I’ll admit it. I’m a picky eater.

I have never been adventurous with food. I know what I like and like what I know, and if a food so much as looks, feels or smells funny, I won’t even consider putting it near my mouth. I’m not just talking about an aversion to the more exotic foods, like frog legs or liver. I’m talking about everyday food, such as ground meat (I don’t trust what’s in there), smelly broccoli and slimy mushrooms. And you can’t trick me either. If I feel that I have any reason to doubt a food, I won’t eat it. If a sneaky onion somehow makes it into my bite, my “stranger danger” alarms start going off at first crunch.

Not too long ago, kiwi would have made my list of scary food. Between the fuzzy skin and the gooey green center, this tropical fruit made me wary for many years. I remember my dad eating kiwi when I was little and I didn’t want any part of it. That strange looking fruit might as well have been from Mars and Martian food wasn’t on my approved food list.

Many years passed and I found myself enjoying Easter dinner at the home of my boyfriend’s aunt and uncle this past spring. For dessert, his aunt served shortcake with a medley for fruit, including the dreaded kiwi. I scooted it across my plate as I snacked on the strawberries when I remembered how much I enjoy strawberry kiwi Italian sodas. I figured that if I liked those, then kiwi couldn’t be so bad. I started tentatively at first with just a teeny tiny bite. Hmmm…it wasn’t too bad. So I tried a second bite and found that I actually enjoyed the tart taste. Maybe I had been wrong all these years about the harmless kiwi.

Although I’ve yet to eat another kiwi, I’m no longer afraid. But I am still a self-proclaimed picky eater, and at 26 years old, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

While we don’t have any actual fruit to offer you, we can give you 25% off a bottle of our delicious Strawberry Kiwi hand wash during August as part of our Tropical Fruit Sale. The sale also includes an array of other delightful tropical scents, including Papaya Mango, Coconut, Island Banana and Kiwi Lime. Stock up on hand washes, bath salts, exfoliating scrubs and more! Sale ends on August 31, 2011.

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Do you have a food that you swore for years that you didn’t like because it looked, smelled or felt funny? Did you finally try it and discover that it’s not nearly as scary or gross as you thought? Tell us about how your overcame your food fear in a blog comment for a chance to win a $25 gift card to SJ Creations.

All blog comments will be compiled at the end of August and a winner will be randomly selected. One entry per blog but feel free to comment on the other August blogs for extra entries!