# Picky eaters:what is the mildest, most unassuming food ingredient you or the person you know has been too picky to tolerate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [February 3, 2022, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862 "2022-02-03T17:34:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/61 "2022-02-04T20:31:40Z")
> [@TimfromNapa](#): > > I have a life-long aversion to fresh tomatoes. I love tomato sauces. I enjoy them sun-dried, I, strangely, enjoy salsa as long as it is made with lots of onions and chilies. However, I don’t even like thinking about sinking my teeth into a fresh, ripe tomato. I don’t even like chunks of them in pasta sauce. None of this makes any sense, but it is what it is. I am often envious of tomato lovers since they get joy bordering on ecstasy from them. > [@pulykamell](#): > > If it makes you feel any better, that’s a pretty common aversion, in my experience. (I love tomatoes in all forms but I’ve come across at least a dozen or two people who don’t like them fresh but otherwise are fine with them.) I stated it before here, I’m one of those people who love everything made from tomatoes, but find raw tomatoes repulsive. It’s the skin, the texture and the seeds (I hate biting accidentally on tomato seeds). I have a traumatic anecdote: when one of my best friends had a new girlfriend (she’s now his wife with three kids), I was invited to his place for dinner. Now I’m a vegetarian, which my friend told her at last minute, so she had to improvise to make something palatable for me (btw, she’s Sicilian and thinks I’m crazy for my vegetarianism…), so she made me fresh tomatoes with mozzarella and some dressing. Besides the fact that raw mozzarella is the blandest cheese I can imagine (it tastes like old gum without any flavor), this was to my horror, because I knew that out of courtesy, I had to eat some of those tomatoes, which I did. I had to hold my breath and swallow whole tomato quarters, otherwise I would have gagged. A traumatic experience. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/62 "2022-02-05T00:03:47Z")
Generally, eggs (not as an ingredient in pastry, etc. Just in a form where they are recognizeable as eggs, i.e., hard-boiled, scrambled, whatever). I find them to be rather putrid. I could force myself to eat them and may find them borderline-tolerable in some recipes (e.g. a ham and egg omlete), but will generally try to avoid them. I have already mentioned on these forums that I am utterly repulsed by mayonnaise (another egg-based food). Generally, I don’t care much for white sauces, but mayo is just rancid. I am amazed at how many people seem to like it. I don’t think I’m _that_ picky of an eater. I am somewhat set in my ways, but am not outright repulsed by that many things. My father is pickier. he eats very little meat, preferring to live on a diet of bread, yogurt and fruit. He has a longtime revulsion to poultry and fish. One time, my mother requested some roast chicken from the buffet at the supermarket. My father was so repulsed at the thought of just picking it up for her during a shopping trip, that I was asked to go and buy it. How’s that for the mildest, most assuming food someone can’t tolerate? ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/63 "2022-02-05T00:30:43Z")
I love raisins, but only as an ingredient. Just eating raisins by themselves doesn’t work at all. Discounting foods that are avoided for allergies, everything else is a texture thing except for cilantro. Might as well use Tide laundry detergent as an ingredient. Chunks of fat trigger my gag reflex. Grits are right outta there for texture. Oddly enough, Malt-o-Meal and oatmeal are fine. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/64 "2022-02-05T00:51:00Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I’m not a picky eater at all. I will eat pretty much anything. Even as a child, I was pretty adventurous in what I was willing to eat. > > Except mayonnaise. Something about the combination of taste and texture makes me gag and become nauseous. There are a _few_ things I can tolerate with mayonnaise, like a freshly made aioli. But I can’t even really tolerate mayonnaise based dressings, like most ranches. We’re birds of a feather here. I was and still am very adventurous in my palette, but a mild item like mayonnaise makes me actually gag. The taste, the smell, even the sight. The only time I’ve ever had it ( unbeknownst to me until later ) and not gagged was when someone made grilled “Mexican corn” with it, but of course being applied thinly, heated and awash with spices, my nose, taste buds and stomach did not detect it. Mayonnaise based dressings gross me out as much as if one were to upend a jar of mayo on a salad. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/65 "2022-02-05T00:59:47Z")
I really don’t care for okra or eggplant. Liver is also nasty. The textures of all of them put me off. It was a long time before I liked yogurt. I’ve never tried raw oysters but I’m dubious. I don’t like flan or custard, either. And flavor-wise, I really don’t care for black licorice, anise, and fennel. ---
**Author:** ![mtnmatt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@mtnmatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mtnmatt)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/66 "2022-02-05T01:02:04Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > > [@k9bfriender](#): > > > > I’m not a picky eater at all. I will eat pretty much anything. Even as a child, I was pretty adventurous in what I was willing to eat. > > > > Except mayonnaise. Something about the combination of taste and texture makes me gag and become nauseous. There are a _few_ things I can tolerate with mayonnaise, like a freshly made aioli. But I can’t even really tolerate mayonnaise based dressings, like most ranches. > > We’re birds of a feather here. > > I was and still am very adventurous in my palette, but a mild item like mayonnaise makes me actually gag. The taste, the smell, even the sight. The only time I’ve ever had it ( unbeknownst to me until later ) and not gagged was when someone made grilled “Mexican corn” with it, but of course being applied thinly, heated and awash with spices, my nose, taste buds and stomach did not detect it. Mayonnaise based dressings gross me out as much as if one were to upend a jar of mayo on a salad. My child so abhors mayonnaise that she can’t even stand the _sound_ of me stirring it into my tuna salad. I have had to resort to singing while I’m prepping it so she’s not revolted. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2022, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/67 "2022-02-05T03:54:02Z")
> [@susan](#): > > As a therapist working with people who have severe health issues and frequently have been prescribed a diet by their medical team, I am astonished by how many people “hate water.” A lot of water tastes bad – city water because it’s got chlorine in it; bottled water I don’t know why, but most of it tastes bad to me. Luckily, I very much like the water from my house well. The bland thing I won’t eat is spaghetti. It’s not the taste, it’s the texture. I don’t like celery, either; but that’s a flavor thing, and it’s not as bad as spaghetti. My sister doesn’t want to eat anything with any heat at all (well, except standard temperature heat.) > [@mtnmatt](#): > > one relatively bland thing I cannot abide is green peppers. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > bell pepper Do you mean sweet peppers, or green peppers specifically? Green sweet peppers (whether bell or cubanelle or whatever shape) aren’t ripe. Ripe sweet peppers are red, or yellow/gold/orange, or in rare cases brown. The flavor of ripe ones is entirely different (and the nutritional value’s higher.) > [@TimfromNapa](#): > > I have a life-long aversion to fresh tomatoes. I love tomato sauces. When I was a child, I liked raw tomatoes just fine, but I couldn’t stand tomato sauce. It made me nauseated. Now I love them both; undoubtedly partly because my parents had the sense to not try to make me eat tomato sauce when I couldn’t bear it. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/68 "2022-02-05T04:17:39Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > Celery – too stringy. This is it for me. And not just celery, but anything that has or can have a stringy or fibrous texture – asparagus, broccoli stems, orange segments that haven’t been completely picked over. I have the same issue with meat that’s stringy like pot roast or shredded chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/69 "2022-02-05T04:18:05Z")
I’m not a picky eater, but I hate ginger! Raw, cooked or pickled. Chinese cold ginger chicken is the work of the devil! ;-p Oddly, I used to drink ginger ale and gingersnaps, until one day it dawned on me…IT’S IN THE NAME! Ugh. Ironically, I’m Okinawan/Japanese and ginger is a staple, sometimes the only seasoning in Okinawan cooking. Luckily it’s pretty rare in Hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/70 "2022-02-05T04:18:29Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Do you mean sweet peppers, or green peppers specifically? I mean both. I’m actually okay with very fresh, raw, green peppers. But if they get old, or are cooked, or ripen, they develop a flavor I intensely dislike. My tomato story is that as a kid, i liked fresh tomatoes, and i liked my dad’s tomato soup, but i hated tomato sauce. I recognized this was weird, but i really really hated tomato sauce even though that didn’t make sense. Then i married a man who’s loved tomato sauce. So we investigated why i didn’t like it. It turns out that cooked bell pepper is a common ingredient in tomato sauce (but not soup). And that’s actually what i hated, not the tomato. So now i eat tomato sauce. But when i buy a can of plain tomato sauce, i check the ingredients. A lot of brands include bell pepper. I don’t but those brands. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/71 "2022-02-05T04:19:36Z")
> [@Didi44](#): > > I hate ginger! And i adore ginger! I’ve even chewed on a raw ginger root. ---
**Author:** ![Didi44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@Didi44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Didi44)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/72 "2022-02-05T04:20:53Z")
If we ever meet face to face, please face away when talking to me. LOL ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/73 "2022-02-05T04:22:08Z")
Okay. So long as you promise not to bring a stuffed pepper into any room I’m in. 😉 My husband and i have a deal. He can eat raw onion and garlic, and i can eat fish ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/74 "2022-02-05T04:43:44Z")
On my first trip to Toronto, my daughter and I went to a Chinese restaurant run by real Chinese, where we ordered a chicken and broccoli dish. We each took a bite and couldn’t figure out what was making it taste so weird. My guess was that some Joy liquid got into the wok while it was cooking. [![](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5rQAAOSwwIZXTGo-/s-l400.jpg) ](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5rQAAOSwwIZXTGo-/s-l400.jpg) Of course, it was fresh ginger. 😳 Oddly enough, I was put up at the Warsaw Airport Marriott a few years ago when my LOT connecting flight arrived late. While I was there, I got a free meal at its posh restaurant, where I was served the chef’s special soup, which tasted great. It took me a few minutes to identify the magic ingredient. Of course, it was fresh ginger. Go figure! 😋 ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/75 "2022-02-05T11:10:23Z")
I can’t stand jello. Don’t care what flavor it is, I don’t like it. I do like pudding and gummi-type candy, but not jello. Both my mother and my husband don’t like celery. My mom doesn’t like the stringy-ness, and my husband doesn’t like the bitter taste. He also doesn’t like green bell peppers, and prefers the red ones over the yellow ones. Hubby also doesn’t eat egg dishes, but will eat meringue, and creme brulee. I have a friend who is okay with onion taste, but can’t tolerate the texture. So she’ll ask for onion sauce without the onion bits. She also doesn’t do a lot of foods as she is a supertaster. I don’t consider blueberries strong tasting, but she does. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/76 "2022-02-05T17:43:35Z")
> [@mtnmatt](#): > > My child so abhors mayonnaise that she can’t even stand the _sound_ of me stirring it into my tuna salad. I have had to resort to singing while I’m prepping it so she’s not revolted. Me too! 🙂 My mother _loved_ the stuff and would use gobs of it. I still remember ( and recoil in horror still ) the way she would spread it on something so thick she may have just as used a trowel, and that _slickety sclicky slick_ sound it made as she spread it about. Sounded like somebody spackling a wall. I wish it were spackle…the smell ( and taste ) would be less revolting to me. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/77 "2022-02-05T18:35:21Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The bland thing I won’t eat is spaghetti. It’s not the taste, it’s the texture. Heh, I love spaghetti\*\*\*, but I don’t like linguine (and I hate fettucine). People think it’s weird because it’s essentially the same thing in a different shape, but I just don’t like flat noodles. And I love chow mein, but hate chow fun. Once the noodles get really wide – like lasagne noodles – then I like it again. It’s weird. \*\*\* CPK has a dish called Chicken Tequila Fettucine. I _always_ substitute spaghetti. It’s now an option on the DoorDash menu I like to think because of me. 🙃 > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Green sweet peppers (whether bell or cubanelle or whatever shape) aren’t ripe. Ripe sweet peppers are red, or yellow/gold/orange, or in rare cases brown. My sister just made chili yesterday and was lamenting that she’d forgotten to buy bell peppers for it. I missed them, too. We both really like green bell peppers. I’m o.k. with the red or yellow, but she finds them way too sweet. She’ ll never substitute red for green in any recipe. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/78 "2022-02-05T19:21:38Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > [https://www.food.com/recipe/miracle-whip-from-mayonnaise-267595](https://www.food.com/recipe/miracle-whip-from-mayonnaise-267595) Well, this is interesting! I have always (on no evidence whatsoever) thought of miracle whip as mere low-rent mayonnaise. Kind of like how people turn up their noses at american (should I have capitalized that?) cheese, when it’s usually just a cheddar with a melty-chem treatment. Gonna try this! Thanks! Dan ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/79 "2022-02-05T19:22:20Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > She’ ll never substitute red for green in any recipe. That’s sensible. I find them quite different. If I want grassy green pepper flavor in a dish, I can’t use yellow or red pepper. Similarly, roasted green pepper (which is good in its own right) will not do where roasted red pepper and its sweetness is the point. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862/80 "2022-02-05T19:25:55Z")
Right. The reds and yellows have a sweetness that can completely unbalance a dish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/picky-eaters-what-is-the-mildest-most-unassuming-food-ingredient-you-or-the-person-you-know-has-been-too-picky-to-tolerate/958862.md?page=5)