Is anyone else just drowning in the food demands of faddy/fussy friends and family members?

[RudsyFarmer]

I don’t think I’ve ever known it as difficult as it is right now to try and feed people. I’ve just had the most painful ten minutes trying to find food to feed my mother. Everything from onions, potatoes, beef, lamb, turmeric!!!!!!…. is off the table. In one conversation 90% of common food stuffs was a no.

My partner is only marginally better. if I put too much on his plate he can’t eat a thing. Anything goes wrong at work - won’t eat his dinner. My youngest child is the same. Generally won’t eat. The school talks to me about their concern regarding him leaving his lunch everyday. Is fussy, pernickity, won’t eat vegetables, doesn’t like spice. Only wants to eat pizza. My older child, the texture has to be right, will eat certain foods, not others. Will act like I’m trying to poison him if I put butter on something. The food is too hot, too cold, too thick, too runny etc etc etc.

I on the other hand will eat anything but am overweight so have to limit my food or else I’m getting bigger and bigger. All I want to do is feed people food and move on. Instead I have to hyper focus on food or else everyone else is just disappearing around me. I feel like a drug addict surrounded by drugs constantly. ITS DOING MY HEAD IN 😡😡

Ah OK, you're all eating really late. And separately. One of my kids can't eat late due to the autoimmune disease he suffers from. And I go to bed at 9.30pm. You also seem to imply that your DD doesn't actually have an evening meal (a snack, some porridge). So while I can see you make it work for you, your situation sounds very different from mine.

(I also work 60hrs p/w btw, and run my own business - it's not a competition ...)

I completely sympathise op. I too eat anything and would benefit from eating mostly vegetables (and would be happy to do so) in order to shift some weight. Instead I am catering for a whole host of fussy family members who hate the food I cook anyway because there's always one thing in it one of them doesn't like. I regularly have a rant at dinner and point out that we cannot have hot dogs every day or we'll end up with bowel cancer. I'm not even sure fussy is the word. I used to think fussy was a child who picked out onions or didn't like one or two things. One of my dc seems to have some sort of sensory thing going on with textures, smells and colours. It's exhausting.

It's hard not to get cross sometimes isn't. If told my family if there's a zombie apocalypse and food supply breaks down they'll have no hope of survival. Whereas I will be resourceful and survive on dandelion leaves and other foraged food. I do wonder if people in deep poverty or living in refugee camps or famine areas have all this fussiness and intolerances or is it actually created by our being over fed and over nourished?

I don’t run a restaurant and don’t pander to fussy eating.

I use my mums strategy (who grew up post war when food was tight - kids didn’t get to decide then). ‘There’s f@ck all else, eat your dinner’!

This.

I'm at my wits end, there's so much stuff that my children refuse to even try, that I'm in loss what to cook.

It's very tiring, as it's seems we eat all the time the same stuff.

I used to like to cook but now dreading the whole thing.

It's especially bad when we are at relatives, they have no understanding of that and it always cause big problems.

Your DC I understand, but why are you trying to feed adults?

Food shouldn’t be a battleground with family. Could your DC be picking up on this?

Your DP and your mother can choose to eat, or equally choose not eat. If you are aware of that they have food preferences and you are cooking a meal, I don’t see why it’s a big deal to accommodate this. Not everyone likes onions for example.

With your DC, it sounds like he has ‘safe’ foods such as pizza. Speak to your GP, and seek a referral to a dietitian. They can suggest strategies and approaches to encourage him to eat a wider range of things.

In the mean time, if your son eats pizza and plain foods, let him eat that. Don’t make it a fight.

Let them plate up their own food. And those who are old enough to cook for themselves can do so.

I make one meal. It can be eaten or left. If left, there is toast or fruit but that’s it.

i absolutely have sympathy with those who struggle but I have neither time, energy or money for anything other than this.

I didn’t mention the business I have in addition to the FT job. 😂. If she has an evening activity DD will have school dinners to ensure she has had a hot meal. The snack would be nutritious (protein and veg and usually some fruit) and then the porridge just a top up. None of us eat breakfast so it’s just like other people having porridge in the morning.

Presumably if you’re in bed early you're also up early. So everything just shifts forward. Same number of hours in the day.

I was trying to demonstrate that people could accommodate different needs without martyring themselves. Not wanting to us a different matter. 🙃

I feel so seen! DH is very fussy - part allergies, part just insisting he doesn’t like things to an extent I find unfathomable. I leave him to get on with it and we can and do often cook separately for ourselves but it does affect our lives together. It’s difficult to go to people’s houses for dinner. If we were going through a hard time and people brought meals round for us, he wouldn’t eat most of it and would still need to buy and cook his own food. We spend more on food than we need to. It’s miserable being unable to try new recipes for both of us (as the list of things he eats is so short) or try a lot of restaurants together which, yes, I can do it with friends, but I wish we could do it as a couple.

I sometimes daydream about what life would be like with a good cook with a varied diet.

Ugh I sympathise. I make at least 2 different teas every night and have grown to hate food, cooking, meal planning and shopping.

I’m veggie, DP has to have meat or it’s not a meal, DD1 won’t eat any veg and DD2 is underweight and wouldn’t eat if she was left to her own devices. I do all the shopping (no ordering online here, we’re too rural) and all the meal planning and they sit there and if it’s not exactly right they sit there and pick at it with Daily Mail sad faces.

No advice but just thinking about this had annoyed me and tea time is hours away!

It is very stressful when you are constantly worrying about food intake for other people and I found in this situation (elderly grandparent) I was starving all the time and ate more myself - makes no sense, some sort of psychological compensation I guess.

Could you let go of it completely and provide food on a lunch box principle? Eg there is always a safe protein item - cheese or cold chicken or hard boiled eggs/ tortilla or pate - and plain brown bread or cooked rice or baked potatoes or whatever it is that they eat - and tomatoes or lettuce, fruit. Maybe a pot of vegetable soup. Everyone takes what they want. The same every day if they want. You don’t think about it anymore.

Mercifully I have only one picky eater in my immediate family, my youngest brother, everyone else is a dustbin and will eat anything. Whenever I'm cooking for the family, he gets karaage and noodles because that's quick and easy to do alongside everything else!

When I'm cooking for friends I always send a menu in advance with ingredients and tell them to let me know if they need any subs. I've got a few veggies, couple of vegans, and some with some minor intolerances or aversions that need catering to - I actually enjoy it, I consider it a challenge to adapt my meals to different tastes and diets. I absolutely adore cooking though and consider it a hobby, I can see how it'd be a bore if you just want to crack on with it.

I’d stop putting food on people’s plates. Serve up in dishes/self serve from the pan. Keep it simple for your sanity. So format heres the meal: spaghetti/pesto/veg 1/ veg2/ protein. All
separated. Heres the alternative: bread butter.

Separate bowls of pasta or rice or mash, then whatever protein then a couple of veg. Serve yourself and add seasoning as desired. Or make your own. Can’t stand fussy eaters.

I hear you.

I never thought I'd be the mother who screeched at a child at the table to stop their fucking whining and eat the fucking food on their fucking plate, that I had spent the last fucking hour and a half preparing for them.

But I did.

The meal went silently and the food was eaten.

And the next day I told them I wasn't going to put up with complaints that day either. The food was tasty, nutritious, and I expected them to eat it even though there were green specks in it and small pieces of identifiable tomato bits, and the little white bits were garlic, not poison.

I do wonder if people in deep poverty or living in refugee camps or famine areas have all this fussiness and intolerances or is it actually created by our being over fed and over nourished?

No, they do not. I grew up in a country with a Least Developed classification, the poverty levels are heart-breaking. The children eat anything (those that survive past their first birthday). People have to be hardy many ways.

So narrow minded. I have asd I can only eat certain things and with my own cuttlery. It's not fussiness. I hate it. I generally bring my own food and my friends accept that.

Easily treatable with gradual exposure treatment. Same as other phobias.

Your mum and your husband are adults and should be able to work it out for themselves without adding to your burdens.
Your kids? Frankly? i would feed them what they will eat and give them vitamins.

Who is weighing and balancing and working out your food? your DH? your mum?

I have a DD with allergies and I also take the view that people (including children) are allowed to have preferences. I was made to eat food I didn't like as a child and I hated it. I eat pretty much everything now but only since being an adult where I could try things on my own terms.

It's not that hard to find meals that accommodate everyone, or that can have adapted bits, rather than making lots of different meals. I enjoy cooking though and people with food restrictions make me a more adventurous cook. If you don't like cooking then I guess it's more tedious!

In your situation, I wouldn't be making food for anyone unless the children are really young. Why on earth are YOU doing it all?

I do wonder if people in deep poverty or living in refugee camps or famine areas have all this fussiness and intolerances or is it actually created by our being over fed and over nourished?

People in developing countries don't have as many allergies as they do in the west. We create them when we mess up our childrens gut by giving them antibiotics and other interventions like caesarean birth. I imagine the same is true for intolerances. Just because they're a first world problem doesn't mean they aren't real. They shouldn't be lumped in with fussy eating.

My husband is a fussy eater. He doesn't like -

cheese
pasta
minced beef
fish
shellfish
offal (neither do I)
most vegetables
anything "foreign" (he says), so French, Polish, Japanese, Mexican, etc.
any dish with fruit in
any citrus fruits - lemon, lime, etc.
anything wholemeal

He loves crap - bacon, sausages, chips, pies, etc (Not McDonald's though). We eat totally opposite things

I eat anything and living alone I'm ridiculously grateful if someone even makes me toast, but I was taught to eat food was polite even if you didn't like it

I get there are reasons people can't but sometimes it seems to be "I don't like it" equals "it's not my favourite"
I don't love carrots, peppers, most veg but I eat them for health whereas my dad is just "I would rather have only meat and potatoes"
Yeah I would rather have pizza and cake but....