That I would agree with. And for many, it will not be a dealbreaker. For others, it will. YMMV.
It caused no end of consternation for me that my ex-GF would invite people over for dinner, expecting me to do my gourmet dealy, and knowing that it would not be appreciated. I was a Mozart chef playing to a Captain and Tenielle audience.
If we agree that the real problem is not being a picky eater, but the behavior that some picky eaters exhibit, then I have no arguments with that. Being rude, whiny, offensive, and generally difficult is a problem, and one that usually exhibits itself in more settings than the dinner table. I wholeheartedly agree that when someone is a picky eater, it is their burden, and they are socially and morally obligated to do their best not to anger, disgust, or otherwise irritate other people. I have never argued that a picky eater is right to twist their mouth in disgust and shriek “I’m not eating that shit!” I do think they are right to to inform a potential dinner party host that they are vegetarian/keep kosher/can’t eat broccoli/whatever, to avoid a situation where the picky eater is hungry and miserable, and the cook is offended that their guest isn’t eating their delicious pork chops. If said picky eater only has four meals that they’re willing to eat, then I think the only fair thing for them to do is to decline the invitation, with thanks and apologies. There’s no reason to make a big deal out of it, no need to say “I hate the things you eat.” Just say, “thanks, but I can’t” and leave it at that.
I also think that the relationship between the picky eater and the host is an important consideration. If I’m eating with someone who doesn’t know me well (business associate, fiance’s extended family, etc.), I’m much more willing to eat as much as I can stomach of something that I dislike. I’m still not going to eat a steak, but I’ll do my best and be very careful not to make a scene. If I’m with my close friends, my family, or my fiance, I’m more likely to insist on having something that I enjoy. These are people with whom I spend a lot of time, and I don’t want to have to choke down objectionable food night after night in order to maintain social graces. I’m going to be spending the rest of my life with my fiance - it is not fair for him to expect me to eat hamburgers (a common food that many people in my society enjoy) when I honestly can’t stomach them. With the people that I’m closest to, I expect them to make reasonable accommodations - dinner at a restaurant that has good salads and burgers, instead of dinner at a steakhouse. When they want to go to the steakhouse, I’ll wish them a good time and stay home with my tofu. Everyone wins.
I’m sorry, but I disagree with you here. I’ll do my best not to make a spectacle of myself, be rude, or embarrass the person who brought me, but I will not choke down food I hate. I will eat the food that I like, or even the food that I can tolerate, but I will not eat steak or hamburgers to make you feel more comfortable. This is my compromise. I don’t think that makes me a pain in the ass…and my instinct is that you really don’t either. As you point out elsewhere in your post, if I eat the side dishes and skip the meat, you think that’s okay. However, if you’re serving me a meal where there’s not a damn thing I can eat (very rare, but it happens), I’ll have an iced tea and make conversation. I won’t make a big deal out of it, I won’t draw it to anyone’s attention, and if someone asks why I’m not eating, I’ll make up a plausible and polite excuse (“I’m having blood work done tomorrow, and I have to fast for 24 hours.”) Personally, I think quizzing someone about their decision not to eat is rude, but it happens. If this offends you, then I’m sorry, but I not going to eat to make you feel better.
As far as I know, I do not have a psychological or psychosomatic illness that causes me to be a picky eater. I was not sexually or physically abused, I didn’t have toilet training issues or overly controlling parents. Is it possible that something’s wrong with me? sure, I guess. Does it bother me or the people that I spend time with enough that I’m going to try to change it? Nope. Nearly everyone in my life is perfectly happy with the way that I comport myself with food, including (and most importantly) me. Yes, sometimes I skip a night out to a restaurant, or I make alternative eating arrangements, or I ask if we can go to this restaurant rather than that one. Most of the time my friends and family are happy to compromise. When they’re not, I skip the event. It’s not a big deal.
More and more, I suspect that we’re talking past each other. I truly don’t believe it’s a social failing. I don’t think that I am rude about my pickiness. I have a full and happy social life. I eat with friends all the time, and most of the time they don’t even notice that I’ve chosen a salad over a hamburger. When they do notice, it’s usually to tease me about my “rabbit food,” and with my close friends I don’t mind the teasing.
First, I’d please ask that you not try to diagnose my “intentionally created (or at least, intentionally not overcome) social disability.” I’m not suffering at all. I don’t like certain foods, so I don’t eat them. End of story. I don’t see it as a social disability.
Again, I’m not defending anyone’s rude, offensive, or disgusting behavior. What I’m defending is a person’s right to choose not to eat a particular food, or a wide variety of foods, as the case may be. I take offense when people suggest that you starve a picky eater to teach them to eat anything, or that you sneak objectionable foods into their meals to trick them into eating what they don’t like. I find that sort of behavior incredibly rude and controlling. It doesn’t matter if they claim to like the food that you’ve tricked them into eating - forcing someone to eat something they don’t want to is WRONG. I am an adult, and I have the right to decide what I put into my body, for whatever reasons I might have. Encouraging me to try an unfamiliar food is one thing - forcing, tricking, or coercing me into eating something I don’t want is another. If I choose to choke down an unpleasant meal because it’s the polite thing to do, that’s fine, but it’s MY CHOICE.
I disagree. I think asking beforehand avoids a later, more uncomfortable situation. Besides, if I have to be rude, I’d rather be rude on the phone with the person that’s inviting me, rather than at her table, in front of all her guests.
Agreed, but I believe that asking to go somewhere else when someone picks a restaurant that serves nothing I’ll eat is acceptable.
Agreed. I’ll do the best I can with what I’m served.
Agreed.
Fine. Yes, I can help it. Yes, it’s under my control. I choose not to control it. I will not spend my life eating foods I don’t like to make everyone else’s lives easier. If that makes me a rude, insane, unreasonable bitch, so be it. I’ll be sure to politely decline any dinner to which you invite me, because as much as I may like you, your company is not worth my misery.
Really, I don’t think we disagree on most issues. I suspect that you think I’m ruder than I am, and I think you’re attacking my behavior more than you are. A picky eater must remember that she is the one with the problem, and should do everything in her power to keep it from inconveniencing other people. It is unacceptable to be rude. It is unacceptable to whine. It is unacceptable to be demanding. When someone serves you dinner, it is polite to eat as much as you can of what you’ve been served. If you can’t live within these social guidelines, don’t eat in social situations. I think the only place where we really differ (and forgive me if I’m wrong, or if I’ve misinterpreted what you’ve said) is that I don’t think I should feel obligated to eat something I find abhorrent (and I differentiate between what I mildly dislike and what I find abhorrent.) If my entire meal is filled with food I find abhorrent, I’m not eating, however rude you may find it. I find it rude that you didn’t care enough about my comfort to ensure that you served at least one thing I can eat. Why are you inviting me to eat with you if you have no interest in me enjoying myself? (Again, this is a general “you.”)
Inclusive or.
Weird requests (such as macaroni salad pizzas) screw up the kitchen. When I eat out with my food issues friends, it isn’t at all unusual for none of us to get cheese on our salad because one person has said “no cheese.” Did the kitchen screw up? - yep. Are the chances that the kitchen screws up my food better with your weird food requests? - in my experience, yes. Is that a buzzkill - well, it depends - are you providing me with good company so that I’m willing to overlook not having the food I want (or having it with a large delay), or have you made the meal to this point so unpleasant that I’m at the end of my rope before the kitchen screws up.
As a former cook, I feel obligated to put in a word in defnse of kitchens. I know from experience that when something like the pizza mistake happens, it’s more often because the server was unclear in notating or communicating the order, than the the kitchen screwed up. You get a ticket that says "two small pizza’s, NO TOMATOES,’ and you assume the notation is for both pizzas.
It’s not always the cook’s fault.
But you Gunnery Sergeant Hartmans will never be satisfied. There was a thread a few months ago in which some guy was griping about his “picky-eating nephew” on the grounds that he would eat half of something he didn’t especially care for, but when he had mac and cheese, he would gobble it down and ask for seconds. This was somehow a problem. You people say we should choke down a few bites, but when we do, it still counts as not eating.
And it’s funny that people were talking about corn and rolls, because I will never forget the church sing, after which there was a buffet. I didn’t want most of what was being served, probably chicken and ribs, so I got corn and rolls and cornbread, and a piece of cake for dessert. I ended up as full as I needed to be, and I still had must have been twenty different people asking, “Why didn’t you eat anything?” Because if your plate does not start out overlapped at the edges with food, and end up bare, you didn’t eat. Granted, that may have partly been a church people thing. But it’s happened other times, like the guy who couldn’t believe I was scraping the garlic shreds off my fries (not spitting them out and piling them on my knee, mind you; just using a fork). “Just eat it!” “No, I don’t want to fart all night, thank you.” My business? Heck no! You people always make it your business.
Diogenes, suppose you took one of those people out of their tin shack in Liberia and brought them to, say, Boston. If someone has never seen a lobster, and doesn’t know it’s supposed to be the gold standard of dining, they may not find it appealing. They may even be intimidated by it. I mean, look at the flippin’ thing. It looks like it wants to eat you. Don’t assume that a starving person will love everything you put in front of them. What they probably want is more of what they like and are familiar with, not more of just anything.
**Kairos ** (and other extremely picky eaters), don’t you think that the gagging is a bit weird? I mean, even foods to which I have a deep-seating moral opposition, even foods to which I’m allergic, I wouldn’t gag on them if they wound up in my mouth by accident. I absolutely hate and cannot digest green peppers. I find them in my food all the time. They have ruined meals for me on numerous occasions. But I haven’t gagged on them. Only foods that are spoiled would cause that to happen.
I have seen little kids doing that gagging thing when they are eating something they don’t like. It makes me want to kick their asses. It’s brinksmanship, plain and simple. “You don’t want me to GAG, do you? 'Cauze I’ll BARF right on the table.” Would you actually, literally gag, making that little “bleh” sound and everything, if you put food in your mouth that you didn’t like at someone’s dinner table? Don’t you think that’s a bit of an extreme reaction? And not totally normal?
It’s not common, but yes, it happens. For example - I was out to dinner with my parents and my boyfriend-at-the-time. We were celebrating my boyfriend’s new job, so he picked the restaurant - Outback Steak House. Everyone else ordered steak, I ordered a salad. The boyfriend tasted his steak, said it was delicious, and asked if I wanted a taste. He knew I didn’t eat red meat as a rule, but he also knew that I occasionally like the flavor of beef, so his offer wasn’t rude, and he wouldn’t have been offended if I’d said no.
I accepted the bite. I found the steak to be incredibly tough and stringy, and (since most of my issues are with texture) I found myself gagging. I didn’t make a fuss, I didn’t make obnoxious noises. I kept my face as straight as possible, excused myself to the restroom, and spit the steak into a wad of toilet paper once I was in a stall.
Do I think that’s normal? I don’t know…judging from the reactions I’ve gotten, I guess it’s not, but I’ve always been like that.
Did I exaggerate a bit in saying that if forced to eat objectionable food I’d throw up on the table? Yes, probably. I have more self control than that. If somehow forced to eat something that I strongly object to, would I be nauseated, fearful that I might vomit, and possibly gagging? Yes, which I why I do everything in my power to NOT have to eat those extremely objectionable foods. So far, I’ve not been forced to eat any of them since I was nine.
Rubystreak, I hope you’re not under the impression that no one over the age of one has ever gagged involuntarily. I had a gagging incident once, involving pizza that had an enormous amount of cheese on it, and it was not voluntary and highly embarrassing. It was either choke, or get up and run to the powder room and literally dig the cheese out of my uvula with my fingers. But I did gag before I left the table. If you were there, I guess you would have called me a weirdo and kicked my ass. However, it was not a matter of not liking the pizza; I physically could not swallow it.
Break up. You won’t be happy. She won’t be happy. Since it bothers you that much, the relationship is through.
If you don’t like the way she goes about it sometimes, fair enough. Probably a bit over the top. But this will get worse and you will ended up killing each other.
Frankly, as a picky eater I would have broken up with you if I sensed that you were uncomfortable with my eating habits. If I order a taco and I get a shred of lettuce in the taco, I have to pick it out. When I have eaten the lettuce in a taco, the taste stays in my mouth and I can’t enjoy the rest of the meal. If I get a pizza and they drop a green pepper in the pie by accident, I avoid the whole section. That flavor stays in the pizza and its foul. Someone who enjoys all kinds of food is utterly incapable of understanding what its like to not have a taste for many things.
When you are a picky eater, you grow up with people telling you to just try things. Judgmental assholes almost shame you into eating things. So you do try things and you get pissed off when you don’t like it. Once you are an adult, you decide that you will eat whatever the hell you want.
Wasn’t there some study a while back about how some people are “super tasters”, and that some foods really do make them sick?
My mother is picky, although she’s very polite about it. Her problem is that she has a VERY sensitive digestive system, and often she will end up getting sick afterwards. She hates this, and she wishes it were otherwise, but there are some foods she just can’t eat.
I don’t think it’s right to expect people to make themselves SICK just because you think they should eat everything that’s there. If someone eats the sides, and leaves say, the main dish, what of it? As I like to say-hey, more for me! It’s just FOOD people.
No wonder picky eaters are often so defensive.
I had a gaging incident with a raw prawn that was bigger than I thought. I popped it in my mouth and started masticating it around and suddenly realized it was much too big and needed to be out of my mouth RIGHT NOW. I spat it into my napkin as quietly and unobtrusively as I could, but I was still mortified. Fortunatly I was with my family and they forgive that sort of thing.
What the hell? Choking on food that sticks to your uvula is not the same as, “the texture of this food is simply unacceptable to my tongue.” Please do not needlessly associate your legitimate choking incident with someone gagging inexplicably, seemingly for aesthetic reasons alone. It makes you sound defensive when no one is actually attacking you.
Liberia is a coastal country. The city I lived in, Monrovia, was a coastal city. Lobster was like chicken there, as was anything else they could catch in the ocean (not that they were feasting on seafood, just that they considered themselves lucky if they caught a lobster or a crab or a barracuda.
And no, they aren’t squeamish. When it’s a choice between eating what you’ve got or dying, you eat it and you like it. There wasn’t much, if anything, they wouldn’t eat when offered. They ate grasshoppers, snails, dogs and cats, any kind of edible plant. Whatever they could get, they mixed it with rice and they ate it. They weren’t just hungry, they were literally starving to death. Distended stomachs, hollow eyes, flies on the face, the whole Sally Struthers routine. I actually saw dead bodies of children who had starved to death. It was more than 20 years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. Once you see that stuff for real, not on TV, right in front of you, it changes a lot of your attitudes about whther it’s really going to kill you to pick the onions off a cheeseburger or eat some chunky peanut butter.
I went to a private international school in Monrovia. We used to have lunch outside. Little kids would swarm around and beg for food. I didn’t eat lunch for two years. I gave it away every day. I wasn’t the only one. We weren’t being selfless or noble. It was no sacrifice for us. It was just what you HAD to do if you had any humanity at all. The worst part, the thing I hope I never have to experience again, is that you have to choose which kids you think look hungriest. It sucked. There was never enough food. We were spitting in the ocean. We weren’t saving any of them, we just knew we had no right to eat in front of them.
People brought all kinds of food. You name it, they brought it. Like I said it was an international school, so kids were bringing every kind of ethnic cuisine you can think of. I never saw a single kid turn down anything that was offered.
Obsessively picky eating is a phenomenon only for people who have never gone hungry.
While I can’t say this isn’t sometimes true, I can definitely say it’s not always true. As I mentioned upthread, I was an extremely picky eater as a child. I wasn’t trying to get attention or be difficult (although, like any kid, I could sometimes be a bit of a drama queen), I simply hated the taste (and to some extent, texture) of a lot of foods, some of which would make me gag. It was an involuntary reaction to the flavor, like trying to drink seawater.
The super taster theory would make sense to me, as the foods I hated the most were the ones which tended to have the sharpest, strongest flavors, and my favorite foods tended to be pretty bland. As I got older, my taste buds changed, and now I’d say there’s only a small handful of foods I would say I don’t care for, and nothing I won’t eat to be polite. In fact, most of my favorite foods now are things I would have shuddered at when I was younger.
So I’ve seen both sides – I know how agonizing it is to navigate a world in which most everything tastes awful to you, and I know how annoying it is to want to eat good food and be restricted by someone who refuses to try anything outside of their comfort zone. I love to eat now, and if I hadn’t been a picky child I probably would share a lot of the opinions expressed in this thread about picky eaters. It’s hard to really understand if you haven’t been there.
How true. It’s funny how you don’t see these things in third world countries, but it’s rampant in first world countries. Another thing you don’t see in third world countries: eating disorders. Hoo boy growing up in Thailand and seeing a starving child stare at you while you’re eating a meal at a street vendor is depressing. It’s especially depressing when you you see the richer kids pick and choose which flavor of candy or ice cream they want from a street cart when you know that hungry kid would love a taste of any flavor at all.
It’s too bad that it’s the rich people who have the luxury of choosing not to eat food when there are people who want the luxury of eating period.
That’s not true. A study in Ghana found that, of 668 female students at a secondary school in rural Ghana, six of them were underweight because of self-imposed diets. It’s not as prevalent in Third World countries as it is in First World countries, but it does exist.
Hmmmm… obese huh? Imagine if she ate EVERYTHING. Maybe being a little picky is a good thing. I don’t know how healthy her diet is though. Sounds like she’s maybe not picky enough.
Spitting out chunks of peanut butter on her lap is not a pleasant thing to watch though. 
Sadly, Picky Eaters are generally confined to simple foods. Simple foods tend to be starchy, fat-laden, and generally caloric. For years, I resisted dieting because I didn’t want to follow a menu that called for kale and plain yogurt and like that. Then I wised up and started reading the nutritional info on the foods that I do like. Now I weigh the same as when I was 21.
I never seem to hear about Picky Eaters who only eat at five-star restaurants. No wait, one: the late Zenster, who wouldn’t eat a four-hour-old sandwich or allow a frozen pizza in his house. Though I’m not sure anyone ever called him a Picky Eater. Similarly, does anyone ever talk about a Picky Eater who only eats steamed broccoli, brown rice and non-fat milk? Selection bias? If a Picky Eater is able to present hirself as a connoisseur or virtuously health-conscious, does that exempt them from the Picky Eater PITA category?
As far as that goes, Dio and Penchan, if you have a choice about what you eat, is it unconscionable to choose to eat healthy, even though there’s perfectly good junk food right in front of you that a starving person would kill for? Do we really have to eat everything in order to bring balance to the Force?
That’s one EXTREMELY small study in a country that, while poor beyond the imaginings of the average American, is by no means one of the poorest countries in west Africa.
This cite does NOT disprove nor negate DtC’s point. In this small study, only 6 out of 668 girls were on diets in one school in rural Ghana. The article says their fasting was religiously motivated, to show self-control. I wonder if those girls are Muslim-- I have seen kids dealing with Ramadan, and it becomes quite a personal challenge for some. Anyway, Diogenes’ point, that starving people are not picky eaters, is still completely and rather obviously valid.
