A Quiet Rebellion

This morning at breakfast, I noticed that the Bean had left the crust from his toast on his plastic blue plate (which he decidedly had chosen over the plastic yellow plate). We’ve noticed him doing this a lot lately, leaving his crusts. The other day it was the outer ridge from his waffle. It's become this thing that we all notice, but don't talk about. He doesn’t complain about the crusts. Nor are we forcing him to eat them. He just leaves them on his plate, uneaten and abandoned, like a quiet rebellion.

I know that it’s a kid thing to not like crusts, but I’ve never given any thought to how this starts. How does a 2 year-old, who has hardly met a food he didn’t like, suddenly reject the ends of things? I don’t think we have ever said the word “crust” to the kid. Jules and I can’t remember ever not liking the crust. In fact the more burnt, crisp and dark the edges are, the more I love them.

So where does this aversion come from? Is not liking crusts a learned behavior, or someday in the future will scientists discover the crust gene?