What makes someone a picky eater?

The reason I ask is that I have endured this label for years, and I have had enough. As I argue in episode #8 of Drunk Ex-Pastors, there’s a difference between actively disliking a particular food on the one hand, and simply not preferring it on the other. So when I say, “I don’t like eggs,” all I’m saying is that while I will eat them in a pinch, there’re 14 other items on the menu that I will choose first (contrast this with something like broccoli, which I actually dislike).

But then, it’s possible that the picky-eater label is due to my never having tried certain foods, like olives, mushrooms, dates, or pecans. Yet even this has nothing to do with pickiness, I swear. It’s just that I was already like 35 years old by the time it occurred to me that I’d somehow managed to avoid these foods, and when you realize you’ve got a streak like that going, you have no choice but to let it ride.

Listen below. . . .