Have you ever met an adult who doesn't eat

[lottieandmia]

Any fruit or vegetables at all? I have a friend who says she never eats any fruit or vegetables at all.

I have never heard of this. I think surely it's very bad for your health. And limiting

I was thinking about this thread when I was having dinner. I'm not some massive health conscious person, but without fruit and vegetables, it stuns me that some people who don't have fruit and veg don't realise their meals are missing a major component.

Judgement going on too much. I not meant to eat f n v due to illness. Oooh am i bad too ? If so...ring 10 a day police. I love veg. Miss it.

@andiacc Literally nobody was judging those who couldn't eat it due to illness. No need for the defensiveness.

I wouldn't judge those who didn't eat fruit and veg through health conditions, but I would otherwise.

How do you know when looking at someone's plate and they have no F n V they can't eat it ? Yes I do get defensive. People who don't eat meat, Carbs, wheat, etc are accepted as ' normal'. Absolutely no difference whatsoever. Is there ?

Tonight's evening meal was roasted tomato and goat's cheese tart with salad. I had a bit of puff pastry left over so I made some pear tarts. It was delicious.

Sooperdooper: my Bamix stick blender is a wonderful thing!

I have a Bamix. It's brilliant, but showing its age now (13 years)

For those individuals who don't eat f and v because they dislike it, do you not think about trying to train yourself to accept one or two? For all the 'I've eaten nowt but meat n carbs for 30 years and it's never done me no harm', they ARE an essential food group & one never really knows what the long term consequences are of permanently eliminating one foodstuff from your diet.

I initially disliked marmite when I first tried it, but as a vegetarian I knew that it was an important source of vit B for me, so I made myself like it. food preferences are just that, preferences; therefore one could choose to change their preferences.

(This question is clearly aimed at those who choose to not eat f and v, not those for whom it is a medical requirement.)

Friend's DH won't eat any veg (except pureed eg in a spag bol, but if there are any lumps of tomato/ onion etc he won't eat it) If a restaurant puts even a salad garnish on the side of his plate he will send it back and say 'I asked for no vegetables' . My kids are fussy and it drives me nuts but a grown man refusing veg I just couldn't cope with!

chickenwire17 thank you so much - now I realise my problem, it just never occurred to me to try them 🙄

What is it with people who have no ability to understand something that's even slightly outside of their own experience? Patronising nonsense.

That's weird 8Days. My MIL also thinks that DH weird eating harks back to the time he spent in hospital as a child (it was quite a long time). There are apparently studies about selective eating disorder and hospital stays as a child. Not sure how true that is.

Disliking marmite is different to gagging/throwing up when you eat something though.

My friend said the same thing as you Tammy, wrt how people will repeatedly ask if she's tried something.

I know it sounds massively patronising to say to an adult 'Have you just tried it?' but I don't think that's what chickenwire17 meant. Long post follows, sorry, just trying to get my thoughts on this into some sort of order!

When my son was a baby he would eat anything, but something went wrong when he was a toddler and he started refusing things he'd enjoyed before. I know my son and I know he wasn't doing it just for attention. He genuinely struggled with the taste, texture, goodness knows what else. I think it may be connected with a long series of chest and ear infections he had when he was tiny which may perhaps have made swallowing difficult at some point. (My daughter, who is the one with ASD, has no such issues! Odd.)

He remained very fussy for years and years (although fortunately he did eat a reasonable range of fruit and veg). I didn't push it with him. I routinely gave him a small portion of what we were eating to try, but if he did that and genuinely didn't like it he could have something else. I never wanted to make food into a big issue as I thought that would do more harm than good in the long term. I hope I did the right thing, and given that he now comes out with remarks like 'Calamari is one of my favourite things' which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, I'm happy with how things turned out!

However, in the years since I've seen suggestions from professional people who've done research in this area that people (children mostly, but I'd have thought it would apply to adults too) can learn to tolerate and even enjoy foods if they just keep trying them over and over again. It can take 20 attempts, apparently. I imagine it works in the same way as trying to overcome phobias. You start by getting over the idea that even touching, smelling or being near them is harmful, and gradually get to the point where they are just everyday objects that don't cause any stress at all.

I wonder if I'd taken that approach with my son in a really supportive, non-pushy way if he might have overcome some of his fears. I rather doubt it, though. I suspect there's a very strong psychological element in all of this and having his mother, principal caregiver and cook, working with him on a problem that was already emotionally loaded would not have worked.

So the point I'm groping towards in this very long ramble is that I think some people with deep-seated psychological issues about fruit and veg (rather than diagnosed allergies/food intolerances) could indeed benefit from some kind of therapy, and that would involve trying difficult foods, but not just somebody waving an apple slice at you and saying accusingly 'How can you not like apples! Just bite into this, go on, it won't hurt you!' It would need to be somebody sympathetic and preferably not related to you, so it was all a lot less emotionally loaded.

I saw somthing that said being to fussy over mess can lead to children having food phobias. You apparently need to let babies a/children get messy and play with their food.
If you get to obsessed with kids making a mess they can be phobic of sauses and runny food or bright coloured food.

Apparently ready made baby food are also full of fruit so they get a really sweet tooth from early on and then can't pallet greens and vegetables.

Don't know if either are true just stuff I've read.

My OH will NOT try new foods. He's very very texture-phobic and his usual reaction to anything new is 'I don't like it.' 'Have you tried it?' 'No, but I know I don't like it.'

I try to be understanding, but when you are with someone who won't eat eggs, cheese, cream, milk, vegetables, any meat that's not cremated, two meats together, etc etc, it really limits eating out!

Just eat out with your friends and leave him at home on his own.

Me, kinda. I've always been fussy with fruit and veg. I don't know where it comes from, but the smell of certain veg makes me feel physically sick.

I eat bananas, satsumas (occasionally), all kinds of cooked fruit and most fruit juices (except apple juice or cranberry juice). Veg-wise I'll eat cooked tomatoes, cooked onions, mushrooms, potatoes, baked beans, and lettuce if I have to. I'll eat something with vegetables in, like a soup or curry, as long as it doesn't taste or more importantly smell vegetabley.

I wish I wasn't like this but I'm 38 now and it hasn't ever got better, despite occasionally trying the less offensive veg to see if my tastes have changed. I can't ever imagine enjoying sweetcorn, cauliflower or sprouts though. Blurgh. They all smell terrible.

Oh, and I'm not fussy in other ways. Only fruit & veg. The only other things I don't like are kidneys, alcohol in puddings and fresh cream.

@Afternooncatnap I fully believe that was the trigger for my DH. His mother was/is obsessive about cleanliness and due to his dyspraxia he is a messy eater (with 4 dyspraxics in this household chocolate cake is fun and games), I've said for years I think she may have been the trigger for his phobia, if he was shouted at as a baby for being messy then the natural reaction is to only eat 'dry' foods, which sums up the majority of his diet really.

What is it with people who have no ability to understand something that's even slightly outside of their own experience? Patronising nonsense.

Actually, Tammy, it IS something within my own experience. As a child I couldn't eat mashed potato - the texture made me gag and retch. My mother discovered that if she fried it, then I was able to eat it, and as I got older I continued to try and now I am fine with it unfried.

Similarly, my brother has severe autism and accompanying food / texture issues and spent a number of years literally existing on nothing but meal replacement drinks.

If you had read a little more carefully you would have seen that I was commenting on individuals who 'dislike' a food rather than react to it or have medical issues.

My hubby used to be this way. Beige food and nowt else. He had permenantly dodge guts. He has, over the last 10yrs gradually expanded his diet by trying new things. He can only try when his anxiety isn't playing up but I made fried salty asparagus tips the other day and not only did he try them but he asked for more! Not bad for a man who once wouldn't eat any veg other than peas.
Our daughter is a meat refuser. Veg is fine, other protein forms and carb nonissue but a lump of meat seems impossible to her - texture issue I think. We all eat lots of veggie food now!

My first bf was like this. Wouldn't even eat potato crisps, let alone chips. Because potatoes are a vegetable! His mother had despaired of him, I believe he was like that pretty much since weaning.

My exh isn't too limited in what he'll eat, although he has super taster traits - anything even slightly bitter is impossible for him.

My current dp is a super taster, and has food aversions to do with texture and smell. He does eat a lot of veg but those with a bitter undertone are a hard no.

And that is the sum of my partners so far. I tend to like introverted and analytical men, including those on the very high functioning ASD side, and ime those are the ones who tend to be super tasters with limits on what they'll eat / texture issues.

Personally I eat almost anything, love a good salad etc. Genes and traits are a funny thing.