuts.  It came with cashews, almonds, brazil nuts, filberts, and (gasp) pecans.  The mix is awesome.  At first, it was something I had to do - I really didn't have a lot of options.  But now, I really do like them. 

I have no idea what caused the taste change.  I suspect necessity helped.  But I really enjoy them.  Pecans were always my second least favorite nut - right before walnuts.  (Man, I hate walnuts.)  Now, though, pecans are one of my favorites in the mix.  They have a totally different texture than they other harder nuts.  They are less dense.  Cashews have rapidly become my favorite - even though I hated those most of my life.  And it isn't like I'm relying on macadamia nuts or flavored nuts.  They are just roasted and with sea salt.  (I ate the plain kind at the beginning when I was avoiding a lot of salt - but now I stick with the salted ones.  They are lots cheaper.)  

It certainly has been interesting.  And it has actually pushed me to explore some of the other foods on my hit list.  I detested sweet potatoes.  Now, I rarely eat potatoes.  But when I do, it usually is some kind of sweet potato concoction.  I have ridiculed avocados for years.  But now I realize I was just eating them wrong.  They are much better hot.  (Although Heather would disagree.)  Not only have I not been saying "no guacamole" on my food - I actually ordered it on purpose the other day!  It is a strange turn of events for me.  I've been so taken aback by this change, I even have considered trying . . . (wait for it) . . . mushrooms.  Then again, maybe that is too far.