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?

[noblegiraffe]

But if a picky eater was a supertaster (and many will be) would that be an acceptable reason to you, OP or will you continue to look down on them?

Then you have food neophobia a naturally occurring reaction in humans that protect individuals from the risk of being poisoned by consuming potentially harmful foods. It accounts for a person?s reluctance to consume either new or unusual foods, based on one?s culture and current diet.
Is that ok?

[usualsuspect]

I have to hide my disgust at celery and coriander TBH.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Some people really don't like those two - celery and coriander. They're meant to be tasting something the rest of us genuinely can't taste. It's fascinating.

[musicmaiden]

The above examples have absolutely nothing to do with food and everything to do with people who are rude and have no manners.

[Jins]

Most fussy eaters don't actually want to be catered for. Dinner parties fill them with dread in my experience.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

That's true enough, music.

[GrendelsMum]

I agree with Starlight Raven - it's not a great deal of fun being someone who doesn't eat a wide variety of food. A family member has this problem - I think it's some kind of sensory issues related to food texture - and it does make meals quite stressful for everyone, but it's clearly far worse for her than for us.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

jins - ahh, but you are forgetting those people who aren't fussy eaters. No, not at all! They just have long lists of perfectly reasonable likes and dislikes, as well as long supplementary lists that they'll only tell you about at the last minute.

[Jins]

Agreed usual. Celery and coriander quite ruin the flavour of a meal. Like squirting washing up liquid all over it I think :(

[Jins]

I am aren't I LRD?

Eat anything except what you've just made :)

[atthewelles]

Noble I find it strange that the fussy eaters I know are quite happy to eat food that they've been eating since they were children and their super tastebuds only kick in when it comes to trying anything new, particularly food from other cultures

I think you will find, if you do your googling properly that "food neophobia is particularly common in toddlers and young children. However, as they grow up through adolescence and teenage years, most children generally grow out of it. Very few children continue to have food neophobia as they become adults."

[thezebrawearspurple]

It's their choice what to eat, I don't bother pandering to it unless there is a health reason, genuine ethical beliefs or they need to maintain a strict diet to lose weight. Their life, their choices, doesn't bother me. I would be pissed off if someone started making faces at the food though, that is beyond rude and I'd tell them to grow up and have some respect.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I am remembering the particularly annoying friend-of-a-friend I've never cooked for again. I ended up making a roast chicken for the meat eaters and some kind of veggie thing for the vegetarians, I forget what. I ran these past everyone. Turned out that making gravy for the chicken thickened up with cornflower was just disgusting, but she wouldn't eat chicken without gravy either because it would be dry (it bloody wasn't!). I ended up sending my then-DP out to get packet gravy, which she accepted with a nobly-suppressed sigh because she preferred the posh stuff you get in Waitrose in the little tubs.

I am 100% sure that sort of fussiness is bugger all to do with the actual food, and just to do with being rude. Because surely, if you cared that much, you'd just say 'oh, and I can't have chicken gravy with cornflower, would you mind if I brought you a tub of it to heat up'?

[Ploom]

My closest friend is like this & going out to a restaurant is a nightmare. Out of a large range of things in the menu she'll decide that there might be one thing she can eat (no fish, nothing spicy, certain veg are unacceptable as is anything that she's not had before) & then when it comes she picks ramdom bits out of it. I've moved abroad & despite never having tasted any of the cooked meat that we might have to put on rolls at lunchtime she just says "I dont like any of them - have you got some Cheddar?" eh no! We live abroad!

She is such good fun in so many ways but so narrow minded when it comes to food.

[Roseformeplease]

Laughing at a poster above who had friends checking on the type of butter. We had unexpected guests arrive for a cup of tea. When they had not left 3 hours later I felt forced (they were not friends, but distant acquaintances) to offer them supper - a roast chicken. To which they replied, "Is it organic". I replied, remarkably politely, I felt, "It comes from the supermarket." They ate and drank us out of house and home, got too pissed to drive, ended up there for breakfast, lunch as well. I nearly blew the top of my head with rage when, after a quick walk, with blackberry picking, they then demanded their share of the blackberries to take away.

They turned out to be not fussy at all as long as someone else was providing everything.

Not bitter...oh no.

[SmiteYouWithThunderbolts]

YABU, I think. My mum is one of these fussy eaters and cannot abide anything with too strong a flavour. Well most of my cooking is either spicy or at least very strongly flavoured, so I struggle when she visits. She's also recently turned vegan (that's a whole other thread) but has promised to bring her own food along next time she visits.

Dunno where she's planning to prepare it though because we're all practically carnivores and she has ishoos with using pots and pans that have previously been used to cook meat.

Thankfully I've never had anyone be rude about disliking a meal I've made for them. Oh! Haha, actually I can, although it wasn't rude as such. My friend from uni is a self-confessed fussy eater and very apologetic about it, but she does try to branch out with new food. She insisted she wanted to try sushi and seeing as DH and I make our own quite often, she came round with her boyfriend one evening. Poor love couldn't cope with the nori and sat delicately dismantling the rolls so she could get at the fillings! She did say sorry over and over again, but we were in fits of giggles over it.

[noblegiraffe]

I have done my googling, OP, and I also know that 'very few' isn't the same as 'none'

[Sparklingbrook]

I have been to restaurants where there is absolutely nothing on the menu I want to eat.

There are some foods I just can't eat. Seafood for instance, no allergies I just can't eat it.

Pigs trotters or tripe i would have to refuse too.

[MadameCastafiore]

There is a woman at wort whose partner is like this. She thinks I'm mad when I say I would only cook one dinner and if he didn't like it he would have to cook his own. He eats plain meat, plain veg and boiled, mashed, roast potatoes.

Would drive me bloody crazy!

Mind you DH reckons I'm fussy when there is only 4 foods I won't eat!

[Jins]

I'm a nightmare to cater for. Coeliac with associated lactose issues. Intolerant to fruit fibre (I'll eat it but I'll gas you out of your home!) Diverticular disease so have been told to avoid seeds. That's just what I can't have :)

I'm also a supertaster. I'll eat your lovingly prepared vegatables but most just taste bitter and unpleasant.

However I do love a proper curry :)

[MadameCastafiore]

Crapbag, that's really not what the op is referring to. Your difficulties with food are not just because you are fussy!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

See, if someone said that to me, I'd just think, fine, I'll make you a curry. I'll probably annoy you slightly by telling you all the ingredients, but fine - you're telling me something you can eat that isn't a total pain to make.

It is people who don't bother to do that, who annoy.

[ll31]

yabu, people can eat what they like

[DontmindifIdo]

Sparkling - I also have an issue with seafood, although have chocked it down when I've been foolish enough not to prewarn a host (see earlier post about hating my parent's fussy behaviour, am determined not to be rude with it, mind you seafood is really my only issue, and as it's a common allergy most hosts check before serving it) - however Ive never been to a seafood restaurant that doesn't at least have one vegetarian option...

Mind you, DH has been 'working' on my seafood issues - I now can do calamri (sp?) and scallops, although not currently as pregnant...