nurturing an attitude or natural selection?

there are book consumption droughts i suffer from time to time. actually, most of the time. whereas in my youth i gobbled books with an insatiable appetite, now i nibble, and often discard.

i think it comes with higher expectation and stems from the thinking that i should be consuming thought-provoking books, which often manifests itself in the form of non-fiction. or is it a case of an appetite maturing? of me knowing what is out there and eating sparingly, but eating well?

it is the same with food. i've become a haughty foodie-goodie and now turn my pointy nose away from tinned foods, packaged meals, frozen foods. when i think of those foods, i think of my childhood and remember when my dad used to make my lunches. all i remember now are the cornsyrup sandwiches and hotdog lunches. (not together.) he is a meat-and-potatoes man who loves a sidedish of canned peas. he snorts at the fresh ones, but sometimes i wonder if it is just for effect, like he is proudly defining himself as hardy. perhaps he thinks himself a perpetual camper, surviving off the barest of necessities.

but this is not an attitude applicable only to books, food and other pastimes. it affects jobs, relationships, basically all aspects of my life. so, the question is whether it's the result of me spoiling myself as a mid-twenties yuppie or just the natural development of growing older and wiser?