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?

[Jins]

I love it when people tell me the ingredients.

We were invited to a bbq once. They are usually easy to manage but I let the host know well in advance that I was a coeliac. At the last minute I threw some gluten free ssausages in my bag and it was a good thing I did as everything meat based was a bit dubious in the gluten department, and side dishes were bread or cous cous.

I had sausages and copius amounts of vodka :)

[Sparklingbrook]

Thanks Dont. I really don't fancy things like Crab and lobster where you have to crunch it to bits to get at the bit you want to eat. Bit like an autopsy.

[Lavenderhoney]

I don't mind fussy eaters at all, but I dislike the rudeness of " yuck, how can you eat xxx" when it's a perfectly normal dish. It especially annoys me when my dc are eating and an adult announces cabbage is disgusting "" ooh look at him, eating cabbage!!!!" Fine, but just ignore the cabbage dish and quietly with minimum fuss eat what you do like.

I certainly dont expect my dc to eat everything I try them with, but they are expected to at least try before saying no. And they say " no thank you, sorry, it's not to my taste" when out at other peoples houses and offered something they don't like. . After all, someone might love it and be offended- plus someone has bothered to cook it. I wouldnt eat anything that made me feel ill, but I wouldn't make a fuss. Runny scrambled eggs or undercooked omelette, tough steak are all on my list:)

[shewhowines]

celerry yuck but how can you not like coriander. Food of the gods.

[Sparklingbrook]

My brother doesn't like eggs. He's in his forties, he's a grown up-it doesn't bother me. But my Dad was funny-

DB- I don't like eggs.
DF- What you don't like a nice boiled egg?
DB- No, i don't like eggs.
DF-What, you don't like a nice fried egg? Ooh I love a nice fried egg.
DB-No, I don't like eggs

And on it went until he had covered all eggy things.

[Remotecontrolduck]

YANBU, there's nothing wrong at all with disliking some foods, for example i'm not a fan of cheese sauce or sea foods. I don't regard that as picky, simply something I don't like the flavour of. You don't have to love all foods

What really hacks me off is when people say things like 'I don't like vegetables' eh? Vegetables is a huge umbrella of different tastes and textures, how can you seriously like none of them?! That's fussy to me.

[Bunfags]

YABU. Have you ever stopped to think about what it's like from the other person's point of view? Also, as an adult I think I'm perfectly capable of deciding what I'd like to eat. Just because other people want to eat something, does that mean that I should have to eat it too?

[Jins]

shewhowines

In my case it's because coriander tastes very strongly of soap

[Sparklingbrook]

Sometimes it's a problem for me if a perfectly nice piece of meat has some weird sauce on it, and the vegetables have been coated in something unnecessarily, there is an awful lot of faffing with food done that doesn't add to the meal. I will eat it but think it would be better without.

[DontmindifIdo]

Jins - the obvious question that statement raises is, do you eat soap?

[ElectricMonk]

I get the feeling I may be a fussy eater - could somebody please enlighten me? I'll try pretty much anything, but I will leave anything I don't want (which seems to change depending on my hormones) and there are a few things I physically can't force myself to swallow:

• Fish - some kinds make me very sick, and I don't know which ones they are. I can eat prawns, mussels, tuna, and squid, but I never try any other sorts because the potential pain just isn't worth it.
  
• Boiled potatoes - taste disgusting and make me feel horrible all evening.
  
• Spaghetti - I don't know why, I just loathe this. Love all other kinds of pasta, but the texture of spaghetti makes me want to be sick.
  
• Pork - I used to like it but then I got terrible food poisoning (only time ever, and it made me hallucinate so I screamed at a plumber ), now I can't even eat bacon.
  
• Salad leaves - I always leave them, can't see the point in eating them and can't make myself do it for politeness's sake.
  
• Plum tomatoes - even thinking about them makes me feel squeamish.
  
• Stew - it just makes me think of sick.
  
• Hot and sour soup - I can't even bring myself to try this, it smells like bins and makes me heave.
  
  Also, for about 1.5 weeks out of each month (when I have PMT) I can't eat hot food at all as it tastes too strong and makes me feel really sick.
  
  However, I'll go to any clean restaurant, cook things for others even if I'm not eating them, and will cheerfully have sandwiches on evenings when everybody else is eating something I won't. I'll cheerfully eat Greek, Turkish, Iranian, Japanese, some Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Mexican, Indian etc food, and I like weird types of tea. Am I acceptable, or not?

[CheerfulYank]

Yanbu, I don't think. Tbh I don't like it in children either.

But I'm not one of the "he won't starve" brigade either...some children really would. Phobias, allergies, texture issues...I get all those. My grandmother accused me of fussiness for turning down a sandwich. I have celiac disease ffs.

However, my BIL, whom I will refer to as Twat for the purposes of anonymity, refuses to eat anything and is beyond rude about it. His wife, Doormat, has been bringing chicken fingers and yogurt tubes to family gatherings since her DC started on solids because she assumes they, like Twat, will not eat anything. Now, seven and five years on, of course they won't. (She also scooped them up and held them, trembling, whenever she saw a dog, assuming that like her they were terrified of them. :( Again, it's now true.)

But it could just be an attitude thing as others have said. Every family meal involves her begging the children to eat something. And every family meal involves comments about my DS in front of him and the other DC, and involving perfectly normal food.

"Is he really going to eat that pasta? It has olive oil in it." "Is he really going to eat brown bread?" "Does he really like pineapple?" Um...yes. Twat has actually told my DS not to eat broccoli because "it's gross!" And at DS's birthday party I made sure to have hot dogs because I knew my niece and nephew would eat them. However, my nephew informed me "those are dirty." (They'd been grilled.) "We only eat the kind that you microwave."

However, I have a friend with a really fussy DD and she's extremely laid back about it. When they're out or at a family thing she has her DD look for something she'll eat and doesn't force anything else on her. If there's nothing, she says "oh well, you can have some toast later, you won't starve in an hour or so," and doesn't mention it again. Waaaay less irritating.

[Sparklingbrook]

I think foods that you know made you very ill can be hard to return to TBH.

[Jins]

DontmindifIdo

I'll only eat soap if the alternative is cous cous :)

I think we've all tasted soap haven't we?

[Sparklingbrook]

But what business is it of other people?

If someone is coming for dinner I ask them what they like to eat.

[Nancy66]

I've uninvited somone from a dinner invitation after she emailed me a long list of all the things she won't eat...

[LadyClariceCannockMonty]

It's other people's business if it impacts on them.

As much as I hope people will like what I make for them, I'm not a restaurant cook and I do not cook to request. I know broadly what my friends like and don't like so much, as well as things they can't eat for health/ethical/other genuine reasons, and cook within those parameters, but I want to cook well, cook something nice and enjoy the experience of cooking and eating with my friends, so I cook ultimately things I like cooking and eating.

[erowid]

I don't care if people are fussy eaters, I just ate the squeemish fussy eaters who act like children and say "this food looks like puke, that food reminds me of brains, the thought of touching it is minging!"

Keep your unpleasant descriptions of why you don't like food to yourself please!

[Theicingontop]

I don't eat offal in general, but I have been guilty of pulling very disgusted faces and retching when my brother was eating a bowl of tripe one day. In my defense, it triggered my trypophobia, and he was dangling it in my face with all the revolting holes and divets in it. I just can't understand how someone could eat something that looks so horrifying. I'm itching just thinking about it.

Apart from that, I'm willing to give anything a go. The only time I get annoyed at fussy eaters is if the kids pick up on it and it just carries on and on, and before you know they're grown up picky eaters too. Not fair.

[catlady1]

Hmm I don't know. It doesn't bother me really, unless I'd cooked for someone and they'd told me they'll eat anything and then turn their noses up at what I cooked, but that doesn't happen often at all. It annoys me when people do the noises and pull faces too, but that's more to do with manners and maturity than just that they don't like the food. I think most fussy eaters are quite embarrassed by it and wouldn't want pandering to, although I'm sure there are some who are just attention-seeking.

My DP is pretty fussy, he won't eat any veg whatsoever except mushy peas, so if I want to cook something like spaghetti bolognese for example, I have to cook it without the veg, dish up his portion, then add the veg into mine afterwards. If we go out to eat and something comes with veg, he'll ask for mushy peas or beans instead, but it's not normally a problem.

I'm quite fussy too, but tbh it was more of a problem when I was a kid. I don't like most sauces, or baked beans or spaghetti, and I found that when I was little, if I ate at a friend's house their parents would often assume that all kids like beans or ketchup on their chips or whatever, so they'd put it on without asking and I'd have to leave it. It's much easier to opt out of it as an adult, I just don't put it on, and ask for burgers/kebabs/sandwiches plain if I'm having something like that. Friends have commented on it jokingly but it's never stopped me going to certain restaurants or anything like that. I also don't like a lot of salad-y vegetables, I've tried them repeatedly since I've been an adult but I really don't like raw tomato, cucumber, carrot or celery, so if I have a salad I'll just have a caesar salad or something that's just or mainly lettuce. I would never do the yucking or sneering thing if other people were eating something I didn't like although I do make DP rinse his plate straight away if he has beans or ketchup.

[Phineyj]

I don't care much what other people eat, unless they're people I'm fond of and their diet is affecting them (as previous posters said about people who are constipated because of no veg) -- but food is part of culture and associated with emotion, and so it's not surprising that a rejection of food you've made for someone/the whole food of a culture could feel insulting.

My grandma wouldn't eat anything 'foreign' and considered garlic a form of pollutant but used to always phrase it personally as in in 'garlic doesn't LIKE me'...!

[NopeStillNothing]

Yabu. I really don't see why it bothers you.
I eat everything myself but I know a fair few people that are quite fussy and I really don't care. When I cook for them, I just ask them what they want to eat and when we go to a restaurant, it's their own problem if they need to order a special burger with nothing in it.

And when they turn their nose up and ewww my fish liver and potato skins I just close my eyes in ecstacy and rub it all over my face

[RubberBullets]

I'm a fussy eater and hate it. I force myself to try new things but I just never seem to like anything that I try. If I try and force something I don't like down then I end up retching. Eating out is a pain and if I am going to somewhere there is food but I don't know the menu in advance, I'll eat before I go to make sure that I have something.

I'm trying to make sure that DD doesn't grow up with my fussiness. She loves pear so the other day when I was giving her some I tried a slice. It was horrible and I had to try so hard not to retch.

I really don't want to be like this, I would love to be able to just walk in a random eaterie and order anything off the menu. My body seems to think the exact opposite though. It's embarrassing :(

[JazzDalek]

It's a texture thing for me. The things I don't eat, I can't eat because just the thought of having them in my mouth makes me want to throw up. I don't know why this is, but it is not childishness, or attention-seeking, it's just a fact of my life.

I was a picky child who ate dry cornflakes for breakfast every day for about eight years , refused all fruit except for apples and took tiny portions of very plain, conservative meat-potato-veg meals. When I left home for university I did begin to try lots of new foods, including my first pizza, my first Chinese, eggs, grapes and butter.

I will eat most things now and in fact I often find I am keen on things that are widely hated, like olives; but there are, as I've said, certain things that are and will always be no-nos:

Bananas, in any form
Tomatoes, whole or sliced, raw or cooked BUT I am fine with passata and use it all the time in cooking. It's not the taste that's the problem.
Any fruit with squishy or seedy bit. So, most fruit, really. I will eat apples and grapes if necessary, though I never 'fancy' them.
Dried fruit. I tried so hard to make myself eat prunes after I had the DCs but the feel of them between my teeth and on my tongue made me gag.
Fruit in savoury dishes (yes this technically comes under the umbrella of 'fruit', but I consider this such a culinary abomination that it gets its own entry) - just NO
Courgettes. They have a slimy / squishy thing going on that I can't take.

For all of the above, it is not just a mild aversion. Imagine someone offering you a plate of slugs to eat. That is how I feel at the thought of eating the foods above.

[harbinger]

When the DDs were about 8/9 years old we were in a French restaurant (in France).
When my meal arrived, a certain madam, declared it 'Disgusting', in a rather loud voice.
This young lady didn't take my telling off on-board and repeated the pronouncement a few weeks later.

To my knowledge she has never done it in public again.

The meal was a seafood platter.

She loves seafood.

If pre-teens can learn manners,surely adults can?