Poor Popeye

I generally consider myself to have a fairly strong stomach. I am not a sympathy vomiter. I can leave the dinner table to change a nasty diaper and then resume my meal without difficulty. I've held a spastic child while a nurse cared for his horribly infected surgical wound. I've even touched a brain protected only by skin, not skull. All of this meant absolutely nothing today when I encountered what is possibly the most disgusting substance on the planet. Creamed spinach.

First of all, the words "cream" and "spinach" should only be used in association with one another when you are talking about a recipe for spinach dip, in which case it is acceptable to refer to "sour cream". That's it. Secondly, it should be a crime to turn such a nutritious, relatively tasty food as spinach into something so grossly....uh, gross. I like spinach, and I like for my daughter to eat nutritious foods, and spinach is a nutritious food. So I bought a jar of Creamed Spinach baby food. All natural ingredients, nothing scary or unfamiliar. I am relatively conscientious about what I allow my child to eat.

I made two mistakes (besides buying it). First, I heated it. That released the smell. Strike #1. Then, as I always do with new foods that I am giving to my daughter, I tasted it. (This may have been the least intelligent thing I have done all week.) Strike #2. I thought for sure that we were going to strike out with this incredibly horrific food. But then, to my shock and amazement, my baby girl actually liked it! No, LOVED it! She ate the entire jar. The whole thing. I gave her bites of applesauce in between bites of icky green stuff, but I admit that the applesauce breaks were more for my benefit than hers. Even now as I think about it, my stomach is churning. Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. It was so bad. We won't be buying Creamed Spinach again.

Poor Creamed Spinach factory workers...