As a rule of thumb, by just repeatedly eating the food you don't like, you will get used to it and learn to like it. This is all it takes - just eat spinach 10 times, and you'll learn to like spinach. It's likely you'll prefer it prepared this way rather than that way, but your tastes will change.

I like to make it easier on myself by putting lots of pepper or chilli sauce on the food, until I am used to the taste.

By the way, this is how culinary schools work (at least here in Belgium). The kids arrive when they're 14 and need to learn to appreciate all kinds of food, so the rule is that they need to finish their plate, no exceptions.

As a picky eater myself, that's absolute torture to go through. My father tried it on me. After a few times of retching at the table, and running to go vomit because I found various tastes so bad, he kind of gave up. No more chicken livers for me. No more brussels sprouts. No more witlof (chicory for those that do not speak Dutch). No matter how well prepared, these things taste awful. Yes, even the witlof. I'm a bad Dutch person, I know.

You can't generalize like that. I seriously can't eat vegetables. It's the texture and not the taste. I can eat them when they have been puréed and mixed into my food and I don't know about it. But if I try to eat something and I feel the "crunch" of vegetables, my throat will close up.

It's been noted that people with Aspergers sometimes have a problem with certain food textures. So this could be a manifestation of that.

Sorry, I'm just trying to be encouraging and to challenge the belief that there is no way out of this situation. It's fun to hack the brain, and to submit your lower brain systems to the will of your conscious brain. The short term may be hard and painful, but in the long term you'll feel better for it. It's not that different from studying hard or exercising.

This is my humble opinion, and your mileage may vary...

Essentially this is how parents should educate children. Children should be made to taste all foods that are presented to them.

If you force yourself to eat more of something, you will grow to like it. I've heard this before, and I've definitely noticed it with myself, my friends, and my family, but I could not find a scientific article to back it up (though I didn't look that hard)

So your picky eating is literally "nonsense" because there is no logical, sensible reason for it--if you would only force yourself to eat other foods (for an extended period of time), you would almost certainly begin to like them.

EDIT: and while I looked for those articles, someone else posted the same comment. Oops.

So however outlandish this may come across, but your assesment everyone could learn to love tree bark, tar, asphalt, fecies, freshly sprayed skunk, hair, etc? Yes, there are people society likely considers "weird" that would eat this stuff, but surely not - everyone - could love this stuff if they'd just try it once, twice, 10 times?