Learn English – word that describes disliking a food or drink after vomiting it

expressionssingle-word-requests

I'm finding it particularly hard to google this, but want to know if there's a word or expression used that describes the scenario when a person stops liking a food or drink after they have vomited after eating that particular food.

Sorry for the slightly off-putting question!

Best Answer

It has a rather generic label--a food or taste aversion--often trauma-induced, as you described (but just as often not)

AVERSION noun: a strong feeling of not liking something.

1: obsolete : the act of turning away

2 a: a feeling of repugnance toward something with a desire to avoid or turn from it (regards drunkenness with aversion)

b: a settled dislike : antipathy (expressed an aversion to parties)

c: a tendency to extinguish a behavior or to avoid a thing or situation and especially a usually pleasurable one because it is or has been associated with a noxious stimulus

3: an object of aversion (inconstancy is my aversion—Jane Austen)

Merriam-Webster online

Here’s how taste aversion works: You and your buddies go out for a few drinks. You’re young and wild and love drinks with the strong coconut flavor of Malibu Rum. Things get a little out of hand, and you spend part of the night praying to the porcelain god. You recover, and next weekend go out for drinks again. The bartender passes you your favorite drink, but this time the smell of coconut immediately makes you want to vomit. You loved Malibu for years, but now, the very thought of it makes you sick. What you’re experiencing is your brain protecting you from being poisoned. When we were primitive creatures, we weren’t sure what was safe to eat so we tested things out.

If you survived the experience, your brain had to make sure that you never ever ate that same thing again. So, if you ate something that made you feel ill, your brain decided "better safe than sorry," and conditioned you to feel sick anytime you saw, smelled or even thought about that same food.

And, here's a link, CNN International

Hold the Presses! We have a late addition:

The American psychologist Dr. John Garcia is best known for discovering exceptions to the process of learning by classical conditioning. In the mid-twentieth century, Dr. Garcia worked for a national defense lab studying the effects of radiation on the brains of laboratory animals. Dr. Garcia's rats were exposed to various sights, sounds and smells while in the radiation chambers. These rats were also given flavored water before being exposed to radiation in the chamber. Dr. Garcia noticed that the rats that that became sick from radiation would later avoid the same flavored water. He realized that these rats subconsciously associated their illness with the water even when the water was not what made them sick. The rats had developed a taste aversion to the flavored water after only one experience of sickness and nausea.

So, Taste Aversion, also became known as: The Garcia Effect

Here's to you, Papa!

And a late link from a new friend (Props!): The Garcia Effect nee Taste Aversion, applied to our furry and feathered cousins is known as Conditioned Aversion Therapy

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