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?

Have hosted lots of teenagers/young people from Europe (mostly Italy and Spain) for 4 years now. Most are great eaters, but when they are fussy wow they are fussy. I am careful to serve food that most teenagers like (lasagne, chicken pie, toad in the hole, risotto etc) the majority wolf it down happily challenges included the girl who would only eat her mothers cooking - sorry cant help there! Or the girl that sneered at EVERYTHING I mean everything. She was with us for a month so must have turned down every food I have in my repertoire. Funnily enough both super fussy girls were super fat so were obviously getting sustenance somewhere. The healthy weight girls were the ones that ate normally.

Calamity,

There is nothing to say that heightened taste means you don't like sauces or spicy food or vegetables. It is just an excuse to feel good about being a fussy limited food-eater

Interesting that you mention food testing, because I have met a tea taster. And he certainly could eat spicy food. Indeed, it was his staple, given that he is from Sri Lanka.

It is very difficult to become a taster. You need heightened and refined taste buds. I bet most of the junk-food eating so called 'super-tasters' wouldn't be able to distinguish between an assam and a nilgiri tea, let along first vs. second flush. And someone who thinks that all wine is vinegar is hardly a super-taster either

I have a heightened taste and can tell all the ingredients in something I am eating, even if it is a complex dish. I wouldn't call myself a 'super-taster'. And nor would most chefs or Italian mamas who understand the nuances of flavours and prepare delicately balanced meals. We are just ordinary folks who understand good food and appreciate complexity of flavours and keep our minds open about tastes and educate our palate.

My FIL is maddening he is fussy (wont eat sea food including fish, anything spicy, avocados, anything foreign etc etc) but is really hypocritical - if either of my DDs express a preference they are ticked off and eye rolled by him. Both girls are great eaters way better than him - really gets on my wick!

It does appear Flatbread you're not fully reading my posts.
"I bet most of the junk-food eating so called 'super-tasters' wouldn't be able to distinguish between an assam and a nilgiri tea"

and those people are probably not supertasters they are probably fussy for another reason. I'm trying to distinguish between people who may be perceived as fussy because of their exceptional sense of taste & those who may be fussy for other reasons which I'm not defending as I don't know the reasons behind their 'fussiness'.

And also as I've tried to explain & Senior has added looking links, actually having a heightened sense of taste does exactly mean you prefer food without sauce/spice. Sauces can overwhelm the other flavours in the meal so everything just ends up tasting of sauce & spices are added to bring out the flavour of things which may then create a too strong flavour.

And someone who thinks that all wine is vinegar is hardly a super-taster either

Actually that's close to a definitive diagnosis. There's always some acetic acid in wine. Acetic acid is vinegar. Supertasters can definitely it out. The degree of how much the wine tastes like vinegar will depend on the wine.

I'm a supertaster. I'd starve before eating the junk food you describe

No shit Sherlock

Most cooks use wine in cooking because of the acid and choose the wine based on how it will marry the flavours ( hence beef bourguignon)

I don't buy that anyone on this thread is a super taster (just a fuss- pot) Unless they are actually professionally paid tea or wine tasters or in a similar field

Think what you like. The facts are out there

"Higgledy obviously your friends do pander to you if you think every restaurant serves a steak or plain chicken"

Yes OP my friends pander to me, all the time, of course they do! Unlike you I don't think the world revolves around me. You really sound like a person with a huge chip on your shoulder and you sound incredibly miserable! You make some big judgements about peoples eating habits and i think you need to get down off your high horse and stop assuming you know the reasons why people are fussy eaters. Lighten up woman! You live your life, let others live theirs!!

Gluten and other issues aside I'm still not especially fussy. I do describe myself as a fussy eater to certain people sometimes though. Mainly because their cooking just ain't that great. Certainly not as good as they think it is and definitely not worth the effort of chewing.

Wouldn't dream of telling them though - that would be rude

"I don't buy that anyone on this thread is a super taster (just a fuss- pot) Unless they are actually professionally paid tea or wine tasters or in a similar field."

Or have been tested using the PROP test which is the accepted scientific test for supertasters? chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/3/255.long

Don't waste your breath Calamity :)

Flat earth

I don't eat any fish or seafood because I think it is revolting it makes me hurl. Be as impatient as you like and call me fussy. I also don't like olives or cooked celery but will eat them if I have to and am happy to pick them out if I'm somewhere where I can (won't upset hostess for example). I also am allergic to pineapple, but love it and wish I could eat it.

I guess I am picky because I won't eat fish or pineapple. Shrug. I'll eat pretty much anything else.

YANBU

Ok, Calamity, where do I start...

Perhaps with the rather pointless article with dubious graphs and forced correlations. These are classic scatterplots and show very little linear or any other type of correlation. Or in other words, you can 'see' any correlation you want.

The 'study' was done with people of European descent. Perhaps other cultures who are more used to eating bitter and pungent food would not exhibit similar characteristics? Like I said before, people in many Asian countries eat spicy and saucy food everyday. Do they not have supposed super-tasters?

Third, having accentuated taste for the bitter component of taste does not make you a super-taster. What about having heightened awareness of salt? Or sour (like my dh)?

And just because you notice bitter flavours doesn't mean that you don't enjoy them. There are some dishes that are meant to be bitter. Children might not like them. But adults do, because they have educated their palette to like the taste of bitter.

Honestly, lots of nonsense here. I know some people that have heightened taste buds. But they are not fussy and can eat and enjoy everything.

Jins I'm clearly banging my head against a brick wall. Apparently decades of research can be wrong, my years spent in sensory research were wasted, food and drink companies should save their money and stop testing their products as there is homogeneity of what is liked/disliked and people cannot have differing sensitivities to taste like the other four senses have scales of sensitivity.

Smile and nod calamity, smile and nod

Having sensitivity to something is not the same as disliking that thing.

Of course different people have varying taste buds and food preferences

But unless you are allergic or ethically opposed to something, there is no reason not to eat all kinds of food and cuisines

I don't eat my favourite foods all the time. And I cook and consume food I am not fond of. It is part of behaving like an adult and having a varied diet. And loads of bitter vegetables are actually good for you, which is why I eat them in copious quantities.

And to add, taste-buds develop over time, depending on how much you expose them to.

I have a French friend who started giving her daughter pungent goat's cheese when she was 4 or 5. Naturally, like most children she screwed up her nose at it. But every so often, she would give her her daughter some goat's cheese from her plate in different prepared forms.

Now her child is grown up and likes goat cheese. When I see an English or Scots whining about pungent goat cheese. I don't think 'super-taster' . I think 'uneducated palate and unwilling to make the effort'

It's not just that things taste bitter or more intense. They taste completely different. Coriander tastes of soap for example.

Seeing as you can't experience it I can understand your lack of empathy for supertasters.

It's not clear to me why I should spend time, effort and money tasting goats cheese just so that at some point in the future I will like goats cheese. The payoff just doesn't seem worth it?
Like I said before, that didn't work for me with wine anyway. Years of trying to get to like it and I still don't.

I would bend over backwards to cater towards an allergy or illness that foods impacted I would do my utmost to accommodate a phobia or genuine sensory issue.

And I don't much care what anybody eats unless they expect me to cater towards there childish nonsense

I'm thinking of an ex who would eat nothing that was not covered in either ketchup or chocolate expected me to fund this and sat there being rude to people who wanted to eat normal food even going so far as obviously stage gagging when his own child asked for brown bread instead of white or wanted to eat actual food without any ketchup. Or the other one who would eat the following

Cheeseburgers only from McDonalds
Roast potatoes
Roast beef well done
Steak well done
Chips
Bacon
White bread
Any and all sweets/ choc bar and cake and pudding unless it contained fruit or veg.
Coco pops.

And that was it genuinely all he would eat.
he was highly vocal about his likes and dislikes would think nothing of taking an entire joint of meat intended for 4 people and then 12 large roast potatoes then call it a snack, strangely enough he was only fussy when it came to actual real food but could eat any thing usually considered to be a sweet treat.

When it comes to people like that I just don't ever involve myself with them because it is attention seeking behaviour and it is pathetic.

sockreturningpixie imagine the state of his bowels

I am probably going to get slated here but I particularly loath it when parents assume that their children have the same gluten, dairy, meat etc intolerances as they do. Said kids are often on a very restricted diet...but only as parents are. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I think that many adults have functional eating disorders. I am a bit of a low carb bore but if I go to a friend's house or to a restaraunt I will wolf down the carbs or whatever. I just get anal in my own kitchen.

HorraceTheOtter Regrettably I do ThonHoor! Anything over about 5 cm's long

So you could manage a nice big bowl of whitebait ok then???