# Help settle a disagreement... how do you eat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 3, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985 "2019-06-03T22:03:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/41 "2019-06-04T18:59:56Z")
If I’m in public and it’s a basic meat/potato/vegetable type meal, I eat alternating bites. In the privacy of my own home, I would cut up the meat and mix everything together before eating it. What can I say, I like casseroles so I try to turn everything into one. I do eat the dessert separately, I’m not crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2019, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/42 "2019-06-04T23:23:14Z")
Your wife is right, but Talapia is Trash-Fish, and nobody should eat it, in any order. ---
**Author:** ![Stuntman\_Mike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stuntman_mike/32/334_2.png) [@Stuntman\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuntman_Mike)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/43 "2019-06-05T00:36:28Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Your wife is right, but Talapia is Trash-Fish, and nobody should eat it, in any order. Yummy li’l suckers nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/44 "2019-06-05T01:48:45Z")
> [@Stuntman\_Mike](#): > > In front of you is a dinner plate on which sits a portion of carrots, a portion of green beans and a portion of tilapia. In what order do you consume the food? Kill the green beans, marry the carrots, fuck the tilapia. Am I doing this right?😕 ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/45 "2019-06-05T02:09:20Z")
Vegetables first. Then the entree and starch starting and ending with the entree (unless the starch is some sort of bread and I’m sopping gravy.) I save one bite of whatever thing I liked the most for the very last bite. Why are you looking at me like that? ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/46 "2019-06-05T02:21:50Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Neither of you is doing it wrong. You’re just doing it differently. What, are you some sort of crazy person? This is The Internet…there is no room for _compromise_! Someone must be right (typically the “speaker”), and someone must be **wrong** (most likely “everyone else on the planet”). As to the OP: I eat a little of one thing, then a little of the next. Except for when I mix a bit everything together in the same bite. And sometimes, I eat all of one thing, then all of something else. It all depends on what the dishes are, how much I like or dislike each of them, my general mood, etc. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/47 "2019-06-05T02:37:31Z")
If possible, I actually mix everything together, in a sort of melange. Especially if one ingredient is mashed potatoes. I’ve always done this, even as a young kid (and gotten yelled at for it). Otherwise, I take equal amounts of each item, ending with the one I like most. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/48 "2019-06-05T04:05:59Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > If possible, I actually mix everything together, in a sort of melange. Especially if one ingredient is mashed potatoes. I’ve always done this, even as a young kid (and gotten yelled at for it). Have you been teaching my kids how to eat? The love that, and try to get milk into everything. My wife can’t stand it but I pretend to not notice. I tend to eat things in turn rather than finish one item first. The exception are hamburgers. I usually have salad and for some reason eat it first, despite eating salads together with other non hamburger meals. People are weird. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/49 "2019-06-05T04:20:27Z")
There are exceptions, but generally I don’t even have more than one thing on my plate at a time. If I’m having a steak, I have a hunk of meat on my plate and that’s it, and that’s going to be my entire meal until the next meal, at which point I might eat, say, a bowl of garbanzos. ---
**Author:** ![Thylacine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thylacine/32/1143_2.png) [@Thylacine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thylacine)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/50 "2019-06-05T05:30:38Z")
> [@48Willys](#): > > Start with dessert first. I was at a small conference once where we were all asked to introduce ourselves with name, workplace and a personal motto or quote that was meaningful to us. There were gasps when I named the psychiatric unit of the max security prison but I knew I was the coolest kid in the room when they all sprinted to the plate of brownies at lunchtime quoting my “life is uncertain, eat dessert first” 🙂 As the cook of the house I tend to present the vegetables already mixed with the starch if there is one be it mashed spuds or cheesy pasta or rice, otherwise they tend to not get eaten. I’ll eat some of that then a bite of meat or put it all together on my splayd (like a spork but much better, we rarely use forks). My partner seems to mostly leave the meat/fish/chicken for last, I think to get rid of the vegetables before the preferred flesh. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/51 "2019-06-05T11:30:12Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > My wife can’t stand it but I pretend to not notice. Does it send her into a violent rage, like it did my father (along with many other things)? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/52 "2019-06-05T14:25:56Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > What, are you some sort of crazy person? This is The Internet… Of course I’m some sort of crazy person; I’m on The Internet, aren’t I? ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/53 "2019-06-05T16:26:49Z")
Funny thing about meals is that they’re (usually) served hot, and get lukewarm-cold long before the meal ends, but if they started out lukewarm they’d be unpalatable. Why aren’t heated dishes a thing? ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/54 "2019-06-05T16:34:15Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > IIRC, Archie and The Meathead once got into this very same disagreement. I seem also to remember those two getting into an argument because Meathead put on a sock then a shoe, then the other sock then a shoe. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/55 "2019-06-05T16:50:00Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > I seem also to remember those two getting into an argument because Meathead put on a sock then a shoe, then the other sock then a shoe. Shoebootie! ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/56 "2019-06-05T17:00:57Z")
One, I would probably avoid the situation as I hate fish for the most part, but we’ll say a gun’s to my head. Fish-\>Carrot-\>Green beans. If I do not like something that’s on my plate, I will eat it first so that’s not the last thing on my palate and mind. If I love something on my plate, and am somewhat indifferent to everything else, I will eat the thing I love first as well. Like, say, a steak and potatoes. Steak comes first. And I MUST eat a salad first before anything if it’s available. I know in some places it’s customary to eat the salad last and that’s just bizarre to me. I rarely mix the centerpiece food with the sides. For fast food I tend to eat fries last as those taste less gross cooled off than a hamburger. Fries also tend to be very hot when you first get them and I don’t like to burn my mouth for obvious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985/57 "2019-06-05T21:52:27Z")
Some from column A, some from column B, some from column C, set to “shuffle” and repeat [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-settle-a-disagreement-how-do-you-eat/834985.md?page=2)