The three-bite-rule loophole - Bio to Bs

Back in the dark ages, when I was growing up, my mom had the three-bite-rule. We had to take 3 bites of everything on our plates. I can still remember several meals where I sat at the table, for what seemed like hours, staring at those cold lima beans. The thought of them made me nauseous. In my six-year-old mind, it was a scene right out of the Joan Crawford biography, Mommie Dearest. Of course in reality, it was nothing like that, but I still don’t like lima beans.

Years later, my sister was sitting at the table, staring at her English peas…she told my mom that she would throw up if she took a bite. We all smiled at my sister, knowing she was exaggerating. My mom politely said, “just take three bites.” My sister then slowly put the fork up to her mouth and took a bite. She immediately threw up all over her plate of food.



Needless, to say, that ended that meal for the whole family.

From that point on, whenever my mom tried to enforce the three-bite-rule, all my sister had to say was, “remember the peas.” My sister had found a way to beat the three-bite-rule. That was decades ago, and I still wish I had had the foresight to go ahead and put those lima beans in my mouth and just let nature take it’s course…then I could have been the one to discover the three-bite-rule loophole.

Look for a version of this story in one of our upcoming Emma novels!

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