Lynn put up a list of the "10 most unloved foods":

Liver
Blue (or bleu) cheese
Eggplant
Okra
Sardines
Lima beans
Brussels Sprouts
Grits
Hard boiled eggs
Beets

I can understand how most of those are not-well-loved in general (Even though I like beets, at least as long as they're prepared in particular ways). Hard-boiled eggs puzzles me a little bit, but maybe hard-boiled eggs are so often prepared badly (either overcooked, or the yolk gets that weird gray-green coating on it) that people are turned off of them. (I like hard-boiled eggs; they make a convenient snack, and they're a good addition to a salad).

Some of those others - Brussels sprouts, liver, beets, limas - might be things people were FORCED to eat as a kid, and swore they'd never eat as an adult. (My parents were not big on the "forcing" to eat. They would suggest my brother or I "try" a couple bites of a new food but didn't press the issue if we didn't want to. And if they were having something one of us hated, we were welcome to go in the kitchen and make ourselves a peanut butter sandwich, or just eat the dishes served that we DID like).

Most things on that list are things I don't eat, or at least don't eat regularly. I don't think I've ever eaten liver or sardines. (I think I'd find sardines far too salty, and I'd be put off by the bones). And the one time I ate eggplant (in moussaka) I got really sick afterward, which makes me wonder if I have a food intolerance to eggplant like I do to carrots and celery.

I avoid blue cheese because I'm allergic to the very fungus used to produce it (I got really sick after consuming miso, which is made with another fungus to which I am allergic, so I figure it's smartest to avoid them).

And I won't touch Brussels sprouts. I'm sorry. I can't get past the smell. Maybe if they were roasted rather than boiled, but I have just too many memories of being pressed to eat "just two bites" and not being able to get them down.

The rest of the things on that list I'm OK with. Okra, I prefer in its pickled form, and if fried okra is a side dish option I'll typically pick something else, but I'm not violently opposed to it.

So maybe I need to make a list of my 10 foods I dislike the most:

1. Broccoli and all its kin (with the exception of red cabbage and cabbage salad and sauerkraut). I know, I know, these are really really good for you. And the healthists will probably tell me if I get cancer it's my own dang fault because I didn't stuff down tons of the stuff. But I cannot get past the smell. I've tried it on occasions and I just can't do it.

2. Asparagus. I know, this one is strange, but I just don't like it.

3. Mussels, oysters, whole clams: Did too many dissections in college. I find myself thinking of the gonads and livers and such inside the unfortunate little creatures and I just can't eat them. ("Clam strips," on the other hand, I can eat: it's just a single muscle out of the clam)

4. Green and red bell peppers. I think this is actually a food intolerance issue - every time I've eaten them in something I've gotten bad indigestion.

5. Mangoes. They taste like turpentine to me. Apparently they do to some people. (There are also people who hate cilantro because it tastes soapy to them. I'm not one of those but I'm not a fan of coating things with so much cilantro that it's all you taste)

6. Organ meats. Again, I think it's the ick factor here. I know, sweetbreads are probably delicious but really?the thymus of a calf?

7. Mustard. Again, I think this is something that upsets my stomach. I'm weird about it though: once in a while I will eat honey-mustard dressing on stuff, and I put the dry mustard in devilled eggs. But I don't like the mustard-on-a-sandwich thing.

8. Cucumber pickles. I like almost every other pickled vegetable, but for some reason, I don't like the "most common and original" pickle.

9. Coffee. I know, it's what America runs on. I know most people love it. But I just don't care for the taste, and it does weird things to me. I don't mind the way it smells, though.

10. Beer and other alcoholic beverages. Even before I figured out that wine gave me migraines, I never drank more than a half of a glass at a time - and that was being polite, and trying to look like a "grown up" at grown-up parties. Fermented drinks taste like something died in them to me. (And it wasn't just that people served me cheap wine....it was good wine they served, it's just my taste buds don't tolerate it). I've never drunk beer - can't get past the way it smells. (Yes, I know, that's funny, considering my two main heritages are Irish and German.)

I think I also need to make another list, of foods I hated as a child, but now like as an adult. I was a tremendously picky eater as a kid (though not as bad as one of my cousins, who, for about 2 years, would only eat pancakes, or peanut butter sandwiches, or grilled-cheese sandwiches). But I'm a lot better now as an adult, probably because as you mature, your tastes change:

1. Beans (like from dried beans). I would not touch these as a child, but now I always have a few cans on the shelf for those times when I don't have a chance to get to the grocery, or when I decide I want bean soup. And I really like the "fat free" refried beans (How they can call them "fat free" and "refried," don't ask me)

2. Sweet potatoes

3. Beets.  Never eaten them "straight," but I do like them as Harvard beets or pickled beets. One of these days I'm going to try them cold, cut up, in a salad, because I've read that's good.

4. Salad. Yup, wouldn't eat it as a kid. Salad of ANY kind. I was the little kid who always asked to substitute cottage cheese or applesauce at the restaurant

5. Mashed potatoes. Yeah, for some strange reason I didn't like these - and lots of kids are "supposed" to.

6. Tea. That was our pediatrician's home-remedy for upset stomach - weak, cool tea. I couldn't stand tea as a kid. (I also disliked most sodas...and another of his recommendations was 7-up to settle stomachs but I didn't like it.)

7. Most Asian food and most Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food. I didn't like spicy. I didn't like things being mixed together, like in a stir-fry.

8. Egg salad. I used to think it was made out of leftover scrambled eggs and that grossed me out for some reason.

9. When I was really small, nuts. I got to like them when I was a bit older, but my brother NEVER liked them, so I grew up eating brownies and chocolate-chip cookies without nuts in them.

10. Tomatoes or tomato sauce, at least for a while: for some reason, for a few years as a kid, I had a real aversion to tomato sauce. When we'd go out for Italian food, I'd ask for spaghetti with just butter and parmesan cheese on it. (Perhaps it was not for simple reasons of frugality that my family didn't eat out often when I was a kid, I see that now).  Yes, there was a period of my childhood when I wouldn't eat pizza. I don't understand that now.