ONE dodgy meal can out you off a certain food for life, research by UK scientists found.

Bad experiences with food 'flip a switch' in our brain that alters our eating habits, says a study by the University of Sussex.

Experiments with snails show why the thought of some foods make us feel sick.

This ‘appetite-suppressing’ switch certainly went off in my brain when, in 1983, I ate a Chinese takeaway in Kingston-on-Thames where I was a student. I was violently sick the whole night and felt ill for days afterwards. I have not touched Chinese since.

My husband and children love it and have tried, tried and tried again to persuade me to change my mind, but I can’t blot out that early experience.