I do most of the cooking; my husband is the family baker. Every week, we sit down together with the shopping flier to see what’s on sale and then we plan menus. One of us may have a craving for something, or one of us may want to try something new. We plan the week’s menu together. Then we all go shopping together. Then I cook. I never make something he doesn’t want to eat; there are dozens of things we both like and we’re willing to try new things all the time. The kids can be a problem, but we give them what we eat for the most part (they’re 5 1/2 and 3) and if they don’t want it, there’s always PB&J or Cheerios and fruit. If we’re making something spicy that might be a little too much for them, I’ll make them something else.
I would never make something for dinner without discussing it with my husband first. Why would I make something he wouldn’t want or spring some surprise meal on him? He’s an adult living in my house; he’s got just as much right to eat food he likes as I do.
I’m the breadwinner and the shopper/cook in my uh, family unit. I try to make sure everyone gets some of their favorites, healthy or not. I also make multiple meals sometimes because my husband and I like very spicy food and my mother-in-law can’t handle any spice at all. I always serve fruit and/or veggies. They may not get eaten by anyone but me, but they’re on the table.
This thread made me think though. One thing I’m really bad about is seafood: I despise it in all forms and have a tendency not to buy or prepare anything fish-related more than once every 6 months or so. I need to suck it up and do seafood more often for them.
Oh. My. Goodness. Can I get this engraved in walnut and hung from my dining room ceiling, PLEASE?! That’s my #1 complaint, when the evening goes:
“Any ideas for dinner?”
“Nope.”
“Well, okay, how 'bout XYZ?”
“Whatever.” cook cook cook
before even tasting it: “I don’t like this.”
“I am going to kill you now.”
This thread is ample evidence of one of the major reasons that I think I’ll never marry. A sudden shift to healthful foods at home, and I’d be eating fast food, every night, forever.
Absolutely. I would NEVER arbitrarily tell the household we were changing our eating habits. Whether or not I was a stay at home mom would have absolutely no bearing on it.
While I would never try to force new eating habits on my household without mentioning it first, since I’m the one who does all the cooking and shopping after work and my husband tends to be pretty indecisive, I generally have the most say in what we’re going to eat. I’m always happy to honor requests (whether it’s to buy a frozen pizza or to buy stuff for a salad), but if I don’t get any input, I’ll tend toward the healthier end of the spectrum. If I get complaints after the fact, my husband is welcome to cook what he wants next time.
I do try to take known likes and dislikes into account, but if we’ve had pizza the day before and my husband hints that he’d really like to order Chinese, I usually suggest making a healthier version of what he wanted or ordering it in a few days. My son is 13 months old and I try to make food I’m pretty sure he’ll like, but his tastes change from day to day, so I usually just make whatever and hold the spice for his portion. If he doesn’t like it, he’s welcome to some fruit, bread and cheese (a big favorite for now) or some cereal and yogurt.
It is unreasonable to expect the partner who does the cooking to prepare two separate meals.
Considering the people involved in the OP’s hypothetical are married, they should therefore be adults. Generally speaking, reasonable adults living together come to a compromise where things like cooking are concerned.
I don’t necessarily know that there is a “right” and “wrong”. If one partner has agreed to take full responsibility for a job, it behooves the other partner to let them do it. There are mighty few things more irritating in a marriage than to have your partner agree you’re in charge of a chore and then micromanage you while you perform it. Or wait until you’re done and then bitch about how you performed it.
I think that the person who does the cooking has to have the lion’s share of the decision-making clout in the matter of what gets prepared. They should be taking into account the food preferences of their intended audience, as a courtesy and out of a desire to please their loved ones (just, I might add, their loved ones should be taking into account the feelings of the cook when performing their day-to-day activities), but theirs is the power and the glory. So to speak.
There’s no reason healthy food has to be tasteless (one of the world’s most irritating memes, by the way). So it’s not as if the non-cooking partner is condemned to revolting dinners forever. If the partners cannot agree to a middle-ground compromise sort of situation, there’s always Caerie’s solution of each preparing their own meals.*
Also, I’d like to point out that people who complain about what they’re served after being asked for input and declining to give such can bend right over and kiss my lily-white ass. That particular habit is well and truly obnoxious.
*Note: this does not apply to minor household members. If you’re a kid, your parents get to tell you what they’re making and you get to eat that. One of the sad tragedies of childhood is that you basically have to let your parents decide what kind of food is good for you. Until a child is old enough to prepare his or her own food safely and responsibly, they’re entirely at the mercy of the person who cooks (who is not a short order cook and therefore under no obligation to make special meals for anyone).
Wow, I can’t believe someone tried to fatten you up by sneaking junk into your food. That’s the silliest thing I’ve read in a long time! Having anyone try to sneak stuff into my food would make me mad - doing so to deliberately circumvent something that was important to me would really piss me off. I’m glad you got rid of her.
Oh, no…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive towards you or anything. I was just making a point. I would absolutely be crushed if I had a spouse who did all the cooking and then all the sudden they changed everything and basically told me what I could do with myself if I didn’t like it. I would be just as crushed if I were the stay at home spouse and my SO came home and said, “Hey, look at my tattoo! BTW, we aren’t going to be able to pay the electric bill this month.” I am a firm believer that when you are in a relationship it is all about compromise and that in either extreme the spouse who made a decision without consulting the other is in the wrong. I didn’t mean to be snarky to you. I apologize.
I tried various brands of whole grain pasta, trying to add a bit of fiber to the menu in my one-person household. The “health food” brands generally tasted like shredded Birkenstocks. But with worse texture.
Then I tried DeCecco’s Whole Wheat Spaghetti, since I like the “regular” DeCecco products. It is excellent!
I see this all the time with the women at work. Most of them have only a highschool diploma with a blue-collar or working-class husband. At any one time 90% of them are on weight watcher’s or something similar and they are always complaining about fixing two meals at home - one for their weight-loss program and another for their husband and children.
It’s insanity! These women work full-time. It’s not like a weight-watcher’s diet has to be tasteless, there’s no reason for the whole family to not eat it. Especially when the kids are under 5 - that means the main objector to healthy eating is the husband.
No wonder they can’t keep the weight off. If they’re working 2x as hard to make dinner and they’re still buying junk food for the rest of the family they are bound to fail. There’s just no way to sustain that kind of diet.
I’ve been doing Weight Watchers for (checks time) one week now, and my family loves it! I’ve made some of the tastiest most satisfying meals with a much larger proportion of fresh vegetables than I ever used in the past. You should have seen the toddler scarfing down grilled chicken with chimichurri sauce, roasted tri-color peppers, and corn and black bean salad last night. Who knew it was better tasting than Hamburger Helper and buttermilk biscuits? And it didn’t take any longer to make. (It is, however, quite a bit more expensive, and we’re forced to adjust the budget accordingly. Eating crap is cheap.)
But yeah, I spent a good seven years making them (the family) an excuse not to cook healthier. Turns out I’m the only one who actually liked all those heavy cream sauces and casseroles all along.
I’ve been on WW on and off for… umm… oh dear god, 6 years (this last 2 year stint was a success and has continued to be for a while). I was finally successful when I integrated it into the eating habits of my loved ones etc. Most of them LOVE the stuff I make. Some of it is pricier and some of it is actually cheaper. Whole wheat egg noodles + chicken + a jar of green salsa = spicey tastiness for like 8 dollars for 4 people. I’ve turned my lifestyle change into a math game of money saving and points counting and dear god its the nerdiest fun ever.
As for the OP question, as with many issues relating to cohabitation, there is a happy medium. The cook AND the eaters should all compromise but also this should NOT include lots of complaining on either end. Also, if I’ve learned anything on WW, the people that really love you, support your healthy life choices - if they DEMAND you fry them some chicken, maybe they aren’t the most supportive people (and you should call the mother fuckers on it).