To have zero patience with fussy/picky/faddy eaters?

[JudgeyHotPants]

I'm not talking about people with genuine medical conditions that prevent them eating certain foods such as celiacs, but those with a list as long as their arm of various foods that they "don't like" and who try and dictate where you should eat when you go out with them in a group, won't budge and insist on everyone else making allowances to suit their fussiness and then sulk when you don't. Pushing their food around their places passive aggressively with faces like slapped arses.

You might wonder why it bothers me so much but I have several family members like is and eating out with them is a nightmare. We're talking the kind of people who will only eat plain meat and two veg type of stuff and won't touch anything "fancy" or spicey or seasoned with herbs or god forbid anything "foreign". So when you go anywhere with them your restricted to cheap and chearful pub chains or fast food places. When they go abroad they even seak out those hideous places that do full English breakfasts and egg and chips! I find it rude and childish.

I have zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour and am often made out go be the bad guy when I push to go somewhere decent for a meal. But they way I see it your not ill, you don't have an intolerance, your just being a twat. Just shut up and eat it!

AIBU?

i agree nicky, i dont like coffee, i've tried it often enough and i just hate it.. i've been bothered more as being 'fussy' and 'weird' for not drinking coffee than any other of my food aversions.

i think people on this thread are not understanding the sensory experience of food though.

they're thinking just about taste, but its not.. food is a sensory experience, the smell, the texture, the taste, how it feels in your mouth, on your teeth, your tongue....etc.

if your brain doesn't process sensory input appropriately, then eating is going to be a very different experience to someone without SPD!

YANBU!

I remember at university there was this whiney American girl who used to go on about all her food allergies, it would dictate where we could go for dinner out.

She would spend AGES ordering her food in a restaurant, asking for so many adjustments she may as well have just asked for a completely different dish.

Your post has just reminded me of her, more than 10 years later!

I think it depends

I don't eat meat/ shellfish for religious reasons, so when eating out I can only eat fish/ vegetarian.
I also have IBS and spicy and fatty foods make me feel very unwell.

When I go out I do always ask to check there is a vegetarian/ fish option that is not spicy or fatty before choosing a restaurant. I think that it is reasonable to do this on religious or medical grounds.

However apart from this there are certain foods I am simply not a fan of. E.g. Risotto, sushi (ok so apparently I'm not a huge fan of rice!). If risotto were the only thing on the menu that I could eat (frequently it is) then I would eat it without complaint.

According to MIL I am a fussy eater - because I do not like butter as a foodstuff... butter on veg - yes, butter spread thinly on toast - yes, butter so thick you leave teeth impressions when you bite the bread/scone - no... I scrape it off and so am labelled fussy.

this is the woman who eats meat- if it consists of chicken, beef or pork;
fish - if it is cod or haddock; veg - if it is carrots, peas or cauliflower; and potatoes - all with lots of bread and butter. Salt and white pepper are the only seasoning in her house.

I was also called "fancy" once because I put radishes in a salad. (Iceberg lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber are the ONLY ingredients of hers - not even a dressing)

she has finally stopped telling me that her son, my DH, "won't eat THAT" after 17 years together...

Do you eat x?
No I don't like it.
Have you tried it before?
No.

facepalm

"Do you eat x?
No I don't like it.
Have you tried it before?
No.

Facepalm"

Why would you ask someone if they had tried it?

If you arent aware of any food issues its a really odd thing to ask someone. Normal response is just not to put it on their plate.

And if you are aware they have food issues then why the fuck would you ask that question unless you intended to put them on the spot, humiliate them, create anxiety and pressurise them into eating something just because you decided they should? What sort of cruel bastard would do that?

people who think they're the food police and know better than a grown adult who knows what they like and dislike.

SurlyCue There's a difference between knowing someone has food issues, and knowing they're just difficult.
Case in point, when I met my OH he was a really fussy eater. There was a whole list of things he wouldn't eat. I didn't press it. After a while, it became apparent that some things he's never tried, and some things he'd only had once when he was a child.
Armed with that information, yes I did start asking him if he had ever tried something. Why not?
As it turns out, after the first time I ate at his parents it became super obvious where his food aversions came from. His mum is a terrible cook, so I began cooking the things he "hated" and guess what, now he eats everything (except Salmon, but that's OK!).

Not everyone has "food aversions", it is possible for people to just be fussy or not know any better.

For the people asking about poor countries and inability to eat certain foods, three anecdotes.

1. I lived in India for several years. Even in the big cities, you will see people who are unimaginably poor. You see people who have lathyrism (which is a pretty good indicator that they lived in a famine area), there are kids whose hair has changed colour and texture due to malnutrition, and so on. There are STILL foods that some people, who are/were so poor, will refuse to eat.

2. Spent some time in an extremely poor region in rural India. A neighbour told me about a girl who could not bear the texture of solid food and would only drink milk. She died at about 8 years old from problems related to malnutrition.

3. Not India, but I remember reading the memoirs of someone who grew up in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl period. There, when he was a young child, the only food available to most families, including his, was pinto beans. But the texture and smell of them made him throw up.
   He survived because he adopted the radical measure of foraging for wild foods such as roots and so on, as a pretty much full-time occupation. Surely if the roots and so on had not been available, or he had accidentally eaten a poisonous one, then, yes, he would have died because of his 'food issues'.

There's a difference between knowing someone has food issues, and knowing they're just difficult.

So if theyre just being difficult your intention in asking that question is what exactly? To initiate a battle of wills? To 'win'? Surely its up to a grown adult whether they decide to eat something or not?

Your husband is a close family member to you so its kind of fair enough that you would discuss his diet with him but to ask anyone else would be absurd and NOYB.

some of the posts on here about Sensory issues are bordering on being disablist

My thoughts exactly.

I'm sure the OP would describe me as a "fussy eater" and would probably have no patience for me but tbh I don't really care. I know what I like and what I don't like and that's that.

Also why do so many people assume that all fussy eaters have never tried the things they dislike? I always try things and will never say I don't like something unless I've tried in first. However thanks to sensory issues and ASD there just happens to be a lot of things I don't like.

Fwiw there are many things i havent tried but if offered by someone who isnt a very close friend or relative i will say i dont like it. A) to avoid saying i have never tasted it and have the pleasure of seeing their face and listen to them muttering about how can someone get to adulthood without having tasted X and how i dont know what i'm missing and B) because it's far more pleasant for everyone concerned if i 'lie' and say i dont like it than try it out of politeness and end up gagging and vomitting on my plate.

YANBU.

I don't think it's about liking or disliking, everyone should be old enough to know they dislike something but eat it with good manners and thanks anyway when not at home doing the cooking themselves. That includes going to a variety of restaurant types simply to suit others sometimes. Not always but sometimes. Fussy eaters do seem like (worse than) small children to me.

Oh, and YABU.

I end up cooking for people who are vegetarian, or are vegetarian plus no garlic, onion, and no meat (Hindu vegetarian). On top of that, my DH is on dialysis, which restricts his diet to an extent that is unimaginable to most people (no liquids, no salt, no tomato, no potato, no chile, no pepper, no beans, no green leafy veg., the list goes on...). I myself have Type 1 diabetes and try to avoid super fatty or sweet dishes as it plays havoc with insulin dosage. And DS has ASD and won't touch food with certain textures.

And guess what, I still manage to get food on the table that will be eaten, even if not all of the dishes will be eaten by all of the people. And I'm not going to get all shirty if not everyone eats every dish, because it is not all about me...

If you don't like what they will or won't eat, why eat out with them? Can't you do non-food related activities together, or just coffee and cake?
And for family events where you must have food, why not have it at your or their home, buffet style, and have the 'fussy eaters', and everyone else, bring a plate of food? That way they can eat what they want, you can eat what you want. Don't get what the big deal is.

eat it with good manners and thanks

Do you understand that this isnt physically possible for some people?

I do sometimes wonder what happens when a very picky child has a parent who feels like this. Do they starve, do they eat when they're hungry, or does the parent give in?

I mean, it must happen sometimes, mustn't it?

If the child doesn't have autism or any intolerances, you just sit there and say, 'Well, darling, that's all there is' and repeat as necessary. My eldest did not want to move on from baby mush to proper food, and got down cross and hungry a couple of times. Had she thrown up when eating, or given up on eating, obviously I'd have realised that I had more to deal with than a just a toddler trying to get her own way. As it was, we had a couple of days of struggle, and then she decided she could eat finger foods after all. She now eats just about anything. She's almost an adult, and has never had food issues.

Was I a mean cow? Probably.
Did I want to bring up a faddy eater? No: I was too bloody lazy to cook everyone a different meal every evening.
Do I get in a lather over faddy eaters? Only if they make a song and dance about it.

YANBU when it becomes attention-seeking behaviour, and disrupts eating out in a group. Its fine to have a food aversion, fine to mention it maybe once (personally I keep mine private because they sound silly) but to go on and on about it, how bad it makes you feel, how it must never be included in your meal is not so much food aversion (easily dealt with) but attention seeking behaviour. And honestly, its not that interesting. There is a limit to how many times I can politely feign interest in your aversion to red peppers. Or cucumber. Or lemon.

The other type are those with relatively uneducated palates. When someone cooks food for me in their home, I wouldn't dream of saying "Yuk, I can't eat THAT". I have ploughed through apple turnover, even though cooked fruit makes me feel like puking. But I have encountered people who, on seeing what I've bought for dinner (not yet cooked), usually something like steak, or chicken, or salmon with pasta or rice or potatoes, veg and a simple sauce, and which would appeal to most, has turned up their nose at it and insisted on getting a takeaway or a pizza instead.

When I was growing up we were poor, very poor. I ate what I was given. Sometimes I loathed it, or it made me gag - all the cheapest gristly stuff - "potted meat", tripe, trotters, liver etc, but I had to eat it because I was hungry. Thankfully there is so much choice nowadays that I would never have to feed my kids that stuff.

It is strange though, because we also caught and were fed "free" stuff - trout, salmon, crab, lobster, mackerel etc etc etc and I have a lifelong love of seafood..

So instead you'd prefer your guests to sit there and force themselves to eat something that they won't enjoy?
To me, that sounds like some kind of power struggle rather than graciously entertaining a guest in your home.

I've only once, that I know of, cooked a meal for someone who hated it, but ate it anyway. It was only years later that I found out, and only by chance, that he found that particular texture rather like being forced to eat baby vomit (his words).

I'd have felt a lot happier if he'd been upfront about it, either before coming, or even at the time of seeing the food on the table. Let him get takeaway or pizza. The idea of making a guest in my home miserable because of what I've prepared is more unpleasant to me than that same guest refusing to eat what I'm cooking.

Fussy eating is annoying; it does limit the types of restaurants you can visit. But since I am not a fussy eater myself, it's really not a big deal for me to make concessions. It's not like I eat pub grub every day. Note: DH is a good eater like me, and loves a varied pallette, otherwise I'd be having a very different outlook probably.

I've found that the fussiest eaters I know actually feel a bit of anxiety about eating out, to the point where they'll lie about whether they're enjoying their meal. They know they're being the awkward ones, but they genuinely have an aversion (however strange it may seem to me) to lots of food, and are very scared that someone will pay for something that they'll hate. Some successful workarounds I've managed so far have been:

1. Italian. Most of the Western fusspots I've met won't argue with a plain cheese pizza.

2. Tapas. Seriously. Itty bitty dishes. Takes the pressure off the fussy eater if he or she doesn't like something. Fussy ex-boyfriend learned he could tolerate patatas bravas this way.

3. A nicer pub. One that serves dishes like curries, good roast chicken or haggis. You'll get flavor. And they'll still find a burger/sausage/overdone steak and mountain of chips.

CatTheifKeith: I could have written your post!

That's really interesting anzu66. I'd be really interested to find out more about that, I don't suppose it's something that's often considered though except by disablist GF. The question of are people in poor countries "fussy"? is one that's asked with monotonous regularity by those particular types both here on MN and in RL and I would love to have a clear, factual answer rather than resorting to lengthy theories on SPD which lead me to believe they probably are.

YABU. It's annoying but rather than suggesting something totally different, why not seek out a nicer pub or an okay all-you-can-eat buffet place? Often nice pubs do a good range of specials as well as the usual something & chips or roast meals. That's what DH and I do as he loves fish, so we know of some lovely pubs that do delicious specials. DH gets something unusual to eat, DD and I get more traditional pub food. At work dos we often go to the all-you-can-eat buffet places, everyone can find something they like and the company is more important than the food. If they won't go for that, then you have two choices... go along, enjoy a cheap meal and the company, or simply give your apologies.

YANBU regarding the vocalisation of their fussiness. I've eaten plenty of things I don't like out of politeness. The only people that have known are people I eat with regularly.

I'm a bit fussy although happy to try things. I get anxious going abroad and sometimes do resort to a fast food type meal just because I can't do another day stressing about what I might like or not. I prefer buffets in that instance as I can just take a little to try.

However if I'm cooking and by extension inviting guests to my home, I do try to cook things that they will like, rather than what I might want to eat. It's more important my guests are adequately fed and DH and I can eat more spicy meals on any other day.