When I was four years old, I referred to Whole Foods as Happy Foodland. My mom would take me every Sunday to that gloriously refrigerated palace of healthy eating, where all of the inhabitants wore Lulu Lemon and had a Bluetooth attached to her ear (right next to her several-karat diamond earrings). I would practice my supermarket-cart racing skills, seeing how many things/people I could run into over a 45-minute period—the answer is many.

One day, my mother insisted that if I was going to continually barrel down other shoppers, I also needed to try at least one new and unusual food out of the many available samples. Being four and naïve, I reached for the prettiest fruit on a tray of tropical goods; it was green, round and reminded me vaguely of Kermit the Frog (who I firmly believe is supreme ruler of children’s television). I snatched the kiwi with my pudgy little fingers and shoved it into my mouth, expecting something like the taste of candy. To my utter surprise and dismay, it was disgusting. After spitting it out onto the floor, I turned to my mother and said “Yuck, she thought to herself,” employing what my four-year old self thought was the dramatic principle of third-person narrative. My parents like to think of this as the beginning of my life-long affair with the art of humour; I prefer to view it as the end of my experimental eating.

Since then, I’ve had to be tricked or bribed to try new foods. Yes, I do find myself enjoying many of these unusual specimens I’ve been forced to gulp down, like green beans and truffles, but that distrust of new food is still firmly rooted in my brain. I’m 15 years old and still refuse vehemently to so much as taste a bite of mango, bell pepper or mushroom. I’ve discovered that most of the foods I so abhor are organic and in plentiful supply at Whole Foods. Perhaps my aversion to these foods is leftover from that traumatizing day in aisle 9.

Therefore, I’ve decided that I need to man up, and try something new. I believe I shall title this adventure “Remy’s Daring Foray into the Field of Gastronomy,” or something equally pretentious. Please feel free to comment below, and recommend some exciting items for me to sample (keeping in mind that I am a vegetarian so no, I will not be trying chocolate covered bacon). Now wish me luck on my journey!