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 😡😡

Just add them after? Or cook in stages that’s what I do and it seems to work.

They all sound deeply irritating. Especially your partner.

I couldn't eat my DD's diet as a small child either! Another way around this is to batch cook something you do like - like chilli or something with a bit more kick and freeze individual portions. Defrost one in the morning, pop in microwave (if you have one) and make the bland meal but with shared sides so it's not too much work for you.
I do this a lot but with leftovers. So at any given time I will have half a dozen or more additional meal options in the freezer. Last night DD and I had pasta. She had hers just with parmesan and I had some bolognese sauce from the freezer.

I’d be tempted to say “eat it or don’t eat it, I don’t care. But this is all there is.”

Oh yes. DH is a vegetarian who only eats salad (he sorts himself out). DS1 has sensory issues around food (Autism and currently under a paediatric dietician) and DS2 thankfully eats everything.

I am so so tired. Yesterday I just shoved frozen scampi in the oven; frozen wedges in the oven and put that in front of the Dcs with a side of sweetcorn which is about the only vegetable DS will eat. (I know it's not a veg technically but its the best I can do).

Yes @Starryskiesinthesky adding things in stages is the best way I’ve found so far. It means more washing up but at least everyone gets something they’ll eat.

I was talking about this to DP yesterday and he said ‘at least I’m not a fussy eater, I eat everything you cook’ Yes because I only cook things he’ll eat 🤦‍♀️

Sweetcorn is a veg! That's my hill!

I'm with you on that.

That works both ways though. I wonder how much moaning people are doing when there isn’t a menu available at every mealtime to turn your nose up at

With your partner and mother I’d put the ball back in their court. They’re adults. “Ok well you’ll need to make your own dinner as I am unsure how to make something that fits all your requirements”. I simply wouldn’t pussy foot around adults like that and if my partner was constantly not eating dinner I made for them I’d get pretty frustrated .

How old are your children? My daughter is a fussy eater and it is a nightmare. I can’t imagine working around several fussy eaters (I do hate that phrase). I found the everyone else’s diet was getting restricted where I was trying to fit around her tastes. So now I make whatever meals I want and just make sure that there is at least 2 things on the plate she is comfortable with and/or she has fruit and toast after dinner. I’ve found by doing this she has randomly tried a few things she initially refused to eat for years- for example she now loves Salmon (just when it got very expensive) after avoiding even tasting it for years. I tend to just put tiny amounts of the things I know she probably wont try on her plate, so it is there as an option but isn’t overwhelming her plate.

My partner is only marginally better. if I put too much on his plate he can’t eat a thing.

Have you tried plates on table but then dishes people can help themselves from?

Downside you do have to have a plan for the leftovers - though sometimes having a teen boy sorts that out for me.

I do know what you mean though - there more and more fussiness so if I do chops I have to do some meat as well - can't do stir fry's at all as two won't touch them whatever is put in - it gets more and more restrictive in what I can cook and requires more and more headspace.

I think once they leave home - not that far off - I'd be temped to do food services like Hello fresh - just to escape the boxes I've had put in and mental load and regain my enthusiasm for cooking.

If they’re adults with these conditions around what they will and won’t eat then they can cook for themselves. Why do women martyr themselves about this stuff? It baffles me.

Stop cooking for your husband - he is old enough to make his own dinner if he won’t eat what you’ve cooked. Honestly he sounds horrendous.

children wise - how old are they? If old enough, they can cook their own food, if not try introducing a safe food with each meal but otherwise cook whatever you want. They need to learn to eat properly or they’ll end up like your husband.

Oh and your mum can bring her own food too!

Just make food for yourself and your children. It doesn't solve the issue with your children but, it at least cuts down some of problem.

Unless it's an allergy I don't pander to these sorts of demands. Apart from being vegetarian, you get what I decide to cook, everyone gets the same (veggie dd gets the veggie equivalent). Adults that are allowed to be fussy so my head in

And it is about expectations, children fair enough but you stamp it out. Dd is autistic and it took 10 years to get her eating a good ish diet, but never did she get a separate meal, we persevered

@cocksstrideintheevening

You can eat other things, you choose not to, exposure therapy etc could reduce or eliminate your food issues. Took me 10 years with dd

If they’re adults with these conditions around what they will and won’t eat then they can cook for themselves. Why do women martyr themselves about this stuff? It baffles me.
Agreed.
I'm not making several different meals because people are being fussy

I'm obviously happy to cater to allergies, medical/SEN, religious dietary requirements and preferences (eg I'll not cook fish when I invite a friend round for dinner because I know they don't like fish), but I have limited patience for adults with a long list of items they don't like or would rather not eat.

I have a relative who insists he isn't fussy and eats everything, but I don't think he's ever been invited for a meal that hasn't involved his partner saying "What're your plans for dinner on Friday... oh Mike doesn't like that, and he doesn't like that, and he doesn't like that". We aren't talking about fancy or unusual ingredients either. He's just very picky and difficult to cater for.

I've been trying with cheese for thirty-odd years.

I'm fine with fresh cheeses like cream cheese and mozzarella, and like yoghurt, it's just the cheesy off smell/taste I can't handle.

In the past I worked my way up to Dairylea. As long as it was spread very thinly, on a cream cracker. Or on a good day, a little cheddar in among the mozzarella on a pizza. And to be honest, even those were a kind of masochistic pleasure/disgust sorta thing. (I don't eat either any more due to coeliac disease.)

Anything stronger and I'll not be able to avoid throwing up. I once felt sick while eating some plain houmous and couldn't face eating any more, then had a hunch and looked at the ingredients — right at the bottom of the ingredients list, parmesan (why??!). I can't even put something like cheddar into my mouth — as the cheese moves towards my lips, my head moves involuntarily back, just as yours might if it was a cat turd.

Cheese doesn't register for me as food, it registers as something dangerously pathogenic, like the contents of someone else's abscess.

I guess the therapy must work, or maybe it works better for less severe aversions (I've taught myself to eat plenty of things I don't particularly like for the sake of politeness and because as a coeliac my choices are limited), but if everyone else happily ate safe sterilised abscess contents and cat turds and put them on bloody everything, could you exposure-therapy your way into comfortably eating them? And if you could, would you think it was worth it?

Oops, meant "and I like yoghurt".

Now put yourself in the position of someone who has to cook for that person.

My daughter is incredibly fussy with food.
She gets the same as us on her plate and told to eat what she can and try everything.
Absolutely no way (except for medical reasons) am I cooking separate meals for us all after being in work all day.

Allergies aside I would take the view that they will eat when they’re hungry. Try feeding them once every couple of days (only half joking). I bet they’d eat what you gave them then.
All this fussiness over food is too much, especially when half the world ( and many in this country) don’t have enough to eat.

Unfortunately, not true for some.