Why we "tollerate" different things

[ukbill]

I have been thinking about why there is so great a difference in what we with HFI can tolerate?

I think I have an answer.

We with the HFI condition actually like sweet tasting foods!

This sounds wrong but we are just like the rest of Humanity except we have by Pavlovian "conditioned reflex" learned to avoid certain foods that make us feel ill.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov

It will depend on how much of a food we are give as to the degree it made us ill in the past and so our reaction to it.

Also if as a child we are so Hungry that a type of food containing Fructose is the only sustenance available even if it makes us ill.

For example Peanuts and Peanut butter.

So the desire to eat something.. ANYTHING and parental re-enforcement can overcome the "Pavlovian conditioned reflex" to a degree.

As an example of what I am proposing, I did not come across fresh Pineapple until I was about 12 years old.. so I did not and never have had a reaction from eating it.

I cannot eat Pineapple, of course, but the very smell of it makes my mouth water almost uncontrollably it smells SOO GOOD!

Comments anyone?

Am I on the right track do you think?

[charlie]

From my general understanding most hFI sufferers have a natural dislike of sweet tastes, interestingly we went into a christmas pastry stall in the shopping mall and meg had to go out because the smell of cinamon made her feel sick.

You may just have to accept that you are just weird Bill!!!!

[anastazya]

It also helps that we can react 4-6 or more hours later, so our reaction gets blamed on the wrong foods. So, if undiagnosed, we still eat foods that taste sweet, (human nature to want sweets...bitter=bad, sweet=good) for example a peach, and we react, but we react after eating chicken, (5 hours later) so we learn not to eat chicken. Bill, I think there is some truth to that.

However, I also have a hard times with smells. So I understand how Meg feels!

[ukbill]

Yes I do too!

A sweet shop makes me feel ill and taking the children round Cadbury world in Birmingham (Chocolate manufacturer) was a nightmare.. hence the reaction to smell HAS to be Psychosomatic (ie a brain led reflex)

I too used to be made sick by the smell of Cinnamon as a child as the only things I had eaten that contained cinnamon were sweet!

I now add cinnamon Bark to rice as I cook it and its fine not a problem.

[vicip]

I cannot use any Fruit Shampoos or Shower gels as the smell of them makes me feel sick! Obv i know they will not make me ill and is all in my mind; but still the thought of it .....urgghh

Worse food smell for me is walking past a Donut stall!

[jen]

Yep same here. Huge dislike for the 'sweet' stuff. If I would eat a dish with 10 ingredients and 9 are good but 1 is bad, I only taste the bad. Same with ‘smells’. I get nauseated walking into a candy store.

[ukbill]

Charlie no one who knows me would dispute with you about me being Weird and nor will I.

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2011.

Keep smiling

[Debra]

I think there are different degrees of sweetness. Lactose, maltose and dextrose are sweet but not cloying like sucrose and fructose can be. So I think most people with HFI can enjoy a lower level of sweetness even if they abhor extreme sweetness.

[julienc]

Dec 31, 2010 16:57:59 GMT -5 Debra said:

I think there are different degrees of sweetness. Lactose, maltose and dextrose are sweet but not cloying like sucrose and fructose can be. So I think most people with HFI can enjoy a lower level of sweetness even if they abhor extreme sweetness.

I completely agree with this.

[ukbill]

I am not really debating tolerance levels of sweetness but the fact that our rejection of sweet tasting foods is a Direct result of eating sweet foods that have made us ill in the past, particularly as a child.

Lets face it there are few things sweeter tasting than mothers milk!

I am debating if we have ANY "natural" aversion to eating sweet foods, or is it all learned from experience?

For example if you do not relate being ill from eating say Peanut butter you will not reject Peanut butter even if it is making you ill.

It could even be that eating Peanut butter has in the past made you Less ill than the alternative food on offer? Hence you will eat it if presented with it, although I doubt any HFI would chose it for themselves.

[meaniejean]

I would also guess that if you have more GI symptoms (rather than neurological, muscular or blood sugar) then you would also have a greater aversion to fructose. Our bodies quickly put together pain and vomiting with foods, but seizures or hypoglycemia may be too removed from digestion for our bodies to put the two together.

For example, Regina had liver issues, not vomiting/diarrhea (at least originally, right, Tammy?) and she enjoys sweet foods. No GI symptoms = no aversion???

[julienc]

Jan 4, 2011 21:10:38 GMT -5 ukbill said:

I am debating if we have ANY "natural" aversion to eating sweet foods, or is it all learned from experience?

Just from my own experience, I believe that I had a natural aversion to eating sweet foods. My brother and I both rejected sweet foods as babies. We weren't terribly sick as infants, we just rejected fruits and sweets in the "mushy" form the very day my mom started feeding them to us. I have to think that was a natural aversion. We were formula fed, so we weren't exposed to the sweetness of breast milk.

[marleen]

Nienke has from the moment she was given supplementary feeding had a sweet taste aversion, except for breastfeeding. She was given the first stamp a carrot. She has taken a few bites and then she pushed the plate away for a few minutes later, spit it all out again. The next day she got the same food. And now she only ate one bite. The day after she no longer wanted to eat it.
Actually all the sweet food was similarly rejected. Spinach was just something she ate with great taste. She ate broccoli, but it was always a question whether she would spit it out again afterwards.
So it is natural or has she learned that some products are not good for her? I do not know. I've always found admirable she self said what she can and can not eat. And sometimes, this was by trial and error.

[ukbill]

Marleen, I don't blame Nienke for spitting out Broccoli.. I find it too sweet for me unless I eat only the very tips of the green bit and leave the stalks alone.

What you say is very interesting as with Julienc as well.

[charlie]

Meg as a baby used to "spit out" especially brocolli and courgette I seem to remember - she used to projectile vomit it all over the poor nursery worker half way through her portion!!!!!

[esmee]

When I was a kid, I used to carpool to a city 75 miles from my home to take a gymnastics class on Saturdays and I remember the parent of one child used to always go to a donut shop before the class. I did not have access to donuts as a regular thing growing up, so I gave it a try a few times, but every single time I ended up with nausea and headache before the class was even over. It was such a day of pure hell that I not only got an aversion to donuts which lasts until this day, but I think I started to get an aversion to gymnastics, too!

I have always disliked the purely sweet taste and sweet smell, always going for sweet and sour candies or desserts if given a choice. But, really, I had less access to sugar than most kids because my mother was a dental hygenist and knew how damaging sugar was to the teeth of a growing child. I never liked fruit very much, with the exception of tangerines (sweet and sour), and the only vegetable my mother could ever persuade me to eat was canned green beans. I much preferred non-sweet foods like tostadas, tacos, burritos, nachos, cheesy tortillas, tamales, etc. (I was raised in Arizona) over something sweet.