I have come a long way from being the picky child I was when I was little.

No joke, I used to only eat the beans out of chili and the meat out of stew.

Despite still having a completely insane tendency to dislike food if it’s been “tainted” or “contaminated” by other food on my plate, I’m really not as bad as I used to be.

Except when it comes to trying new food.

No matter what the cuisine, if I haven’t had it before, I probably won’t try it unless forced.

For example, sushi. The idea of eating raw fish isn’t appetizing to me.

That, and I don’t feel like getting parasites from poorly prepared, did I mention RAW, fish.

And sushi isn’t the only case of food fear that I have. It actually takes a lot for me to try new foods.

It was only very recently that I tried Chipotle for the first time, and that was after months of my mother bugging me to take her there.

I haven’t tried food from Tbar yet, although it does look and smell amazing.

And the only reason why I’ve had Korean and Thai food before is because we went out for dinner twice for my cousin’s graduation last year and it was the only thing to eat.

It’s not that I don’t know whether or not I’m going to like. I didn’t like Thai food, but I still ate it.

I think it’s more of a challenge to get myself to try new foods and restaurants because I’m scared that I’m going to get sick, i.e. food poisoning.

But, it should be said that I made a New Years resolution to be more adventurous with my food choices.

Chipotle was a good start, right?

Perhaps Tbar is next. We’ll save the sushi for next year.

Megan Mann can be reached at [email protected] or @meganisthemann on Twitter.