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 🙃

It might be consistency as well. There is a great graphic showing that a blueberry can be several different shapes and soft, squishy, sweet or sour, but a processed cracker, biscuit or nugget is exactly the same, every time.

It sounds like a sensory issue. My DS 12 is the same although his diet is a bit more varied these days.

I expect your son is also fussy about what types of clothing he will wear? E.g. DS will only wear Jogging bottoms and is a nightmare to buy shoes and socks for.

realised I had no rice the other day and only had the microwave pouches so I made him that and he immediately questioned why it was different and didn't like it

The packet stuff has a really odd smell. I like it as fried rice but can’t stand it as a side dish to a curry. The Smell overpowers even curry. So yeah, don’t blame him.

YABU! I like tomatoes, but hate tomatoes soup, tomato juice, even sauces that are too tomatoey.
I love mushrooms but mushroom soup makes me gag.
I love chicken in all forms except soup.

On the other hand I hate cabbage but if it's chopped up with some potatoes and other starchy veg with cheese on top ot's lovely!

hmmm.. food does taste different in different forms though. I love aubergine in moussaka however will never touch the thing in anything else.
Hate tomatoes but love bolognese sauce :) Im not even fussy! promise.

Lots of people are funny about cheese, and tomotoes as well. I know several people who won't touch a raw tomato but love tomato sauces or things with cooked tomato in.

I like cheese cold, and also melted on things, but I don't really like most cheese sauces. If they have cream in them, I really don't like them.

Same with potatoes: plain boiled or roast I don't like, jackets are okay, chips I like, thin fries I like a lot and mashed potato is the king of potato. To make it even less logical, boiled potatoes cold in a potato salad are also a very good thing.

I don't think that's weird, I only like cheese in melted form, I like chicken but not a cold chicken sandwich, I like bacon but don't like ham or any other form of pork...I don't think once you like a food, you like it universally?

My 88 year old mother just refused to eat baked beans with sausage and chip but will eat them on toast.

With fussy eating like this then you have to push through to a certain extent.

It might be consistency as well. There is a great graphic showing that a blueberry can be several different shapes and soft, squishy, sweet or sour, but a processed cracker, biscuit or nugget is exactly the same, every time.

Ohhh no I hate mash potato and thick chips but I can eat thin chips etc definitely a texture thing not a taste

I don’t think it’s weird to not universally like a food in all it’s possible forms. Of course the cooking/food processing method makes a huge difference. Common sense surely?

Many people don’t mind cheese on pizza but dislike it elsewhere. That’s fine. Cheese is a key component of pizza, but a garnish on other dishes. Pizza doesn’t taste like pizza without cheese. It doesn’t mean they must love cheese because they tolerate pizza.

The chicken thing, I get. I’m not a meat eater now but I used to hate chicken thighs/wings etc. I could only eat breast/boneless chicken. I used to hate the gristle or slimy/bloody bits. McDonald’s chicken nuggets or KFC chicken tastes nice to people who don’t like chicken because of the seasoning, cut of meat etc.

There’s a huge difference between chip shop cod and frozen fish fingers, come on now. One is properly seasoned and cooked, the other is cheap/bland frozen food.

There’s also a huge difference between poached eggs and scrambled eggs. To me, poached feels uncooked? Like you’re eating raw egg yolk?

[quote babasaclover]@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[/quote]
@babasaclover I decided I wanted to be vegetarian as a teen and back then there was very little vegetarian food in supermarkets- only a limited and expensive range in Holland & Barratt so I started to cook for myself. My family didn’t think I’d stick it but I can be very stubborn and gradually I started to enjoy more foods. It was very gradual.
I was veggie for ages, now lapsed but I have continued to eat a big variety. There’s a few things I’m stuck on though:

Seeds in tomatoes, cucumber etc. seeds removed is fine
Stalks eg mushroom stalks, broccoli stalk etc
Jelly, sweet or savoury or anything of that consistency eg jelly in a pork pie or in meat/ham
Milk, milk puddings, any type of custard. I now eat cream, yoghurt, butter though and wouldn’t as a kid
Cooked spinach (as a salad leaf I love it), anything aniseed or banana - but I think that’s just a genuine dislike of the flavour.
Hot drinks- I don’t like the sensation at all

I’m not sure that is helpful to you as my issues I just seemed to grow out of (now in my 40’s). But there is therapy available for food aversions.

My boy loves pasta but won't take a cold pasta salad to school. I love mushrooms and mackerel but I'm not keen on the pates of these. I like spag bol but not as a ready meal

One of my ds is the same, it's most likely the texture as others have said. He will eat most vegetables as long as they are raw, won't touch any cooked ones. He likes pasta shapes but won't eat spaghetti or tagliatelle.

I don't mind cheese on toast but I don't eat raw cheese or cheese sauces.

I know several people who won't touch a raw tomato but love tomato sauces or things with cooked tomato in

That's easy to explain. Raw tomato tastes awful. Cooked/tinned tomato doesn't.

Agree with everyone, not uncommon to like certain forms of something and not others. My DD has counselling for selective eating disorder as a young child. It really helped her. Might be something to investigate.

I used to be picky about chicken and only ate chicken breast. I cook mostly with thighs now as I'm using the slow cooker much more and breast just ends up stringy and dry. I can bear anchovies if I can't see them, but they give me a gag reflex if I try and eat them on something like a pizza. DH cannot stand raw apples, because his parents forced him to eat them as a child, but he'll have them as part of a crumble or pie. He still won't have them as stewed apple without a crumble or pastry topping, though...

I love eggs but hate them fried. Hate liver but love liver pâté. Texture is very important.

I am clearly very abnormal as I can't think of many examples I don't like food in certain ways.
I can only agree with tomato as I love it cooked in any way but not raw.
And I love beef in any dish but not a fan of steak, although I'd still eat it if I had to so not really an issue of hating it.
I'm worried I'm a weirdo now 🤣

It's the texture.
EG, I love apples except that mushy cooked type in apple pie/crumble. Totally different texture and taste.

My DH likes scrambled eggs and poached eggs but hates fried or soft/hard boiled. I don’t get it at all.

I don't think you are a weirdo Nobody. Plenty of people do like most foods cooked in a variety of ways. I do. Well, actually I just like food. Pretty much all of it cooked almost any way.
But its not unusual to not like particular foods cooked in different ways either. Its normal to be either way!

I would say it’s not being unreasonable. I sound like your son. I took part in a research project at university which showed I was a super taster. I also have heightened sense of smell and hearing.

I like poached eggs and fried eggs. I hate scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs.

I can eat pizza. I don’t like cheese in any other form. I can’t stand the smell of blue cheese.

I don’t like smoked meat, but can eat non smoked. I like tinned tuna I don’t like then fresh stuff.

People use to get cross with me when I was younger. I wasn’t doing it to annoy them. I don’t make a fuss when I go out (I always make sure I can eat something on menu before I go).

Leave him to it.

I'm with him re cold chicken, I don't like most meats cold which I think is a texture thing.

Just had to update, I haven't mentioned this thread to my son at all. We had a roast dinner yesterday and I didn't have enough potatoes for mash so I only made roast potatoes.
He doesn't like roasties but I put 3 on his plate and said just to try them, while we ate he tried one and ate it all so i said well done and asked him if they were nice and he replied that he liked the taste it's just he texture he doesnt like!
A million discussions I've had with him and he's never been able to describe why he doesnt like things. He then to my surprise ate them all even though I had only said to try them.
I feel like I understand him much more now and that will help me realise he isn't just being fussy for the sake of it!
We did still disagree tonight as he opened a new ketchup because he doesnt like the other brand one that was already open but that's another story 🤣

That's good OP. WE went the other way from him only eating crispy skinny chips, up through fatter ones and small wedges to very small roasties to increasingly larger roasties and eventually to mash. He didn't like the soft texture. He still leaves the edge of the mash that has touched anything though so we get an empty plate with a mash line up the middle, he likes both things, just doesn't like the fact they've touched...