# Is a high level of irritation with picky eaters ethically or morally wrong?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 2, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955 "2016-04-02T19:00:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/41 "2016-04-04T22:00:30Z")
> [@inedible\_knapsack](#):
>
> I don’t think it’s ethically or morally wrong. In fact, being annoyed by picky eaters seems like a highly evolved social behavior to me. Human beings haven’t always had access to the amounts and varieties of food we have today; I can imagine how it could be beneficial for it to be offensive to the sensibilities of a tribe if foods were rejected for not fitting one’s exact taste preferences. The pressure of the group would encourage the person to eat up in spite of their reservations and thereby get the sustenance they need to not become a liability.
I think you’ve got this the wrong way around. When people only have access to a fairly narrow range of foods and aren’t exposed to much in the way of unfamiliar ingredients or dishes past childhood, there’s not much to be picky _about_. Everyone is _already_ eating like a picky eater, sticking to diet based on a few staple food items prepared more or less the way mother used to make.
I suspect that being annoyed with picky eaters is actually a very recent phenomenon, limited to settings where an abundant quantity and variety of food is readily available. It’s only when eating a lot of different types of food is considered normal that it becomes noticeable that some people don’t like to do this.
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### Author:  [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/42 "2016-04-05T00:01:59Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#):
>
> I’m not talking about the food parcels we hand out, but the free hot meal, prepared from scratch with fresh ingredients, that we also serve for those who want. They are still picky, asking for pasta with/without sauce, with/without cheese on top, no veg, this veg or that veg, refusing down the soup because it has a particular vegetable in it … it’s very disappointing when we take a lot of trouble to produce something that is both nutritious and attractive.
Are you set up to serve the food as they ask? Frankly, unless you’ve got the pasta and the sauce and the cheese and the veg and the second veg and the soup all mixed together in one big pot that you simply scoop out a glop onto a plate, I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.
People do have preferences, and I really don’t think that saying, “No, thank you” to beets on the side, or your special recipe for eggplant and chickpea soup should disappoint you. It leaves more for the people who do like it, and it doesn’t go to waste.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/43 "2016-04-05T01:32:45Z")
> [@inedible\_knapsack](#):
>
> …
> Personally, it annoys me because my grandmother and mother, both raised poor, instilled an appreciation of food in me and didn’t let me get away with deciding to not like foods (as older child, in response to peer pressure from friends who thought collard greens or pickled beets were gross). …
Overall I agree with your post.
Ref the clip above I think it’s sorta funny that somebody named **inedible knapsack** claims to have an adventurous palate. With an adventurous enough palate, _nothing’s_ inedible. Not even an old knapsack. Naming yourself to call attention to things you won’t eat seems kinda … backwards or something?? 🙂
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/44 "2016-04-05T01:47:46Z")
> [@Lamia](#):
>
> I suspect that being annoyed with picky eaters is actually a very recent phenomenon, limited to settings where an abundant quantity and variety of food is readily available. It’s only when eating a lot of different types of food is considered normal that it becomes noticeable that some people don’t like to do this.
I have thought about it this way, too. Several years ago there were a lot of books about how French children are raised to eat everything. One of those books made the mistake of admitting that French cooking uses only about six different flavor boosters, though. It probably \*is \*easy to get children to eat a variety of vegetables, once you’ve convinced them to like vinaigrette. Let’s try sriracha, oyster sauce, or mole on that food though, and see how they react.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/45 "2016-04-05T10:14:45Z")
Well, I know my little attitude I’ve been slowly growing like a seething stalactite is definitely wrong, and not very big of me, and etc. etc., but I canNOT resist commenting here because it happened again just tonight.
I simply can’t bring myself to understand or sympathize with people to whom you serve salsa that you have gone out of your way to tone way, waaaaay down from your usual style. A salsa over which you have wistfully, and with devastating restraint, merely WAVED a jalapeno. No throwing it into the blender whole (let alone adding a second one); no cutting it open, seeding it, and then tossing it in — no, you have wistfully and with remarkable restraint stood ten feet from the blender and whispered “_serrano._”
And these people you serve it to on a taco with molé chicken and Peruvian beans and Mexican sour cream – these people go RUNNING from the room, screaming for water, and tell you their mouth is on fire, it’s burning up. Dear god help me, you have irrevocably seared my flesh.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/46 "2016-04-05T10:34:31Z")
Mole, not molé… hey, if you’re going to be a picky speller, spell it rite!
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### Author:  [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/47 "2016-04-05T11:00:21Z")
> [@octopus](#):
>
> How does it impact any of you what someone else wants to put in his mouth?
Because, on some level, it’s not about what a person puts in their mouth. If you don’t like carrots, then don’t eat carrots. I’m not going to hold your mouth open and shove carrots down your throat.
However, picky eaters often use this to exercise control and dominance over a group where such behaviors are otherwise unacceptable. It’s passive aggression at its best, and people who pull that shit with me don’t get invited out again.
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### Author:  [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/48 "2016-04-05T12:02:42Z")
I’m the Stainless Steel Rat, and I am a picky eater.
As in, I don’t eat Pizza, Chinese, most things with tomato sauce (although I love whole tomatoes) or fish except in extremis. Oh, and Mexican is right out.
Which makes me a whole lot of fun at parties.
What I have learned to do is adapt, and do my level best not to spoil others’ dining pleasures. If the group wants to eat Mexican, we’ll go there, I’ll find a salad or something on the menu I can eat, and I _always take responsibility_ for my actions, in effect “hey, it’s me, I’m not stopping you guys from enjoying your favorite foods. It’s on me.”
And so far it seems to have worked OK, and I’ve even learned to eat a few new dishes in the last few years (I fear my planned vacation to China in 2017 may prove to be testing, however).
But always, it is on me to be polite and do my best NOT to dictate to others. And I think I have done that pretty well.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/49 "2016-04-05T12:31:59Z")
I am a fairly strong supertaster and I get crap from time to time about what I like or not.
_It’s not picky eating._ If it tastes really bad, I don’t want any. And if it’s something that needs to be prepared “just right” or eaten right from the oven or something, no. It’s still bad.
Note that I said “tastes really bad”. I eat a lot of stuff that’s “meh” to “I don’t think it’s going to kill me, I hope.” For example, our tap water. I’m so used to tap water being bad tasting that I don’t use the water filter thing the others in my family use. It takes too long to fill something. I can tell the difference, but it’s just another ugh thing in my book.
OTOH, you have no idea how wonderful chocolate really tastes.
Dear Other People:
It is not your job to give people crap about their taste preferences.
```
---- Signed, People Who Are Different From You.
```
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### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/50 "2016-04-05T12:53:42Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> Mole, not molé… hey, if you’re going to be a picky speller, spell it rite!
Whoops, **Nava** , you are absolutely right. I was hecka bent because nowhere in my character map could I find a font to give me a tilde “n” for spelling jalapeno. \*Aha! \* I thought… _at least I know I can get an accented “e!”_
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/51 "2016-04-05T13:14:04Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> I am a fairly strong supertaster
Self-identified?
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/52 "2016-04-05T13:33:35Z")
> [@brujaja](#):
>
> Whoops, **Nava** , you are absolutely right. I was hecka bent because nowhere in my character map could I find a font to give me a tilde “n” for spelling jalapeno. \*Aha! \* I thought… _at least I know I can get an accented “e!”_
Ah, a common gripe. Yup, that one tends to be a pain to type. The fonts common in corporate environments usually have it, as does this one, and you can type it by holding Alt while typing 164 in your numpad (alt+165 for the cap). The letter appears once you let go of Alt.
For extra fun, áíóú are 160 to 163, but I don’t know where is é hiding… (ETA: 0233 😕 Someone couldn’t count!)
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/53 "2016-04-05T14:51:09Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#):
>
> Because, on some level, it’s not about what a person puts in their mouth. If you don’t like carrots, then don’t eat carrots. I’m not going to hold your mouth open and shove carrots down your throat.
>
> However, picky eaters often use this to exercise control and dominance over a group where such behaviors are otherwise unacceptable. It’s passive aggression at its best, and people who pull that shit with me don’t get invited out again.
People doing it wrong.
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#):
>
> I’m the Stainless Steel Rat, and I am a picky eater.
>
> As in, I don’t eat Pizza, Chinese, most things with tomato sauce (although I love whole tomatoes) or fish except in extremis. Oh, and Mexican is right out.
>
> Which makes me a whole lot of fun at parties.
>
> What I have learned to do is adapt, and do my level best not to spoil others’ dining pleasures. If the group wants to eat Mexican, we’ll go there, I’ll find a salad or something on the menu I can eat, and I _always take responsibility_ for my actions, in effect “hey, it’s me, I’m not stopping you guys from enjoying your favorite foods. It’s on me.”
>
> And so far it seems to have worked OK, and I’ve even learned to eat a few new dishes in the last few years (I fear my planned vacation to China in 2017 may prove to be testing, however).
>
> But always, it is on me to be polite and do my best NOT to dictate to others. And I think I have done that pretty well.
People doing it right.
The individual pickiness isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the issue. It’s using pickiness as an excuse for jerk social behavior which is, and should be, a real issue.
In a society where so much socializing revolves around food, choosing to (or needing to) take extreme dietary positions is going to have extreme consequences unless the extremist takes active measures to blunt his/her social impact on others.
**LSLGuy** , dedicated long-term low-carb eater.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/54 "2016-04-05T14:58:01Z")
Note also that this thread started out by linking to some videos by a picky eater putting his pickiness on display. “Doing it wrong” includes talking, often or at length, about how gross certain foods look or how nasty they taste, to people who don’t share your opinion and haven’t asked for it. In that case the “high level of irritation with picky eaters” is irritation with critical, negative people, particularly people who are critical and negative about something you yourself like.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/55 "2016-04-05T17:52:26Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> How about the reverse? I just got castigated in another thread for eating dumpster food, which was used as a premise for ridiculing my views on a totally unrelated subject…
In general do you find dumpster food more salty than non-dumpster food?
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/56 "2016-04-05T18:42:32Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Note also that this thread started out by linking to some videos by a picky eater putting his pickiness on display. “Doing it wrong” includes talking, often or at length, about how gross certain foods look or how nasty they taste, to people who don’t share your opinion and haven’t asked for it. In that case the “high level of irritation with picky eaters” is irritation with critical, negative people, particularly people who are critical and negative about something you yourself like.
But also note that, if you click on a link that says, “Watch this guy eat a banana for the first time,” his opinion on bananas cannot accurately be called unsolicited.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/57 "2016-04-05T18:49:35Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> You must know, then, that much of the food distributed by a food bank is horribly processed food, with very high salt content among other things. Your clients concerned about their own health and nutrition have a right to be picky. They might be better off going hungry, than eating a box of generic mac and cheese-like substance. Or a tin of beans containing more than the RDA of sodium in a single can.
Sodium is not the danger it’s cracked up to be. For most adults, there’s no real danger.
> **[It's Time to End the War on Salt](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/)**
>
> The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science
_This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous._
Not to mention Kraft Mac &Che has only 1/4 your daily supply of sodium.
---
### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/58 "2016-04-05T18:51:52Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#):
>
> I don’t get irritated with the pickiness. I get irritated with bad behavior.
>
> I get that people have allergies and sensitivities and religious needs, and that they’re responsible for making sure their needs are met, and I can’t exactly fault someone for being a pain in the ass if eating tomatoes or whatever will result in their brutal, untimely demise. Or violent diarrhea, or whatever other problems they’ll have if they eat something they shouldn’t. I can’t even fault people who refuse food they don’t like, as long as they’re polite about it. A simple “No, thanks” works just fine.
>
> On the other hand, people who use their pickiness or food issues to justify passive-aggressive, controlling, and manipulative behavior have earned my irritation. If you’re a vegetarian, the group is happy to accommodate by going to a restaurant that has vegetarian options. But if you’re insisting that we go to a vegetarian restaurant because you’re a vegetarian, well, I guess you’re not going to dinner with us.
Yeah, it used to be that for a game, we’d order pizza, and yes, one might be plain cheese, another veggie (and several with meat). But now somebody thinks they are gluten intolerant (unlikely), another cant eat cheese, another tomato sauce, and so forth.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/59 "2016-04-05T18:52:52Z")
You should not be hanging out with those people.
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### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2016, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-a-high-level-of-irritation-with-picky-eaters-ethically-or-morally-wrong/750955/60 "2016-04-05T18:53:21Z")
(“_**when your chicken is tossed
with a chocolatey sauce,
that’s a molé…**_”)
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