I’ve found myself making eggs for breakfast lately, and I’ve bought hummus on my last few grocery trips. These are new occurrences for me. I would enjoy eggs a bit, but for me, they always came with the risk of too much awareness—I’d be good for three or so bites and then I would all of a sudden be too present in my taste buds and I could simply taste too much egg. I could stomach eegs if they were scrambled and if they had other things scrambled in them like bacon, cheese, tomatoes, or spinach. And hummus, well, I was never that drawn to it in the first place. I had no words to offer for or against it.
But my tastes seem to be changing. I make an over easy or a fried egg a few times a week, putting it on a bagel with avocado or making it the topper for a ramen stir fry I’ve been enjoying. And something compelled me to get hummus at the store, and combine with pretzels for a really quick and easy after work snack. It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s filling as I take a few minutes to rest before I make dinner.
Sometimes these little changes make me wonder if there is something larger at work. I wonder if there is a change in the hormones in my body or some nutrient deficiency that has me turning towards foods that have often either repulsed me or that I could not care less about.
Mostly, I don’t think it is that deep. I think of it primarily as an opportunity to try something new. I think that I am open to things that I wasn’t before. Trying new things isn’t as hard as it used to be, and maybe I feel more at ease with myself, a little more inclined to branch out in all sorts of ways, from joining new clubs to eating breakfasts that used to repulse me.