# Is guys that only eat chicken fingers a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 31, 2023, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382 "2023-10-31T17:16:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/61 "2023-11-01T16:09:24Z")
Yes, if used as it is meant to. Neither she nor her doctor did so. She cut out everything from the FODMAP diet that seemed to cause an IBS flare up, until almost nothing was left. Then she just ate that. Her doctor was terrible, thought she was making up symptoms, accused her of ‘just trying to lose weight’, and never checked up on her. She should have sued him, she should have gotten a second opinion, she should have known better – she’s an intelligent educated person – but she didn’t do any of those things. Now she’s a burden and a grief to herself and her family, unfortunately. More to the point of the OP, men as a group are notoriously crappy at taking care of themselves, particularly but certainly not only young ones. This might be part of that curve that shows that people at either extreme of so many parameters, physical, social, and behavioral, are mostly men. But obviously not all. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/62 "2023-11-01T16:09:45Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > This is a disorder with a higher than average number of autistic kids, so the people engaging in this limited eating may in fact be autistic. Anecdotally: I wouldn’t be surprised that the presence of certain kinds of limited eating behaviors, in and of themselves, effectively can be treated as “being on the spectrum” or perhaps more precisely “being neuro-atypical”. Would explain a lot of limited-eating behaviors in my family and in some people we’ve known over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/63 "2023-11-01T16:11:07Z")
And boys are four times more likely to have some degree of autism than girls. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/64 "2023-11-01T16:11:48Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > But how much can a person with normal taste buds _enjoy_ such food without at least drowning it in hot sauce, aïoli, whatever? Succinctly: They have don’t have your taste bud and your response to textures. They don’t have mine, either. They only have the food responses they’ve got – and they have to work within those constraints. I note your use of “normal taste buds” … so I may not be directly addressing your point. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/65 "2023-11-01T16:14:33Z")
I don’t have sensory issues, and it doesn’t occur to me to drown anything in hot sauce. I am perfectly fine eating chicken fingers without aioli, hot sauce, ketchup, cheese, or some other thing smeared on it. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/66 "2023-11-01T16:14:58Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > And boys are four times more likely to have some degree of autism than girls. Also tracks anecdotally from my experiences. Even the neuro-atypical girls & women that we are related to and know are not particularly picky eaters. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/67 "2023-11-01T16:15:35Z")
For our son, it was the earliest sign of autism we had. He was resistant to starting solid foods at 12 months. We put him in feeding therapy for a year and made little progress. I’m not sure what else we can do outside of an inpatient feeding program. Weirdly, there are foods he would eat then, that he won’t now. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/68 "2023-11-01T16:20:28Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Weirdly, there are foods he would eat then, that he won’t now. My son was big on frankfurters\*\* (no bun) for years, up until sometime in middle school. Then one day, he suddenly was tired of them. No longer on the menu, though it wouldn’t surprise me if he ate some while over at other people’s houses. \*\* _We always at least bought him uncured ones. And we compared labels and did the best nutritionally with hot dogs that we could. No cheap, food-color-laden mystery-meat hot dogs … nothing like that._ ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/69 "2023-11-01T16:22:18Z")
> [@susan](#): > > I don’t have sensory issues, and it doesn’t occur to me to drown anything in hot sauce. I am perfectly fine eating chicken fingers without aioli, hot sauce, ketchup, cheese, or some other thing smeared on it. This brings up something opposite of the problem brought up by the original post. Some people (also it seems mostly male) don’t enjoy subtle flavors. They need to add stronger flavors: salt, spice, umami, etc in order to like a food they’re eating. In some cases, they’ll always bring along some favorite add-on they need to put on food. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course; it’s just how their bodies work. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/70 "2023-11-01T16:25:15Z")
Another thing to consider is that your taste preferences can change, for example people who switch to a vegan diet might find the food bland at first, but the longer they eat plant-based the more tasty it becomes. I think it has something to do with gut flora changing what it’s digesting, which affects taste. This might be important info for someone considering a dietary change but who thinks they would be miserable eating that food forever. What you want will change. ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/71 "2023-11-01T16:33:54Z")
My wife and I went out to dinner with our grand daughter and her husband. It at a very nice Italian restaurant. After a minute of looking at the menu, GD’s husband announced there is nothing on the menu he can eat. He supposedly has diverticulitis and can’t eat a long list of foods. He won’t eat any fruits or vegetables and basically lives on cold cereal and McDonalds chicken nuggets. My GD talked to the waitress and figured out something that he could eat, a grilled boneless chicken breast and some mac and cheese from the kids menu. He decided he wouldn’t like any of that and said he would go some place else to find something to eat. He left and walked over a mile to a Burger King and ate an order of their chicken fries for dinner. My GD was very embarrassed by this. She was mad enough that she made him walk back to there home, it was about a 10 mile hike. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/72 "2023-11-01T16:38:24Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > You have no idea what you’re talking about. As the parent of three children, I know exactly what I’m talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/73 "2023-11-01T16:46:22Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > _We always at least bought him uncured ones. And we compared labels and did the best nutritionally with hot dogs that we could. No cheap, food-color-laden mystery-meat hot dogs … nothing like that._ My kid liked hot dogs… but ONLY the hot dogs made at a specific butcher. Store bought ones, even the fancy kosher ones were rejected. Ones from other butcher shops went uneaten. It was this one specific kind or nope. And the one location to buy them is an hour away. So once I stopped working near that place, hot dogs effectively went off the menu. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/74 "2023-11-01T16:52:24Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Anecdotally: I wouldn’t be surprised that the presence of certain kinds of limited eating behaviors, in and of themselves, effectively can be treated as “being on the spectrum” or perhaps more precisely “being neuro-atypical”. Would explain a lot of limited-eating behaviors in my family and in some people we’ve known over the years. Sensory sensitivities are one of the diagnostic criteria for autism, and they have been observed in people with ADHD as well. There’s something about neurodiverse brains that process sensory input differently, and it’s unique to every person. For my son, there’s the texture and smell of food, but also he hates anything touching his face and hands, he can’t see very well in broad daylight when it’s sunny outside, and certain public settings, like the checkout line at a grocery store, send him running. I can’t figure out if it’s the noise or the people, but the poor kid will either crouch on the ground with his hands over his ears, or run away. I have not yet figured out how to help him cope. We’ve got so much going on, for now, we are just avoiding situations that freak him out. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/75 "2023-11-01T16:53:38Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > My kid liked hot dogs… but ONLY the hot dogs made at a specific butcher. One of our dogs was on medication for awhile. My gf was rolling the capsules up in cheese. Good cheese. My good cheese. So I bought a pound of cheap ass cheese for use with the dog’s capsules. The dog would not eat cheap cheese. So, dog got my good cheese and I was stuck eating crap cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/76 "2023-11-01T17:00:28Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > As the parent of three children, I know exactly what I’m talking about. When you have a kid with a serious disability, you may as well throw out the whole standard parenting advice playbook. It gets very complicated very quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/77 "2023-11-01T17:08:46Z")
Remember those episodes of old sitcoms where child won’t clean their plate? Or the English Nanny reality show, they made the kid sit there til they died or the food rotted. 'Cause the kid ate the food, NEVER! It’s a parenting issue when you decide which battle is worth fighting. In your otherwise physically healthy, typical child (non-autistic or ADHD) sometimes it’s easier to give them what they’ll eat. If it’s very disruptive, as at a dinner party or restaurant you prepare them ahead of time. It’s a completely different thing if adult men do this and don’t realize they’re causing themselves trouble. Not to mention being rude to others, in social eating situations. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/78 "2023-11-01T17:14:03Z")
His chicken fingers are especially good because he tenderizes the chicken with hydrofluoric acid and methylamine. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/79 "2023-11-01T17:30:30Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Maybe that’s similar to people who only eat chicken tenders at restaurants, they just want to eat something they know they will enjoy. When we first met him, my son in law would only order chicken fingers at restaurants. Turned out it was only with us ( because we picked up the check) - he was brought up to eat what he ordered , whether he liked it or not and chicken fingers was the safest bet. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382/80 "2023-11-01T17:56:37Z")
Reading the posts since mine above I really wish I could delete it. I thought it was just an emotional/control issue. I had no idea that kids (especially those on the spectrum) had such extreme difficulties tolerating tastes and textures. I can certainly see how that would continue into adulthood. I’m ashamed of my ignorance. Thank you for fighting it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-guys-that-only-eat-chicken-fingers-a-thing/992382.md?page=5)