Since the 1960s, more and more people have started eating healthy, and that means less red meat and more chicken and fish[1]. If you have to change your eating habits from your doctor and chicken is getting out of your nose by now, but you still want protein, fish is always a good alternative too. But what if you don't like fish and so you can either eat only chicken and turkey or just have to become completely vegetarian? That's not convenient at all.
So how can you make sure your fish is going to taste a little better after all?
Preparing fish more deliciously
Of course, if you eat mostly fish from the fishmonger - that is, actually fried fish - you may not like it because it is very fatty fish with lots of spices.
True, that's not for everyone.
Instead, you can also prepare and fry your own fish. This gives you the freedom to choose spices you like and to experiment with different types of fish. After all, not every fish tastes the same. Tuna has a different taste from salmon and salmon tastes different from whitefish or pollock.
There is nothing wrong with liking pollock but not eel. Even in fish, you can like some fish better than others. To find the fish that suits you just experiment with different types of fish and different ways of seasoning.
For example, you can season whitefish or pollock with chicken seasoning just fine if it makes the fish tastier for you, so you can enjoy the benefits of fish.
Benefits of knowing fish
Another way to get more "appetite" for fish is to know the benefits of eating fish. After all, fish is incredibly healthy; it contains essential fatty acids and lots of protein. This is incredibly healthy for you.
In fact, eating fish regularly lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease. There is even evidence that it lowers the risk of arthritis[2].
Those essential fatty acids, especially omega-3, help to lower your blood pressure, lower your heart rate and thus lower risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
In addition, eating fish has also been linked to lowering the risk of stroke and the risk of depression. In doing so, it is also good for being mentally healthy longer in old age.
For pregnant and breastfeeding women, eating fish is also important, as it allows them to pass on the fatty acid DHA to their child. This is important for their baby's brain development.
What you do need to watch out for is not eating too many fish with mercury in them. These are particularly the fish at the top of the food chain, such as swordfish, shark and king mackerel. This is particularly bad for children, so avoid these fish if you are pregnant and breastfeeding[3].
Changing taste perception with hypnosis
If you know the benefits of fish, prepare your own fish with spices and sauces you like and it still doesn't help, you can also use hypnosis to change your perception of taste.
In the medical world, this is sometimes applied to children who need medication that doesn't taste good[4]. And if this can be done with bitter medications, it certainly can be done with fish.
To achieve this, you’re first put into a state of hypnosis and a wonderfully relaxed state. This is often done through visualizing a pleasant place. Next, a hypnotherapist can give you suggestions about the taste of fish. For example, the fish suddenly tastes just as good as a piece of chicken, a frikandel, or something else you enjoy.
To test how well it goes, you can even be given a piece of fish during the hypnosis and eat it if the hypnotherapist feels that the suggestion has penetrated you and you are now interpreting fish in a different way.
If this is successful, the hypnotist will also teach you self-hypnosis, so that you can do it at home at times when you eat fish and find it off-putting. In some cases this is not necessary at all, this depends on the hypnotherapist's assessment of the success of the treatment.
Next, you can eat some delicious fish.
Changing fears about fish eating with hypnosis
In addition to changing that you don't like fish, you may also have fears about eating fish. For example, many people are afraid that fish bones will get stuck in their throat and therefore think they don't like fish, when in fact that fear says nothing about the taste.
Then it may be more convenient to solve the fear of eating fish than to change the perception of taste.
If you don't know exactly why you are afraid to eat fish or have an aversion to it that has nothing to do with the taste you can apply regression.
With regression, the emotion when eating fish is explored. You get a certain negative feeling at the idea of eating fish. With regression, you go back in time in your life to the first time you had that feeling[5].
Then you often come to an event in your childhood when you first had that feeling. This is often the moment when a certain belief arose that is now preventing you from eating fish.
This may have been a time, for example, when something was stuck in your throat that you had to cough out or someone even had to perform the Heimlich maneuver to save you.
Next, you start doing something with that moment. If it has nothing to do with an event, but more to do with what someone once said, you can empathize with other people who were there at the time. After all, you know more now than you did when you were a child. This can already do a lot to change your beliefs.
Sometimes more is needed than that, such as a conversation with your inner child. After all, you used to be much smaller, which also means your airways and esophagus were smaller, making it easier for things to get stuck than they do now. So the situation is completely different now, which means you experience far fewer problems with eating than you did when you were a child.
For example, this is something you can tell your inner child.
If your inner child goes along with this, you can let your inner child grow up with you again, but without that fear until the moment at the hypnotherapist.
In this way, your fear of eating fish can be overcome. In addition, there are other techniques as well.
So hypnosis techniques can help in multiple ways to eat healthy and, in this particular case, fish.
Do you want to help people eat fish because you provide nutritional advice, for example? Then knowing hypnosis techniques can make your job easier if you find that people block when eating certain healthy foods.
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Also, pin this infographic as a reminder:
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