Have you ever been totally convinced you didn’t like a certain food and then someone cooks it in a certain way, or you accidentally eat it, and suddenly you love it?

I did that with beets. I grew up with canned beets and decided I didn’t like them and stubbornly held onto that for a loooooooooong time.

Then one day, back when I was vegetarian, I was hungry and rushing through the San Francisco airport to catch a flight. As I ran, I rapidly scanned both sides of the terminal for the take-out restaurant with the shortest line, picked a place, and beelined to it.

I searched the cold case for pre-prepared salads and grabbed the only vegetarian one, not really looking at it.

When I finally got settled in my seat, I popped open the container and dug in. That salad was delicious! It was so good I had to stop eating and study it. It had greens and goat cheese and walnuts and… beets!

And I’ve loved beets ever since.

Surely you have a similar story, we all do.

We can get pretty hot about who we are and what we like. In psychology that’s called ego.

Another way to think about ego is separation from others. “You may like beets, but I don’t. I’m different than you.”

Ego is also a trait. Some people feel very connected and the same as other people. There are also those who think they are special and different from everyone else.

However, this ego trait is a habit and habits can be changed.

In the scope of food, laying down our ego a little and opening up to different foods is really healthy.

With the right attitude and exposure, we can start to like more and more foods. Including the wide variety of plants, legumes and vegetables available to us at our regular grocery store.

When I was studying in India, the spiritual master told us:

“Likes and dislikes are of the lower mind.  Your higher self doesn’t hate brussels sprouts.”

And that stuck with me.

Turns out, my higher self doesn’t hate beets either.