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 🙃

DH only like cooked tomato - I think it becuase his Dad grew them and I know from my DGP who also did fresh home grownin my childhood they can have a tinny taste - I've not encountered it with shop bought but cooking does get rid of it.

My husband likes cauliflower and likes cheese. But not cauliflower cheese.

Freak.

I can understand this. Things change when cooked or prepared differently.

Hash browns - no
Roast potatoes yes

Tomatoes- yes
Tomato juice-No

Can understand the fish fingers/fish and chip shop fish

They don’t taste or even smell the same

Lots of pp beat me to it. Texture. Smell. Taste.
My poor dd, for 15 years I kept trying new things. Then one day worked out she just wanted grilled chicken breast, cheap sausages and pork loin, not chop. So that is it. She is much better now with veg and salad.
I have my lovely bolognaise and tagines, she pulls a face and grills her nice plain food.
It does sound a little bit like you feel it might be imagined or made up. The food fear is real. Stick with safe options and offer new things.

YABU. I like raw celery and hate it cooked. I like coffee to drink but can't stand anything flavoured with coffee, cake, ice cream etc. I loathe poached eggs but will eat boiled or fried. And love home made bolognese sauce but the jars are rank as far as I'm concerned.

It does sound like he has a very restricted diet. Perhaps cooking with him would help so he sees it being prepared?

Having said that, I was allergic to egg when I was little so was used to avoiding it, although I did grow out of it. Once I knew that I wasn't allergic to it, I tried to get used to eating it more — I worked up through Spanish omelette, quiche, omelette and can now even eat scrambled egg but I'm honestly not sure I could eat a fried, boiled or poached egg. Which I know is a bit silly (it's just egg) but it isn't a rational reaction!

@emilyfrost I can see the posts thank you 🙄
What is different in texture from a chicken breast on his plate at home to a chicken breast on the plate in the restaurant!?

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

Same here but in reverse. I’m not fussy and eat pretty much everything, but I prefer most things the way DH cooks it! My own cooking always disappoints me a bit but his hits the spot.

I get that it must be very frustrating! However, I think homemade v commercially made food can be very different. As can the texture of food prepared in different ways.

Does he have meals that are easy to do if he doesn't want the 'family meal'? Or bits you can substitute for him.

Not adding cheese to things is a very simple 'fix'.

Maybe he will change, his taste buds & sensory processing is still developing

I love pate, but would rather boil my own head than eat actual liver (not envy)

I'm one of the fussy ones.
I like lots of things but if you mix them with other things I don't.
It's just wrong.

Your son sounds like my husband, he knows what he likes and doesn’t like, he won’t starve. sounds like he likes cheap foods so he’s not denting your purse, let him get on with it. He’ll soon try new foods when out with friends and girl friends at restaurants.

I never liked soups - DH before I married him siad I couldn't hate all soups as tehy tatsted different.

Turns out I like one with bits in - just not smooth/water ones. I think that was party as a child we rarely ever had soup and if we did it was often DDads concoctions which often tried to hide stuff like squashes we weren't keen on or had spices we didn't like.

[quote Nobodyknowsme101]@emilyfrost I can see the posts thank you 🙄
What is different in texture from a chicken breast on his plate at home to a chicken breast on the plate in the restaurant!?[/quote]
You do understand that people cook differently, right? And that the texture in the restaurant might be more pleasing than the one at home?

You do realise that multiple people can cook the same item, and it have different tastes and textures, yes?

My DS was the same until he got older. There were numerous dishes where he'd eat every component, but in that particular form, noooo, it was disgusting and awful. It's a bit of a pain but your DS will get over it in time, and if he doesn't, he can sort out his own food.

I'm like this with pork and eggs. So I won't eat gammon or ham but will eat bacon and roast pork or p3stir fry.
I like all eggs apart from boiled ones. They make me gag.

I agree with you on this but i think we're probably in the minority and I know a lot of people who follow similar patterns to your son......will only eat cheese on pizza, eat tomato based sauces but not fresh tomatoes, fish only if it's in batter from the chippy......

You are not his servant. I suggest he learns to cook, as I did at 13 when I went vegetarian and my mother said she wasn't cooking special meals.

[quote Nobodyknowsme101]@emilyfrost I can see the posts thank you 🙄
What is different in texture from a chicken breast on his plate at home to a chicken breast on the plate in the restaurant!?[/quote]
I've been vegetarian for over 30 years now, but in your post you said

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?

And even I remember that Grilled/pan fried chicken is a totally different taste & texture to roast chicken.

He can obviously taste differences you can't. Some people are 'super tasters' and others definitely the other extreme. That's frustrating for you, but it just 'is what it is'.

I get this. I can eat foods in one form but not another. I do it a lot. For example, I could eat scrambled eggs but not cooked any other way. I love cheese but couldn’t eat fondue 🤮. I am fussy though.

@Megan2018

I still am like that despite being 40 odd. What did you do to fix yourself? I always thought I was a fussy eater until the doctor told me it's a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, I've had CBT counselling and correct some foods but texture just drives me mad and still would make me gag if I tried to eat something I don't want to

Just to add I'm not trying to make him eat anything he doesnt want but i do worry about his health. He doesnt like milk or yogurt so if I could get him to eat a little melted cheese on something then that would get some calcium into him. He eat no veg except for broccoli but will only eat that with a roast once a week. I try the homemade versions of chilli/bolognese to get fresher ingredients like tomato/pepper whizzed up in the sauce into him but it's not forced and once he's refused it I dont keep at him.
His diet is very much processed rubbish and although I'm happy to accept he has issues with texture I just wonder if sometimes he says he doesnt like things because he knows I'll give in and he'll get his preferred freezer meals instead.

This is the best post I've ever read, I've always been perceived as fussy but he's definitely a texture thing. My diet is so beige I really don't want to be like this but I gag everytime I try and eat something but I don't want to. I'd actually rather starve then eat something of the wrong texture

I just cant see the difference between a frozen chicken nugget and a homemade one

Frozen/processed nuggets tend to be almost mushy in texture whereas homemade ones are more fibrous due to being whole cuts of meat.

I read your op and thought my brain had created an account on mn lol.

I understand it but still drives me crazy at times.

It really is a taste/texture thing.

Think about your humble potato and the various ways of cooking it. Love a jacket potato but hate mash potato, even a bog standard chip becomes a like/dislike thing simply based on how it's cooked.