In August, we bring a set of new full-time writers to the blog. Today, please welcome Grace Buller (’25), who will be writing for us on the 4th of each month. After graduating from Calvin in May 2025 with a degree in writing and Spanish, G. E. Buller decided to stay in Grand Rapids. Currently, she is working as a special education aide. Her non-writing hobbies include fussing over her aquarium and reading about medieval/early modern nuns.
I do not identify as a picky eater, nor do most people—to my knowledge—categorize me as such. However, there are two foods that from childhood I have refused to eat: cereal and dino nuggets.
This is not to say there aren’t other foods I dislike, especially if they aren’t prepared properly. I’m not a fan of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches that have sat in the condensation of a plastic bag and become squishy. Lunch meat is also hit-or-miss. If I look at the tiny holes in a slimy slice of Oscar Mayer turkey luncheon meat for too long, I won’t eat it. I don’t like boiled hot dogs. Nevertheless, I will eat all of these foods in an emergency.
I also don’t like most dairy- and egg-based products, with ranch dressing and scrambled eggs being objects of particular distaste, but here, I was operant-conditioned into disdain by a lifetime of stomachaches and other unpleasant physical effects. Thus, my dislike is probably self-protective.
Cereal and dino nuggets, on the other hand, I despise with neither cause nor exception. From childhood, I have been repulsed by them. My hatred of cereal, in particular, gained me notoriety. For much of grade school, I refused to sit at the same table as someone eating a bowl of Cheerios. I would eat my breakfast, usually toast or oatmeal, along in the stairwell or the basement, my younger siblings periodically popping by to taunt me with a single piece of cereal that they would dangle in front of my face or attempt to drop in my hand.
As an adult, I am less dogmatic in my avoidance of cereal eaters. However, I still do not personally partake in this particular morning sacrament.
This might come as a shock, given that cereal and dino nuggets are famously Foods Picky Eaters Will Eat.
Except that I won’t eat them, and I’m not even particularly picky.
Since I cannot explain my contrariness, allow me to defend it.
You pour a bowl of cereal. A few pieces fall to the ground, where you will later absentmindedly crush them under your bare heel, and the sugary dust will stick to your foot. You pour the milk. Then, the sound of crunching mixed with slurping. The old-washcloth smell of moist cereal rises from the bowl. Afterward, when you have left the bowl in the sink, a few last, soggy rings float in diluted milk.
To those who like dino nuggets, I merely ask: would you eat a damp dish sponge if it was breaded, baked, and dipped in ketchup?
If there’s any moral to my little screed against cereal and dino nuggets, it’s this: in a matter of taste, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. I know people who are as enthusiastic about cereal as I am repulsed by it. While I don’t know anyone who gets starry-eyed at the sight of dino nuggets, they are, for a lot of people, a staple, minimal-effort meal.
Meanwhile, some of the foods I personally like — such as mushrooms — top other people’s lists of Foods They Will Not Eat.
With the specific example of food, this probably means you’re going to have to either play to your audience, or offer a variety of options.
In other fields, you might just have to accept that you won’t please everyone. When you think you’ve found the perfect, easy-to-prepare, budget-friendly solution (complete with gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan versions!), someone will still hate it.
And, in a world of varied palates, that’s not a sign of absolute failure.
After graduating from Calvin in May 2025 with a degree in writing and Spanish, G. E. Buller decided to stay in Grand Rapids. Currently, she is working as a special education aide. Her non-writing hobbies include fussing over her aquarium and reading about medieval/early modern nuns.
