You Don’t Have to Eat it if You Don’t Like It

I lived with one of my best friends for six months last year as I started to rebuild my life after an abusive relationship that lasted almost a decade.

As I allowed myself to settle into a new place, to a new way of living, I started cooking in her kitchen. Her mother’s kitchen, to be precise.

There’s something to be said about the feelings that come up when we have to rely on someone else to survive. And in particular when we’re relying on the kindness of others, and already have issues taking up space.

In the beginning I tried to exist as a tiny mouse. Quiet and non-disruptive. Like if I made myself invisible it would be marginally better that I allowed myself to accept help. Like if I made myself smaller and quieter they wouldn’t kick me out before I was ready or able to afford a new place on my own.

My friend even made that comment at one point, that it was like living with a mouse because I would scurry upstairs early in the morning before anyone was awake most days and bring my food to my basement bedroom, existing in the shadows with my dog.

So when I started to play with food, to cook in their beautiful, well-stocked kitchen with more pots and pans and spices than I could’ve ever conceived of, it was uncomfortable.

Not because of them — but because of me. I wanted to do everything in my power to not bother anyone, and also needed to eat.

About a month into my stay I made something and told my friend she could help herself. She tried it and said that she didn’t like it. I agreed, and then served myself a heaping plateful.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it,” said my friend, nonchalantly. I nodded, agreeing with her and heading back downstairs to my bubble.

“I know,” I lied. Although I didn’t realize it was a lie when I said it.

It wasn’t until I was downstairs, slowly and methodically eating a meal I didn’t enjoy that I realized that that had never been the truth for me.

And then I felt angry. What a fucking privileged thing to say.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my friend had no malicious intent behind saying it. And I wasn’t even really angry at her.

I was angry at the fact that not eating something that I or someone else prepared had never been an option for me.

I was angry that I hadn’t had that privilege.

Up until that moment, there had never been a period in my life when I wasn’t living with food scarcity.

Whether it was growing up and being told to clean my plate — or visiting the house of the person who abused me, and being forced to sit at a table for hours to eat something that later made me sick.

Or when my mom would bring me a slice of bread with butter on it (I didn’t know I was allergic to gluten & dairy until well into my 20s) — while the rest of my family sat around the table in the kitchen downstairs eating a full meal.

I’d eat my slice of bread on my mattress on the floor of my room with no door and nothing else — and I’d be grateful for it.

When I was homeless for the first time at 13, I remember when things were bad and I was living in a shelter for teens and the girls in my ward were bullying me, waking me up with buckets of cold water so I learned to wake up before them, to leave the house without food and fall asleep on the park bench waiting for a bus.

I’d go into the gas station bathroom and drink as much hot water as my stomach could hold, pretending it was french fries.

Or when I was living with my ex — and he would get annoyed at me if I had any kind of attachment to something in the fridge.

If I brought leftovers from a meal with my mentor and he ate them, I was wrong to be upset. If someone gave me a gift of some delicious food and he turned it into something inedible or threw it away, I was materialistic and selfish.

If I made something that he didn’t like, I did it on purpose so he would have to cook, which made me a bitch.

So I’d make something else for him and eat my experiment by myself in my room with my animals, sometimes for days just so I wouldn’t be tempted to mess up again.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it.”

What a fucking privileged existence.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be allowed to not like certain foods.

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to tell someone I was allergic to something and them not ask me to eat it “just this once” because my allergy “wasn’t that bad.”

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to throw out food that didn’t have substantial mold on it, because you could probably carve it out and eat the rest, right? Reheat it to kill anything that was growing and cover it in cheese?

I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to walk around a grocery store without a tight budget, and a food stamps card, and hope there were enough options that didn’t have my food allergies.

I couldn’t imagine cooking something and realizing it went wrong, and then being playful enough to just start over.

To have enough food to just start over.

To have enough energy to just start over.

To have the money to order takeout instead.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it.”

I know that moment probably passed so quickly for my friend, but it rings in my head like a mantra. As I explore this new existence.

As I learn what it’s like to have my own kitchen. To not have my utensils and mugs and mementos broken or thrown at me.

To be able to experiment and try new things and if I like them — to have leftovers.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it.”

What a revolutionary thing to say. What a worldview shift. What a different way of living.

My mission on this planet is to be part of the solution to solving hunger and homelessness, because I’ve been hungry. And I’ve been homeless. And maybe the guilt and shame of throwing away food will never truly go away, as someone with so much food trauma.

As someone with disordered eating who learned to use food and hunger as a method of control.

I still fight the urge to clear my plate even when my body says I’ve had enough. I still fight the shame of having served too much because I spent so long not having enough.

So I don’t know if this will ever be quite right for me. If intuitive eating — which I am very passionate about despite being a recovering calorie counter and nutrition buff — is the solve.

But one thing I know for sure:

I don’t have to eat it if I don’t like it. 🤯