Is it less "masculine" for a man to have salads as his favorite food?

I hated salads as a child. I mean I absolutely detested salads as a child! As a teenager I was very athletic, so I started eating salads as a part of eating a healthy diet being an athlete, and I quickly grew to love them. Now as an adult I absolutely love salads! I eat salads all the time. I almost always eat a big salad everyday. If I do go a day without eating a good salad the craving for me to eat a salad is almost like a caffeine addiction. My salad cravings can be that powerful. I've always thought that it was very ironic that I went from being the biggest salad hater as a child to being probably one of the biggest salad lovers you'll ever meet. That certainly surprised my family that I've turned out to be the biggest salad lover of all.

I love salads so much that my two favorite foods now as an adult are a really good Cobb salad or chefs salad. I had never associated the foods I eat with my masculinity until I've had some strange discussions with both men and women over the past year. Before this past year I thought of my love for salads as a simple food preference, and nothing more.

This past year both men and women I'm friends with said that it's not unusual to find a woman who might list salads as their favorite food, and who eats salads all the time. However, they said it's very unusual to find a man who would say salads are his favorite food, and who eats salads all the time like I do. One woman told me that my addiction to eating salads was almost "fem." I was really offended by her implying that!

I frequently bring salads to work with my for lunch. One guy at work said to me that you can't keep "your man card" eating salads all the time like I do. I was also offended by that! I told him a salad is simply a type of food. I told him that salads are honestly my favorite food. Why should I give up my favorite food? What does being a male salad lover have to do with being "less of a man?" So my question is, is it normal for a guy to be a huge salad lover, and actually have salads as his favorite food? Does the fact that I love a Cobb salad as my favorite food, instead of steak or chicken wings like many men do, take away from my "masculinity?" Again, the only reason I'm asking this is because others have recently suggested to me that it's not normal or "masculine " for a man to love salads as much as I do