Words That Have Never Been Spoken Before

“Daddy, I don’t think I like bacon anymore.”

Wait. What? I’m pretty sure those words have never been uttered in the history of mankind. She might as well have said, “Daddy, I don’t think I like oxygen anymore.”

Ella dropped that bomb on me last week. When she said it, I was shocked. This was the same little girl who proclaimed on the first day of the Disney Cruise, “All you eat bacon every day? I could get used to this.”

When Ella was a toddler, she was the best eater. We only fed her healthy food for the first few years, and she would eat all her vegetables every time we fed her. One time when she was about three years old, she asked for more kale at dinner. Kale. Who the heck asks for more kale?

She was the cutest little garbage disposal. She would eat anything we put on her plate. And she never complained.

And then it all changed.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when her dietary preferences changed, but I’m pretty sure it’s when we introduced her to the greatness of the Pop-Tart. After that, she had no need for vegetables or anything even remotely containing a single nutrient, not even her previously beloved kale.

Ever since the fateful Pop-Tart discovery, she has turned into the pickiest eater. Her diet has devolved into an anti-Paleo program consisting of four food groups: Processed carbs, cheese, sugar, and chocolate.

Picky is one thing, but not liking bacon? Ella used to be a bacon addict. Her love for bacon made meth addiction look like a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Maybe she developed a bacon tolerance, and it no longer has the same effect on her.

But bacon was my go-to protein source. Outside of bacon, I think the only protein she has eaten in the last three years is the hamburger patty in a Justaburger kid’s meal, which she requests almost daily. As bad as bacon is for you, at least it has protein, so I was a little sad when she made her fateful declaration.

Even though college-aged Andy would disagree, you shouldn’t eat at Whataburger every day. So, the quest for a second protein source begins . . .