To get a bit impatient with really fussy eaters (adults)

[atthewelles]

I'm not talking about people with medical conditions which preclude certain foods from their diet or people who have anxiety issues re certain types of food/ different foods touching each other on the plate etc

But adults who just turn their noses up at anything other than plain meat and potatoes and act as if vegetables, pasta, fish, anything containing spices or garlic or cooked in a sauces is on a par with serving up roasted worms are a bit irritating - difficult to cook for and impossible to please when trying to meet up in a restaurant.

AIBU to think grown ups should at least try a few different foodstuffs and be a little bit open minded about what they're prepared to eat?

Seafood and offal, fine noble but do you eat vegetables, pasta, rice, eggs, sauces, gravy, garlic etc or do they all make you react as if you've been asked to drink out of a bed pan?

I think I'm going to invite every fussy eater I know to a Miracle Fruit Party

No, not all of it is a disgust thing, some food I simply don't like the taste of, (but could force down to be polite). A lot of foods on that list are fine to me, by the way.

The whole 'try it twenty times and you'll like it' thing is pants too. I've tried wine loads and loads of times because it is so socially inconvenient not to like it, and yet I still don't like it.
Interestingly, wine is on the supertaster list of things they taste differently.

erowid it really works! We did an experiment where I used to work and a whole team could each suck a lemon after having some of the fruit! Bloody expensive stuff if you can't get it on expenses

My mother is an ambitious but very poor cook

Anna1976 Sorry, but that really made me laugh.

It must have been hell growing up with her.

I catered for a huge number of kids and adults to scout camp last year. Asked in advance if there were any food allergy/intolerance issues. Also asked if there were strong dislikes and insurmountable issues (eg, my son, who loves hotdogs but they sadly do not like him)

So armed with a short list of issues and a couple of allergies from some of the mums I carefully planned both vegetarian and standard fare, ensuring that those that eg did not eat mince would have something vegetarian on a particular night and that there was always a choice of 2 very different dishes to cater for all palates.

By the end of the week, I was a frazzled wreck. The adult who could eat some peppers but not too many (EH? How many is too many?) but stuffed his face with paella (main flavouring: Paprika) and then complained that I had put too many peppers in it...

The kids that had nothing on their forms but refused to eat option 1 or 2, and then turned their noses up at option 3 which I hastily prepared (camp pizza).

Kids who would only eat potato as chips (which is obviously easy to make on a camp burner), who wouldnt east rice, noodles, pasta, or anything but white processed bread.

Kids who would not eat mince unless it was made into meatballs.

Kids who had been sent with £30 pocket money for the week and were gorging on icecream, sweets and pop (and then not wanting dinner).

When we got back, I took one mum to one side and asked her next time to tell us that her child would not eat X, Y and Z because he had been particularly difficult to cater for as he had declined all carbohydrates but bread, ate no fruit or veg, and turned his nose up at most protein options other than sausages. This is one of the £30 pocket money gang.

She later sent me a four page essay on what her child did eat - much of which we had served him but he had refused. It was full of "Well he likes Zizzi's pizza, he loves homemade pie, quiches, roast dinners, ...blah blah blah" - with absolutely no concept of what is even possible to cook over an open fire or on a two ring burner!

Now my other half wants to know if I will do its again this year.....erm.....let me think about that!

I have a relative who has made up allergies to sugar wheat and dairy. She just decided one day that she was allergic to these things and that they give her terrible migraines.

I know that they are 'made up' because there are lots of times when I know she has eaten things which 'inadvertantly' contain these terrible allergens (i.e. when she really wants to eat something and so miraculously decides not to make a huge fuss), and yet has been fine. when she decides she wants to eat chocolate let's say, she suddenly discovers that if she eats a 'tiny bit' of 'organic' chocolate she is ok, isn't that brilliant? Despite the fact that cheap/organic sugar is still sugar, and recognised by the body as such. She also drinks huge quantities of made from concentrate fruit juice, which again are full of sugar, and yet these don't ever have any effect.

The thing is, whenever we go out for the day or shopping or whatever, instead of making herself beforehand a snack/salad she can eat and taking it with her, she never does, and always insists on eating when we are out, so however many of us there are we all have to trail from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant until she can find something she can eat, it is maddening.

The most annoying thing however, is how she polices her grown children (2 out of the 4 have the most awful body image despite being gorgeous). If we are in a shop and her 23yr old son picks up a fruit juice drink, she will look over his shoulder and then say, get this one, it's got less ...blah... in it and is much lower in calories. Or, oh you're not going to eat that are you, it's just pure carbs and what will your body turn them into, yes that's right, sugar, pure poison!

Oh, and whenever she offers you a mint or a toffee, she will always say 'would anyone like a sugar free...mint/toffee' even if it's just me and/or her daugher/son in the room. In-bloody-furiating!!!

Being a supertaster is the taste equivalent of excellent hearing or excellent eyesight

Yeah, right. So these super tasters with so-called excellent taste buds can eat sausages and fries and other processed nonsense without tasting the chemicals and additives.

But fresh vegetables and fruit are 'bitter'? And spicy foods are non-no? I guess there are no 'super tasters' in India and SriLanka and Thailand then?

Super tasters my arse, super fussers, more likely.

A super taster will be someone who shuns any processed food and eats and enjoys the variety of textures and flavours in cooking across cuisines

Can I just add to this? I'm sorry, but this drives me absolutely up the fucking sodding wall and I genuinely want to headbutt people who do this.

But reading this thread steak should be eaten how it arrives Magrat. To ask the kitchen to cook it in a particular way is surely fussy and a huge PITA for the kitchen staff?

Sounds like your DP should ring ahead though.

He does this EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME. He is utterly maddening. I'm fucking furious at him because, by now, you would think he had gotten used to waiting a bit longer. But no, he wants his steak to arrive as he likes it but in the same time it takes to cook my (rare and lovely) steak to arrive. Fucking twat.

Dh's SIL thinks we're fussy because we hate Balsamic vinegar especially on salad. And because we don't like bolognaise sauce with me having one half of the undissolved oxo cube and him getting the other half then served with hard boiled potatoes which have no taste but rawness.

The only thing I am fussy about is how well cooked my meat is. It had to be charcoaled at one point but it can't be pink.

PMSL at Magrat hehehe :)

I do think it is perceived as fussy if you don't like what somebody else does. Doesn't mean you are though. Might mean they have strange tastes.

My Chinese friend is married to an English guy who will only eat Beef and Mushrooms with rice and that isn't even an authentic Chinese dish.

So this Chinese NY that just past her family was eating duck, lobster and sea bass while he was eating his usual.

Hi OP,

The person you describe is me! Very fussy eater mainly by choice I suppose. No official allergies. Very restricted diet, plain meat, plain pasta etc. Don't really do 'sauces'. Don't eat diary, milk cheese, eggs etc.

It's a choice based on how I enjoy my food. To me food simply tastes better this way. I dont expect people to agree and eat like me. Yes of course most fussy eaters will have tried to introduce new foods to their diet and have tried many foods at certain times. I have.

However eating out is never a problem. I think you are being a little miserable to be honest. Whet restaurant doesn't serve a steak or plain chicken breast etc. I eat everywhere and my friends are never restricted on restaurants. It really isn't difficult to cook for a fussy eater and I never turn my nose up at anything. You make fussy eaters sound like very rude people! It's just preference that's all, don't take it so personally!

In my family we are all non-tasters, i.e. can't taste ptc at all. Doesn't stop my brother being an extremely fussy eater and it doesn't mean that I can't tell when someone has stirred my coffee after putting sugar in someone elses.

I'm not talking about people with medical conditions which preclude certain foods from their diet or people who have anxiety issues re certain types of food/ different foods touching each other on the plate etc

How do you know that someone who appears to be a fussy eater doesn't have a medical condition?

I, like a lot of people with Aspergers, have sensory issues over certain foods and literally cannot swallow them as they make me gag. Doesn't stop me getting perceived as fussy though.