We need a word for "an adult who eats like a picky toddler."

In My Humble Opinion
241

I once agreed to go to a steakhouse with a group of friends, because one of them who was trying to cut out calories (and also kind of reluctantly agreed) said she’d order the baked potato with her meal, and give it to me, and I figured I’d order a salad a la carte, with cottage cheese, or something.

Well, to things happened. One was that when we asked for the baked potato to be on a separate plate, they charged us a $2 “sharing” fee, that they add whenever adults share an entree, and then they served it to me with gravy on it, even though I had asked for no such thing, and when I tried to send it back, they said they would charge us the $2 fee again. I insisted on talking to the manager, and since no one who ordered the baked potato on the plate with the steak got gravy on it, he agreed to give me a new one, and I told him not to put anything on it, just bring some butter on the side. They brought sour cream on the side as well, even though I had said probably five times I didn’t want sour cream-- in fact, the manager’s excuse for the gravy was that they assumed I wanted it since I asked for no sour cream. That, in spite of the fact that I had told the server I was a vegetarian in case there were any entrees they could make vegetarian (there weren’t).

I’m just saying it’s not always so easy to get a restaurant to go along with some kind of special request, when the restaurant itself has a very narrow focus. When you want to go to a place like that, you ought to look for people who like that kind of food, rather than gather a big group, and then push for some kind of restaurant with a narrow selection.

I eat a lot of things, in a lot of different cooking styles, but there are a number of restaurants where I always order the same thing, because it’s the only vegetarian entree they know how to make. If you mainly go with me to that particular restaurant, you might get the impression that I am picky, or eat a limited number of things.

I also know a lot of people who have a favorite thing at a number of restaurants, and go to that particular restaurant for that thing. They may have 20 restaurants in town that are wildly different, and order very different things from each one, but the same thing from each restaurant. If you happen to observe them at only one place, you’d get the impression they are limited, or even picky, but unless you observe them eat over several meals, you really can’t make that judgment.

242

I have known two people in the last two years who could be called pickytoddlerians. To me, the truly picky person is not just the one who is careful about what they eat, but the ones who don’t let YOU enjoy either. They do things like:

  • nag about which restaurant, so you can never try Indian or Thai or Vietnamese, and the only Chinese restaurant they even go to is bland and unappetizing
  • make faces at YOUR food, or even comments, which is unaccountably rude
  • complete mental block to anything new, even if you are just talking about it

We had a coworker here once who turned her nose up at my tofu in a brown sauce and dared to say “Eeww, that looks so gross.” People like that are not, and never will be, my friends.
And one time I was eating sushi. It was crab sushi with avocado. The FedEx guy came in, looked at it, made a disgusted moue and said “Gross, I’d never eat raw fish”. Who the fuck cares what you think? And despite me telling him it was just crab and avocado, I could see his mind was completely closed and he could only think sushi=raw fish.

Those kind of people deserve to be judged and called out.

I don’t care, however, if we go to a restaurant that has a wide variety of things and they order the same thing every time. My SO is the least picky eater I have ever met and has the broadest palate I have ever known, and yet, when we go to Pizzeria Uno, he almost always orders the rattlesnake pasta, because he likes it. That’s cool by me.

243

OP here, wondering the same thing. :wink:

I had a feeling most of the side-bitching in this thread would pop up, but to be honest, I was hoping for a heftier ratio of snarky name suggestions vs. bitching/judging/bitching about judging. Still, like I said, it wasn’t unanticipated.

244

How about obsessivore?

245

Meh, I’ve known obsessivores. I know I ate a handful of M&Ms after lunch … they know how many exactly, and have tallied the calories, and subtracted something else from their planned upcoming meals to compensate, and have told anyone who will listen, in detail, about each of those steps.

Good name for those types of people. Totally different ballgame from “only eats white/brown food, won’t touch veggies” folks I was asking about, though.

246

Here’s an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal: No Age Limit on Picky Eating.

There are over 10,000 members at PickyEatingAdults.com.

247

I’m sticking with “gastrodick”! :smiley:

248

All fun and insults aside, this and TruCelt’s post are probably the most helpful things that have been posted here. If anyone thinks it’s fun to be the outsider and not enjoy 80% of the meals you share with others, you’re sorely mistaken. Believe me, I’d rather pass than go out with a group that’s going somewhere I won’t enjoy, and depending on the group, that’s exactly what I do. Sometimes there’s no other choice and if you care about the opinions of all the buttinskies, you pretend to nibble on something and go hungry. I’ve gone hungry many many times because believe me (or don’t), I will starve before I’ll put something I find objectionable in my mouth. Call it a disorder if you want- that’s certainly preferable to being compared to a finicky toddler - but surely you can see it’s not exactly pleasant or under my control. In the mean time, since you’re all so set on finding a way to debase people, I think *gastrodick *is the best suggestion so far :slight_smile:

249

Seems like there are two completely different issues, so they really can’t be given one name.

  1. People who have bad manners. If you think you can’t/won’t be able to eat what will be served, eat beforehand, and smile and poke your food around and pretend to eat. I’ve done it all my life. People who make their food restrictions someone else’s problem are called “rude”.

  2. People who don’t eat various common foods, for all sorts of reasons, including health issues, emotional issues about change and risk, and genetically based tasting differences. They can’t be called any one thing, because they aren’t a single thing.

For example, for complex reasons due to my childhood, I find it stressful to eat food that others have cooked. I am afraid of other people’s food, because if it turns out to be difficult for me to eat, I will have to be unpardonably rude, which fills me with fear, which makes me tense, which makes food look inedible, and around we go. I have a very low nausea threshold, always have, and there is not one thing I can do about it. I can mask this pretty well most of the time. I have been called a picky eater all my life, but what I am is a fearful social eater. I can eat easily in restaurants, because the cook isn’t looking at me.

I don’t give one solitary crap about what other people eat. Just don’t describe it to me – descriptions of food (which demand the exact same response as feeding it to me) make me very unhappy.

I’m sure there are many people in this world who are just as messed up, one way or another, about food, as I am. And if they aren’t, something else is probably wrong with them.

250

I guess I started this thread asking for a snarky label for the types of people described by the portion I bolded.

Holy guacamole, people: if there’s one lesson here, it’s don’t beat/yell/punish your little kids for anything involving food … they’ll carry that shit for life! :eek: Well, they will anyway, but when it involves a thing you need to consume daily to survive, any hangup/anxiety/neuroses/trauma that manifest become nearly unavoidable.

251

+1.

I find it interesting how quickly a people who espouse tolerance and disparages closed-mindedness will turn on someone once that person mildly inconveniences them. You don’t know why someone has food issues. Maybe they have mild autism - you can’t always tell. Maybe they have control issues from negative childhood experiences, like abuse, or bad gastric illness, or anxiety about food, or about a hundred other things. Or maybe they just don’t like something. Whatever, what does it matter why? If you can’t deal with the mild inconvenience of, “we’re inviting Tom along, so we’ll have to do a pizza joint tonight,” then your problem is at least as bad as theirs.

Or here’s something to consider - when I go for a hike, I don’t invite my friend who had a knee replacement. When I go to see an NC17 art house film, I don’t bring along my religious parents. When I want to have Thai food, I don’t ask my sister, who is self-admittedly very picky, if she wants some. I take my friend for Thai. I hike with my mom. I see the movie with my sister. Simple as fuck, people.

It’s very easy to be friendly with people who are easy going and like minded. Perhaps working at getting along with quirky people could be considered it’s own positive challenge. Like the social version of trying an unusual quiche for the first time.

252

“You can take the skin off if you don’t like the flavor” is pretty much always a lie.

“It’s not spicy” is a statement that perhaps can’t be a lie, strictly speaking, because it’s purely a judgment call based on individual perceptions, but that itself makes the statement bullshit.

In short, you are making flavor and intensity statements based on the assumption that taste perception is the same as everyone else, which is wrong.

To use another example, I’ve had people tell me that the sad little jalapeno slices you find on ballpark nachos aren’t really spicy, and I can just take them off if I don’t like them. Well, trust me, I can still taste it if they are removed, and it’s not pleasant.

253

[QUOTE=Small Hen;18304983It’s very easy to be friendly with people who are easy going and like minded. Perhaps working at getting along with quirky people could be considered it’s own positive challenge. Like the social version of trying an unusual quiche for the first time.[/QUOTE]

True enough.

But that’s kinda highlights part of the problem. Picky eaters are ALSO often the ones that will get all socially butthurt if you say “We ARE going to that Mexican place that everybody else wants to go to…you PAMF can find something there that you consider edible or go home”.

254

Well, yeah, if you say it like that. How about, “We’re going for Thai, wanna come?”

“I don’t like Thai.”

“Ah, okay. Maybe next time? Or you could come along and just have a drink, if you like.”

“Okay,” or “No, that’s okay.”

If their response is, “Can’t we get pizza instead?” that’s a little rude of them, but keep classy and say, “Oh, no, we’ve been waiting to try this Thai place forever, but I’ll let you know when we’re getting together next time and we’ll do pizza or something.” Any further whining on their part is flat out rude.

255

Sorry, been away for a few days.

I’m actually surprised that people are skeptical that I have multiple picky friends. Maybe it’s a geographical thing (southern US), but I know quite a few people who maintain extremely limited diets. Here’s a short list of some of my close friends:

[ul]
[li]S is the pickiest friend I have. He’s outgoing, artistic and painfully thin. He is limited to beef, potatoes (any form), and plain bread. He’ll eat hamburgers as long as they’re bread and meat only. Even lettuce is unthinkable. No dairy, veggies, fruits, fish, chicken, condiments, etc. I honestly don’t know how he’s as healthy as he is. I’ve only seen him drink sugary drinks (Kool-Aid, soft drinks). He does take a dietary supplement daily.[/li][li]J is also outgoing, has the wit of a comedian, and only eats plain bread, meat (fried, nothing baked), pasta and starches. Recently he ordered a plate of chicken fingers (his favorite) French fries, mashed potatoes and macaroni. I was flabbergasted. He drinks Mello Yello, his drink of choice for as long as I’ve known him (30 years)[/li][li]JD was our HS salutatorian and my college roommate. He now teaches HS and holds two Master’s degrees. By all appearances he is a man of the world. I believe he will tolerate some veggies, but only plain and uncooked. If he receives a salad with a meal, he will eat it dry. He refuses any sort of ethic food, and generally sticks with processed foods high in salt and sugar. During college I think he had hotdogs and chili at least 3 days a week, with pizza or hamburgers most of the other days. He wouldn’t even eat pasta. He also refuses condiments and most fruit. He loved milk, but not cheese.[/li][li]B, J’s wife, from all appearances only eats meat, bread and candy. A lot of candy, like how much a child would eat if they had the permission and access. We often say (genuinely) that we’re happy she found J, since their extremely limited palate would inevitably be problematic. They consider themselves fast food connoisseurs, even though they are limited to only a few items on any given menu.[/li][/ul]

There are several others who fall in the pickiness spectrum. Another friend, a very successful and intelligent engineer, eats only American and Mexican food with more salt than most people can tolerate. It’s sort of a running joke that, when he prepares meal, you really need to be able to rinse it in the sink to render it edible.

As for myself, I was the only one of my friends who spent a lot of time in a garden, and thus ate food directly from the plants most of my life. I’m talking green beans, tomatoes, radishes, greens, squash, peppers, you name it. Just blow off the dirt and pop it in your mouth. We also had apple, pear, peach and cherry trees, along with grapes and strawberries. Maybe being close to my food was a key factor.

I don’t push the issue with them; I’ve known them now much too long, but at this point in our lives, spending time together usually means a meal will be involved. One or more will start complaining early in the plans that so-and-so will probably want to go to such-and-such restaurant, and how nasty it is, blah blah. They’re mostly outgoing and type A, so that’s what I meant by being hard to please. We always compromise, then when we get together one of them will slip in a passive-aggressive remark…

They’re my friends and I love them, but I continue to wish they would grow a pair and try a pear. It’s frustrating because 3 of the ones I listed above are adventurous and fun-loving in every way except their plate.

256

And that’s the other half of the problem.

Eating out with picky eaters invariably becomes a negotiation.

Look, YOU (the general you not you you) are the picky eater. YOU are the one with the problem. YOU deal with it with minimal social inconvience of more flexible people.

Or in other words, picky eaters are often oblivious that if anybody is the one with a problem, its them

257

No, only the ones with not an ounce of self awareness are. Sorry you’re surrounded by people with a deficit of social graces, but the handicap is not that they have food issues it’s in the way they choose to deal with them. As has been said (in general, not to you specifically) if the food aspect of the gathering is more important than the company, don’t invite them. Or, extend a courtesy invitation, knowing they won’t want to go but at least you asked. If their company is more important than what you’ll ingest that evening, see if you can make the huge sacrifice of going somewhere that may not be as exotic as you would prefer. It’s not like you’re going to have any trouble finding something you can at least stand, albeit it might not be as high falutin.

258

I’m sorry. Did you just say, in way more words than necessary, “If you don’t do what I want to do, YOU’RE WRONG!”?

Going back to OP, there are perfectly good words for that mindset, but I can’t use them in this forum; only in the Pit.

I’m not at all picky about food. A military career full of chow-hall “cooking” beat that out of me. But I find exquisitely objectionable the idea that an adult, exercising their own rights of choice and preference, should be specially labeled for insults and degradation by someone who purports to “know better”.

If you think you know better than me for my own choices for my own body, you are the aggressor and inherently morally wrong.

ETA: to summarize, mind your own business. Your judgement of another is irrelevant, and if you think otherwise, YOU are the one with the problem.

259

Are all three of these people married? Or, like J, are they all married to people like B? Because any of these are dealbreakers in relationships to me.

Hell I’m from India. Can’t eat Indian food, for whatever reason? Door, ass. I don’t even want Indian food every day but for us never to enjoy it together? No good.

I agree that “spicy” is a relative term and whoever said jalapenos! Are not spicy is being a jerk. Maybe they’re not spicy to everyone, but I like spicy food, and I don’t particularly like jalapenos. It’s the “wrong” kind of heat. I like a flavorful heat. I don’t want heat for the sake of itself.

260

Yes, but a endless series of meals at cheap burger joints is boring and not conductive to good health.

My "picky eater’ wont even go to a restaurant that has gourmet burgers, as they arent worth the money to him.