try a strange new food

when was the last time you ate something that made you genuinely uncomfortable? not a new restaurant — you can find chicken tenders at a new restaurant. something actually unfamiliar. something that made you hesitate before putting it in your mouth.

food as a comfort zone test

your relationship with food is a perfect microcosm of your relationship with everything else. if you eat the same meals every week, you probably also take the same routes, talk to the same people, and think the same thoughts. your palate is a proxy for your willingness to experience new things.

trying a genuinely strange food — cricket protein bars, raw sea urchin, durian fruit, fermented shark, century eggs — is a low-stakes way to practice stepping outside what's familiar.

your brain's resistance

watch what happens when you consider eating something unfamiliar. your brain generates objections instantly: "that's gross," "what if i don't like it," "why would i waste money on something weird." these are the exact same objections it generates when you consider any new experience. same software, different application.

by overriding those objections for something as trivial as food, you weaken their power over decisions that actually matter.

the broader principle

every time you try something new and survive it — even if you hate it — you expand your definition of what's possible. the person who has eaten crickets and lived to tell the tale is slightly more adventurous than the person who hasn't. not because cricket-eating is important, but because the willingness to try is.

novelty seeking is a muscle. food is the lightest weight in the gym.

your challenge

this week, eat something you've never had before. something that makes your stomach do a little flip just thinking about it. go to an ethnic grocery store. order the weirdest thing on the menu at a new restaurant. buy that strange snack you've walked past a hundred times.

eat it. form your own opinion. that's it. that's the whole challenge.

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