Husband is a very picky eater.

[frolicmum]

Hello, my husband is a very picky eater and would probably love a sandwich and oven food (chicken & chips etc) all week. It was the same when we met but we were 20, now 10 years later, I just want him to try more foods. I'm a veggie (been for years, this was already the case when we met).

I make a meal plan for every week which is on the fridge. If he doesn't eat what I cooked, I usually freeze it and DS can often have them unfrozen at some point for lunch and our yesterday's dinner for dinner next day. This is the meal plan for this week. I adjust and try to make things he likes as well:

Monday: chickpea masala (DH didn't eat this)
Tuesday: Veggie cottage pie (he just said, I won't eat that will I?)
Wednesday: take away (he can obvs order what he likes)
Thursday: creamy spinach and tomato pasta (he said he will eat this)
Friday: black bean Chili with rice (confirmed he won't eat this)
Saturday: bangers & mash (he will eat this)
Sunday: we always have a roast on Sunday and he eats most of it but only like carrots as veg.

Am i being unreasonable to be unhappy that he doesn't even try anything new?

He's a lovely man, father and husband, we are very happy but because I really enjoy cooking it's getting me down. Maybe it's because I'm hormonal because I'm pregnant 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sounds like he eats a lot of trans fats. He will probably not be a healthy old man.

but would be averse to a whole week's meals being planned in advance. What if I didn't fancy that one day?

Hell yes
A week of planned meals would bore me too, sorry OP
I like to decide on the day what i feel like and have the motivation to make as i find cooking a chore, i really dont like it.

Maybe he should be a picky cooker of meals

There are lots of fussy eaters on this thread who are not self aware! If you don't like chickpeas or other pulses - that's fussy. No veg or limited veg and fruit? Fussy. Wouldn't eat most of the meals the op mentioned? Yup, fussy.

Try this as a test: if you went to the house of someone that you do not know well - someone who you are told is great cook - how likely is it that you would happily eat whatever was served for dinner? Assuming that it would conform to any allergies or ethical or religious objections - but otherwise anything goes.

I don't eat meat - but anything else that turned up, I'd eat. I have never met a type of veg or fruit I hate. I am happy to eat new combinations or foods I have not had before.

My in laws, though, live in fear of this sort of thing. They eat meat, but have very limited ranges of acceptable foods. In this scenario, even if the cook was serving meat, they would struggle.

I don't mind fussy eaters. (One dc is fussy as hell and I just serve him what he likes.) I hate fussy eaters who think they aren't.

I am very lucky that my husband, myself and the kids will all eat any food - the more unusual the better! I've often thought that I would really struggle to be married to someone who is a picky eater. I'd be tempted to cook something and he has to eat it or make himself something else. (Sorry if I sound smug. I don't mean to. Just want to wish you good luck)!

So what if someone is a fussy eater? You like what you like.

To all the people saying the OP is "forcing" her DH to be veggie by cooking veggie meals... If he doesn't want to eat her cooking then he could cook for himself. He chooses not to. Saying she is "forcing" him to eat in a certain way when she is the one doing all of the meal planning, shopping and cooking by herself is bloody cheeky. He's a grown man, not a 2 year old.

Needsakickupthearse

They both work full-time. It’s a bit odd that the OP does all the shopping, planning and cooking.

To me cooking and eating a variety of foods is one of life's pleasures, especially during lockdown.

Fussy eating in a partner would be a deal breaker. Luckily DH and I love eating just about everything. We both have dislikes, but they aren't hard to avoid. I hate parsnips and he hates celery and bananas. We both dislike shellfish except for prawns.

I can never understand the I hate vegetables stance. There is such a wide variety of flavours and textures and many different ways to cook them. The PP who finds them slimy is obviously cooking them wrong.

I can never understand the I hate vegetables stance

It’s not really a ‘stance’. I love parsnips. You don’t. Whatever the difference between us that makes that true of me and not you, the same difference exists between you and people who don’t enjoy vegetables. They just dislike more foods than you.

Monday & Tuesday wouldn't do for me. & I'm not a picky eater. Other days on list are nice. If he's not nagging you to cook bland meals for him then I'm not sure why you're aiming to control what he eats. He doesn't try to get you to change your diet, I assume? Some people just like what they like.

The plus is that chicken dippers and waffles only take 12 minutes in the oven

What does he have then if he doesn’t want what you’ve made?

My ex (and one of my kids) will decide if they like something by looking at it And would rather be hungry than eat something they don’t like
So annoying Can’t bear fussy eaters

Calligraphy but eating something you really dislike at someone else's house is rather different. Out of politeness I have forced myself to eat meals that I really didn't enjoy, they might have been beautifully cooked and well presented but I still didn't like them. In your own home you shouldn't have to eat meals 'out of politeness' ... nor should you expect someone else to only cook what you like.

In this case the DH is perfectly capable of making himself a sandwich if he doesn't like what his wife cooks. My DH and I have different tastes in food, there are some meals we both enjoy but at least once or twice a week we will cook separately.

My DH drives me batshit with his crazy eating habits which have rubbed off on my kids despite my strenuous efforts to avoid it.
Unfortunately he has been the child carer for 80% of our kids lives so the most influential.
It’s me against 3 now. I have small victories because I am a bad ass, but mostly the three of them eat shite.

I wouldn’t call my DP a picky eater. But he would moan no end about your menu. He wants nice home cooked meals which include a good amount of meat every day. He doesn’t get this as dd1 is veggie, so I do one or two veggie meals a week, and also I work full time, so I chuck in a freezer food day to make my life easier.

He’s given up moaning about It and just accepts it, but if it was a whole week of veggie food he would be complaining, or cooking himself some meat to go with it! I could get vegetarian every day, I’m not veggie, but not having meat doesn’t bother me in the way it does him. We all have different tastes.

*eat vegetarian.

Why doesn't he do some of the cooking. Are we in 1953? Tell him you would like some nice veggie meals on those days like the ones you have been cooking for 10 years!

I couldn't eat Mon, Thurs or Fri as spice and tomatoes gives me horrendous acid reflux.

I don't suppose your DH will change. At least he's not demanding about food and is easy to feed 😃

Since menopause I've gone off a lot of things and I wasn't brought up to be a picky eater.

someone said a takeaway is unhealthy

How can such a blanket statement be made without knowing what is being “taken away?”

Is eating at a restaurant unhealthy? Because that’s what a takeaway is you know. You order food from a restaurant and take it home.

I love chickpeas and pulses but they are so often to be found in a spicy and/or a tomato sauce that I can't eat them. I need to make my own with herbs I suppose.

[quote MargosKaftan]@frolicmum - why is it not the same thing, you don't like meat, he doesn't like vegetables? It does seem like there's actually quite a lot of meals he'll cook and eat, but they aren't ones you would want to eat. He does at least eat some vegetables, just not the range you do.

From his point of view, he has enough different meals he likes to not have to have the same thing every night. He will eat some non-bland foods like curry. He just can't eat the way he wants as a family every night, because you won't eat the way he does.

You both eat a restrictive diet. You both are able to find enough meals you like to eat a range and eat a healthy diet (he does eat veg, just not the range you'd like). I can see why if cooking is your "thing" it's disappointing he doesn't like the same things you do.

You need to stop presenting it as his diet is the problem. You chose not to marry a veggie foodie.

He's not rejecting your love when he rejects your meal plans.[/quote]
@MargosKaftan

That's an excellent response

The trouble is neither of you are picky eaters you just both like different foods.

I would say though your menu plan is for you like with just a passing thought as to what your DH will eat. You are restricting what he eats by deciding you only buy organic meat and too expensive for him to have it more then twice a week, while you get to eat whatever you like.

I don't like legumes, I can't deal with the outside shell and soft inside I don't like the texture off them.

I don’t think your DH is a picky eater either tbh. Two of the meals he refused I wouldn’t eat either. I do like most veg though so I can see how that might feel restrictive but just do him the veg he likes and do some extra diff veg for rest of the family. I think you are being unfair to be upset because his food tastes don’t match your own. If I were him I would feel upset that you excluded me from so many meals because you refused to accommodate my tastes.I do the majority of the cooking and consider my husbands tastes in what we eat and vice versa. Neither of us would dream of cooking something we knew the other person didn’t eat as that just sounds a bit unkind

@Veterinari You couldn't even figure out who was the OP in the thread

I think you mean “you couldn’t even figure out who the OP was”

Given your inability to construct a normal sentence and how you seem to have hallucinated that I didn’t know who the op was despite tagging her directly in any posts (?) would lead me to worry about your own ability to provide constructive advice on this thread or indeed to read it accurately.