Fruit. It's NOT what's for dinner.

The past couple posts have been so serious. I want to change it up a bit.

Let's talk about fruit.

Sure, you say. You love fruit. You can't get enough of it. You eat it for snacks. You eat it with meals. You even eat oatmeal raisin cookies, because you have this insane notion that fruit belongs in desserts.

Clearly, you and I are just too different. Because I have a fruit issue. An aversion, if you will.

Excuse me? Fruit?  I'm just not that into you.

You would think with my no dairy/soy/wheat restriction I'm on while nursing X I'd eat vast quantities of apples, pears, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, etc., to complement my steady diet of Lay's potato chips.

You'd be wrong.

I'm not at all opposed to the idea of fruit. I really, really wish I liked it more. I have tried. I was an extremely picky eater as a child, but as I get older, I'm making an effort to try new things. Like sushi, for instance.

And fruit, too. I mean, aside from its obvious health benefits, there's nothing prettier than a lovely fruit salad, all those vibrant colors dancing together in a bowl. And I'll put some on my a plate - then proceed to pick out the one or two things that I actually eat (sorry pineapple, honeydew, strawberries).

My kids LOVE fruit. Especially Sawyer. The boy could eat an entire mango. Meanwhile, I can't even clean off the cutting board because that particular fruit is just a tad too slimy for me.

See, my problem is texture. I tried an apple that looked appealing recently - and gagged. I tried a strawberry when the kids were picking them at a farm - you can't get much fresher than that - and I just couldn't get past that bumpy skin (don't even get me started on peaches).

I will eat bananas - but only if there is no green on the skin and no bruises on the fruit. And OMG - why must we be subjected to all those strings? And that awful seed on the bottom that I STILL remember accidentally biting into when I was, like, 7?

Grapes are good as long as they are not mushy. Or hard. Watermelon I'm pretty good with, unless it has that granular feel to it. Blackberries and raspberries usually work well - as long as they are not hard, or worse, moldy.

Dry oranges go right in the trash. Same with clementines (but when they're sweet, they really are like candy, aren't they?).

Don't even get me started on tomatoes. They come in all those fancy colors to entice me, to say nothing of all the different shapes and sizes. And how cute are those cherry tomatoes? Yet I will only eat them if they are pulverized into a smooth sauce or salsa. Because otherwise they're all squishy and squirty and just plain icky.

That's right. I said icky. I'm 41 years old.

I'll continue trying to change my ways.

In the meantime, I'm guessing that those Princess fruit snacks my daughter eats do not count. Because I could eat those all day. Not that I do. I'm just, you know, saying I could. Hey - some actually come in fruit shapes!