To think if you like eating something, you'll eat it in most forms?

[Nobodyknowsme101]

My 13yo has been fussy with food literally since birth! Very restricted diet.
What recently is driving me mad is the fact that I've noticed he'll eat a certain food in one dish but refuse to eat it in another saying he doesnt like it 🙄
Examples :
•Will eat cheese on a pizza but insists he hates cheese and wont eat it in burgers, pasta, on potato etc.
•Eats chicken nuggets/breaded chicken burgers and roast chicken as part of a roast dinner but refuses chicken in any other form saying he doesnt like it such as cold in a sandwich or in homemade chicken nuggets which to me were not much different in taste to the frozen ones.
•Will eat fish from the chip shop but insists he doesnt like fish when I've given him homemade fish nuggets or even frozen fish fingers.
•Will eat bolognese or chilli from a jar but when I've done a homemade version it's too disgusting for him to even try. (Despite me and others trying it and it hardly tastes any different to the jarred ones)

I can't think of anything I like to eat that i dont like at all in certain dishes. I have preferences for the way I eat things but I cant say oh I love scrambled egg but hate poached because at the end of the day egg tastes like egg in most forms surely!?

Is he just being fussy or am I being unreasonable? Would love to hear feedback if you can relate to the way my son thinks because I just cant understand it 🙃

I hate mashed potatoes except on top of shepherds pie, fish pie etc.

I think this is very common with children, my 5 year old is a nightmare for this, one day she loves carrots, the next she will refuse to eat them, she likes scrambled eggs but won't touch an omelette etc. I used to be a very fussy eater when I was a child and would only eat very plain foods, no sauces and nothing mixed together, I grew out of it eventually! I will say that the thought of eating certain foods or combinations of food would make me feel so anxious and physically sick, it was a genuine reaction and not just trying to be awkward.

I think this sounds like a battleground and you trying to assert your views isn't going to help.

I disagree in general with your point, i think people are all different and food is personal.

I can see your child is very fussy - and this may be a worry.

If I were you, I would probably try to get him to take more control of what he eats - will he eat fruit/veg at all? If he eats all the food groups, I'd probably just keep quiet. I'd only fret if there was a deficiency/vitamin/calorie issue.

It sounds like his fussiness comes from visual presentation of the food, or texture rather than taste.

My dB loved pizza and mac and cheese as a kid, but hated cheese and would never eat cold cheese.

I love fruit but won't eat it if its cooked in most instances, if its been chopped and prepared by someone else, or its less than perfect looking. I know I'm weird. I have some simular issues with veg but not as bad. I like things cut a specific way and cooked a specific way individual to each type of veg.

I don't know why me and my dB both have weird food habits but everyone in my family, likes things a certain way. Maybe me and dB just transfered that to food. Although he's not a fussy eater now. But my mum never pandered to either of us.

You just need to keep offering the food and not make a big deal out of it if he eats it or not.

I was this child! But I’m not like it now.

Apart from I can’t stand runny eggs-so love scrambled, cooked through fried, hard boiled, omelette etc but you couldn’t pay me to eat a poached egg, soft boiled egg or a runny fried egg. It’s texture definitely for me.

YABVU and ignorant. A lot of it is about texture, and that changes depending on what dish the item is served in.

It's not neccessarily the taste as other posters have said, but could be texture, either while being eaten or being held before eating it. If it's a sensory thing, it could also be it's appearance, that it just looks 'wrong', it could be that it smells different, it could be that it cuts up differently or feels different on the cutlery. It's not a bad thing to be fussy, as long as he is polite with it, especially out of the house if he is served food elsewhere.

Don't agree Op. I love a cup of coffee but can't stand coffee flavoured anything else

Hmmm I'm not a fussy eater at all but I would never choose to eat cold egg; boiled, scrambled, poached all fine, but egg mayo smells like sulfur and has the texture of vomit. The only other foods I don't eat are bananas and baked beans. It's definitely mostly a textural thing

Lots of you mentioning texture and I have to agree, when younger he would never eat fruit such as grapes, oranges, apple etc because of the outer 'skin' he used to say it was too chewy and couldn't stand it.
He also couldn't tolerate biting into something that had liquid or something melted in the middle such as those sweets with the juicy middle or a muffin with melted chocolate in the middle.
I just cant see the difference between a frozen chicken nugget and a homemade one (my cooking isn't that bad 🤣)

It's textures rather than taste with me. If I'm making a bolognaise sauce it has to go in the blender before I'll eat it. Big onions in particular send me over the edge.
It's smooth food or nothing for me - even cheese needs to be melted or soft. Grated or sliced is no good for me.

Some people are "fussy eaters" and texture and combinations play a huge role as well as the actual food, so whilst I appreciate how frustrating it must be, I do think it sounds possible - e.g. I prefer own brand tinned baked beans to Heinz, and fried eggs to scrambled, so I understand how someone with a more taste/texture sensitive palate could like one and not the other.

My adult cousin can count the savoury things she will eat on her fingers: chips, white bread, chicken breast, cheddar cheese, ketchup, steak, ham... I think that's it. She will have a pizza without the tomato sauce, she will not eat a sandwich is there is butter/spread/mayonnaise on it. We can pretty much only eat out if there is steak and chips on the menu - she won't even eat breaded chicken. She has a wider variety of sweet things she will eat, but even that is limited.

Probably textures - DD1 likes roast potatoes, chips waffles won't eat baked, boiled smashed.

DD2 likes scrabbled eggs will tolerate boiled though will dispose of yolk and won't touch fried.

Had older family member instead they hate all cheeses - was quite a pain about it even cheese cake wasn't allowed near them - so everyone else wasn't supposed to have it. Some of their friends gave them grilled Halloumi cheese didn't tell them it was cheese - though did check with other half it wasn't allergy issue apparently -and they loved it another gave them cheese cake without telling them - now their favorite. They managed to mix up some soft cheese spread and some other kind of spread and they like that now.

@throwaway10000 I mean I might just be thinking my cooking is fine I suppose 🤣
He wouldn't eat it even if cooked by someone else or a restaurant.
He once ordered a plain chicken burger instead of breaded at a restaurant once by mistake and refused to eat it but he will eat plain chicken in a roast so he clearly likes the taste?

Well... I have a DD who loves mashed potato and roast potato, but hates chips and jacket potato.
She also hates tomatoes, unless on a pizza or in pasta sauce.
The other DD loves cheese, unless it’s melted (so doesn’t like pizza).
Surely it’s about texture?

I just cant see the difference between a frozen chicken nugget and a homemade one (my cooking isn't that bad 🤣)

It doesn’t matter if you “can’t see the difference”. The fact is he can taste the difference, and that’s what’s important.

Oh and one likes scrambled egg but not poached or fried, the other likes fried but not poached or scrambled...

Yep one of my D's doesn't like cheese but has on pizza, youngest 2ds hate chicken in any other form than nuggets or in tika masala 🤷.

He once ordered a plain chicken burger instead of breaded at a restaurant once by mistake and refused to eat it but he will eat plain chicken in a roast so he clearly likes the taste?

It’s texture. How many posts do you need to see of people telling you that?

I just cant see the difference between a frozen chicken nugget and a homemade one (my cooking isn't that bad)

I can only assume some difference in coating size/texture. My homemade aren't quite the same as bought though they can come close.

Sounds normal.

I like raspberry for the flavour but not the actual berries following a childhood incident involving a bowl of raspberries with a large maggot inching its way across and Mum telling me I was imagining it because she had washed them.

My son will eat tomato pasta sauce and cottage pie (two of his favourite meals) but won't eat bolognese. I don't get it and he can't really explain why

Many of my friends have dc who are very fussy. It's something I struggle to understand actually. It does cause a lot of tension in households though.

I just cant see the difference between a frozen chicken nugget and a homemade one (my cooking isn't that bad 🤣)

It could also be familiarity. He knows what he's going to get with shop bought. They look and taste uniform. Where as home cook can be different every time. I'm a bit like that with my own cooking. I like my own cooking because everything is done the way I like it. I can get dh to cook the same dish with the same ingredients, but I feel a bit sick about eating it because things arnt as I like them and it's not exactly the way I wanted it.

He does sound fussy but I think generally this is quite normal.
People like chip butties but a mashed potato sandwich doesn't appeal IFKWIM.
I'm not fussy as a rule but some things still there such as I love salsa but hate cooked tomatoes.Love sweet potato in soup but hate it as fries.
Love sausages but don't like that they look like turds (or penises!) So always squish them up