Can you change what you like eating?

We stayed away for one night last week, for my birthday. If there was ever a time when it was OK to have 'treats', that was it. When we were driving to the hotel Ann asked me what I would eat as my big treat, but I found that was a very difficult question, because I have started to realise that I'm not really missing anything. Very strange!

Before changing my eating habits I used to have a serious bread and cheese problem - at about 10.00 every evening I had a big plateful of various cheeses, and a couple of huge slabs of granary bread, all washed down with port. This lot must have been well over 1,000 calories, but it was a very enjoyable part of my life. The day I changed my eating habits I stopped eating bread and I stopped eating cheese - cold turkey! The next time I touched cheese was several months later, after a 'treat' meal, and I did enjoy it. But the next time was several months after that, and it was still fine, but no big deal. Anyway, last week's restaurant was a pretty good one, so when Ann asked me what I wanted as part of my 'treat' meal, I said that if the cheese board looked very good, that's what I would have.

The cheese looked good, and so I had it, and it didn't do anything much for me at all. In fact the main reason I was keen to have it was because I was still quite hungry after the main course, because there was no mountain of vegetables, which I would have had at home. So, it looks as if I have actually changed what I like - I've lost my love for cheese. This would be like all those people on Nutracheck who can't live without chocolate suddenly finding they were bored with the whole idea of eating it!

I don't know whether my falling out of love with cheese is forever, and I'm not yet sure what else I've fallen out of love with (certainly not beer!). But it's something I'm going to think about a lot more - food for thought.