Fussy eating as an adult - is this a common thing?

[Strawberrycocktail]

My DH seems to me to be quite a fussy eater. He seems to have a long (and growing) list of foods/dishes he has specified he doesn’t like. So much so it becomes hard to shop for meals for a family. I try to raise my children as unfussy eaters and encourage them to try different foods. I have accepted fussiness at a young age but encourage more adventurousness as they get older. My eldest (16) is now reasonably adventurous in food choices and will at least try and eat most food put in front of him even if he has some things he eats more enthusiastically than others. However, DH stands out as the consistently and resolutely picky ester in our house. I can’t think of a time when I have refused to eat any choice if food he has bought even if it wouldn’t have bern something I would have chosen myself. I wondered if I am unusually unfussy or us my DH unusually fussy? What happens in other people’s houses? Are you all trying to navigate your partner’s food dislikes or are you the one who has a long list of food dislikes or do you both muddle along eating most food without complaint?

Obviously I would accommodate allergies or food intolerance but tbh if my DH started reeling off a list of food/dishes he doesn’t like - especially if he kept adding to them - my response would be to ask him to either do the cooking or at least cook for himself. I have always told my kids that you can’t necessarily have your favourite meal or food every time, but I will make sure everyone gets theirs sometimes, same for DH. Don’t know if I have a very unfussy family of eaters because of that or whether I just got lucky but I’m taking the win.

Very fussy eaters (past toddlerhood) or people with ARFID are very often neurodivergent/autistic. Could that apply to your DH?

She obviously meant the smell of urine in solid form. We've all smelt stinky strong wee smell, public toilets, alleyways, sickness.. that makes that pungent concentrated urine smell.

I would say at least 1 in 10 adults is fussy (not talking about allergies or illnesses or disabilities).
I try to cook food we can all eat but halt the week I cook 2 or 3 different dishes.

Processed, utter utter shite is my dhs diet. Pot noodles, spam, zero fruit, zero vegetables, anything from a tin or a packet.
Wont entertain anything fresh.
As he had sole care of both kids through 2 years of covid, that was all he fed our two kids so now.. you guessed it, they like this shit too.

Drives me absolutely crazy.

It’s like I’m a lone warrior trying to force them to eat a small tinny amount of goodness. It went on far too long and now is embedded in their everyday. It’s a daily fight.

I'm quite fussy - it's driven by texture. As a kid I refused to eat fish - turns out I'm allergic to seafood. Read somewhere about a guy who didn't realise it was not normal for pineapple to make your mouth burn.

There is a wide range of food that I will eat, but an equally wide range that I won't. I don't have a problem with it and don't make a fuss. I prefer not to eat than to eat food that makes me feel physically ill.

As an interesting aside, you lose tastebuds as you age. So all these people "growing up" to be less fussy are probably just losing the ability to taste the food they previously disliked.

Sorry you are fussy.
The only thing I don't like is milky warm puddings and I will eat them to be polite.

This.

I'm fussy. I can't stomach a lot of common foods, including fruit, tomato, berries, etc. I will try new foods if they look interesting, though, and love some things non fussy people can't stand!

I've figured it's because I was raised on a very bland, repetitive diet of about 10 different meals DM would make (trying to make new things was too much work). The lightbulb went on when she commented 'we didn't really give you fruit growing up. Didn't cross my mind.'

I'm fussy

I developed lactose intolerance very young but nobody knew what it was back then so I just suffered with diarrhoea and stomach pains and was described as having a sensitive stomach.

I make my own food as an adult and rarely eat out.

A friend I know is fussy in a different way - he will only eat meat and two veg meals.

Ha ha! Nope, I don't think so. I don't think rabbit pie is on pub menus around here as much these days as it used to be (we live in southern england). Can't think of the last time I saw it, but maybe that was it. Mr McGreggor effect maybe. Ha!

It's not clear from your OP if his list of food is stuff he 'actively dislikes' or just stuff he 'doesn't actively like' i.e. not his favourite.

Everyone has food they really dislike, and some foods that they just 'don't really like'. The latter shouldn't be excluded from family meals imo.*

*Assuming this isn't something like ARFID, and just a preference that's got out of hand.

I know a few people who have quite restricted diets where they eat only their favourite foods all the time. Anything that doesn't give them a mouth orgasm, but is edible for them (and normally 'good for you' i.e. gives a balanced diet) gets ignored or pushed around the plate. Going to restaurants is a pain as their preference to eat exactly what they want to eat takes priority.

It gives people with genuine issues around food a bad name, but I do know people that take the piss.

A relative was bought up on freezer food ie sausage rolls, nuggets and waffles. Surprise surprise they find it hard to eat out as an adult because there’s nothing on the menu they like and they end up asking for a kids meal which embarrasses their partner.

Their parent now claims they cooked but they’d cook a meal for themselves and a plate of freezer food for their kids 🤷🏻‍♀️ out of sheer laziness and the other “care giver” (kids were shipped off to nannies every weekend so mother could work her way through tinder) did the same. Trout fillets and veg for them, sausage rolls and waffles for the kids. No fruit, no veg, just processed carbs.

Our lists are overlapping. I will eat no offal or octopus (yes lobster, mussels and oysters, though I strongly dislike oysters). Only lean meat: no lamb, no goat, lean pork (no suckling pig ever). Beef is ok, though I rarely cook it. All poultry is good, some fish. No surprise that I mostly eat vegetarian.

I was a fussy eater as my family ate a lot of meat - once a day at least, and I really could take it or leave it and if it had a touch of fat, I refused it. My DH is Indian born and if I grew up in his house, I would not have been a fussy eater at all, as I eat and love all veggies apart from bell peppers (they upset my stomach; I did not know it was a not so uncommon condition and thought I was just being precious about a food most people like).

Both DH and I cook and we make dishes we like. There are dishes I prefer and I make them, he eats them even if not his favorites, and vice versa.

Our DD15 was and is a fussy eater who goes through phases. She loves meat, doesn't eat most cooked vegetables - unless they are in smooth thick soup - and still doesn't like her food touching. DH prefers to have his foods mixed, so very much touching (natch, Indian), with lots of veggies. So when he cooks, unless it's pizza, lasagna or a pasta with very basic sauce, she refuses to eat it so has a toast and raw veggies, or cooks a plate of pasta for herself. I try to accommodate her tastes when I cook - a steak or a different cut of meat with potatoes and a side of raw veggies will go swimmingly - which he doesn't like so much. It's push and pull. We all like beans, so we eat a lot of those in our house!

She can mask her fussiness and will eat cooked veggies at other peoples' houses. I suspect when she's an adult, she'll cook the way she likes to eat and it'll be just fine. She'll perhaps learn to like some cooked veggies other than the peas and spinach the way my grandma made them. The complication in our home now is that my DH and DD like different styles of food, so someone always ends up being less than happy with dinner.

What I really dislike is how some people take unfussy eating to be morally superior to fussy eating. A lot goes into eating preferences and I'm sure many fussy eaters would not choose to be fussy. If my stomach tolerated peppers, I'd love to eat them, they look so pretty. And the texture of fatty
meat really revolts me, I wish it didn't! I'm sure many others could say similar things about their food dislikes.

There's Supertasters too. Basically, up to 10% of the population have way more taste buds than the rest of us - and often not evenly distributed, meaning bitter foods taste really, really bitter, giving them (me) basically the palate of a toddler. Most Supertasters have no idea they are one, but the extreme cases are apparently much sought after by baby food manufacturers for product testing!

@incognito50me Yes I forgot about octopus and pork and beef! I don't eat those either. I have spent a lot of time in North India and although I can't tolerate some of the really spicy food (Rajasthan) there is a great deal I like as its vegetarian and the average household doesn't tend to eat meat regularly at home.

I'm fascinated by people who say they 'eat everything '. I wonder if I have over-developed taste/texture receptors, as some things have horrible texture (mushrooms, the white of a fried/boiled egg, sweetcorn 🤢, avocado, olives) or taste (Brussels sprouts). I have a friend who says she never notices the texture of food - mind boggling to me!!

I eat really well, lots of veg (not sprouts or sweetcorn obviously 🤢🤢) and don't have any issues. I'm just discerning 😂

I think it's partly this, I do and have always favoured strong flavours- blue cheese, olives, coffee, I also quite like things that others find bitter- sprouts, brocoli and spinach. As I said upthread I hate very bland food ( milky puddings for example), so perhaps I have fewer taste buds.

Neither of us are fussy - I don't eat tinned baked beans, he doesn't eat tinned tuna, that's it, everything else is fine (we're veggie at home but sometimes eat meat/fish at restaurants). There are other things we each might not choose ourselves, but would eat if put in front of us.

I read somewhere that with babies/small children, you need to offer a new food up to something like 20+ times before they get comfortable enough with it to try it, and then multiple more times before it'll become a generally liked and accepted food.

I wonder if something similar happens with adults - they try something once and say they don't like it, then never revisit it, due to the mental view "I don't like that", despite that tastes change over time. I suppose tastes changing could work both ways, like into dislike as well....
Or sometimes it's about context - I'm not particularly keen on red onion in salad, for example, but it's good cooked into anything.

Or that they've had a bad experience with food in the past - an ex's mum was a really bad (&, to be fair to her, completely disinterested) cook, and so the first 3-4 years of that relationship had regular conversations of "I don't like that", only to find that when it was cooked better, he actually really did like it.

But going back to the question - I think both are common - lots of people who eat pretty much anything, and lots of people who remain "fussy" throughout adulthood, probably because they feel comfortable like that/it doesn't inconvenience them and they have no desire to change.

I am also a member of the discerning club, but my taste/texture issues are different from yours. I agree on the white of an (undercooked) egg, though!

It’s just me and DD (12) most if the time. I cook and I broadly cater to her mild fussiness but we do eat a pretty varied diet. My OH is lactose intolerant but not fussy. When he is round I only cook dairy free but the food is the same - I just use non-dairy alternatives. My sister is vegan so I’m pretty familiar with the range of alternatives out there!

@sprigatito , that is a commendable attitude. ❤

I'm not fussy (can count on one hand the foods I genuinely don't like) but I can't believe people on this thread are saying they will eat good they don't like "to be sociable and polite".

Fuck that shit, life's to short !

2 colleagues of mine who became a couple a few years back are both fussy eaters. She is a meat and two veg type eater, never pasta or rice or anything spicy. If we go out for a meal she always just has bread or garlic bread as a starter. He likes spicy food but also to not eat large portions. He esp likes to have a starter as a main. At Ivy Brassiere he will have this but not eat the large tail on prawn on the top and give that to someone else as it freaks him out. He eats funny things together - makes curry with tinned tuna.

I am a fussy eater but wish I wasn't. It isn't a case of simply "trying" things. The thought of some foods makes me nauseous - I am nauseous now even thinking about this.

My adult kids are great and can tell "you won't like it mum" and they are supportive of me not feeling bad. I do try some new things though.

I can eat any fruit but struggle with veg and as a vegetarian this makes things challenging.

If you don't like some foods then it's the same but it's just many more. Nobody should be made to feel bad over food choices they can't help. Nobody.