# What happens to incredibly picky eaters in adulthood? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 18, 2006, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126 "2006-04-18T04:07:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/41 "2006-04-18T16:07:59Z")
I was such a picky eater until I was 17 that people who knew me as a child are stunned that I eat sushi and soybeans and a wide variety of foods. I had to learn to accept and try new things. Everything changes and so did my diet. My parents indulged me as a picky child but the rest of the world does not as an adult. Those times I could afford to buy what I wanted, I could eat what I pleased. I learned about healthy food choices and had to find ways to introduce needed nutrients into my daily diet. That meant experimenting and when I had children myself and didn’t want them limiting their own choices, I served a wide variety of foods and set an example of healthy eating. Didn’t always work, but the kids are nowhere near as picky as I was. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/42 "2006-04-18T16:10:49Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I can see what a drag it can be for you, Athena. The poor dear has some serious issues. This is where you have to try not to let it become your problem, because it really isn’t. Just stop inviting her to events where you know she’s gonna have a problem with the menu, or if that’s too harsh, let her know ahead of time that you’d love her company, but the menu is what it is and she’ll have to deal. Thanks, **Wook**. That’s mainly what we try to do. The only thing we haven’t figured out is the out-of-town thing: we’d really like to take her on a couple long-weekend trips, but we just can’t find a way that we’ll all be happy together for several days in a row. I’ve suggested that Mr. Athena talk to her about it, but he says she’ll just clam up and decide that he and I are “fancy gourmet eaters” and she’d rather not go. Which is semi-true - we do enjoy our food - but we’d be happy going to Taco Bell once or twice if she’d agree to return the favor and go to a couple meals at places we pick out (and we wouldn’t pick Sushi bars or the latest Fancy Food places that we’d tend to go if we were alone) and at least try to be happy with the selection. > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > In the case of your Easter brunch where it sounds like it was kind of a pot luck (?) I really don’t see why anyone felt the need to tiptoe up to you and ask why she’s not eating. It wasn’t really a potluck in the sense that people brought whatever they wanted, more like a semi-organized thing where my mother asked one person to bring a cake, another to bring bagels, etc. People ask why she’s not eating because not eating, in this and many other social circles, is evidence that something is wrong. Was she sick? Does she have an allergy? Did someone offend her? Could someone throw something together that she would like? **Hello Again** puts it well: eating is a social thing, and refusing to eat - even for the most legitimate reasons - is, at a minimum, something that people question. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/43 "2006-04-18T16:13:35Z")
> [@Hello Again](#): > > Eating is a social compact and a form of social control in all socially living mammals that I know of. Eating together, sharing food, and control of food is a social activity and a status-affirming activity – much like other things social mammals generally take pleasure in, such as sleeping, grooming, and sex. Therefor, when people speak of eating as a social activity, they are not speaking of the events that surround it, such as conversation, but the act of eating together with others. In many cultures, it is devastatingly rude or insulting to refuse food in front of others. Modern American culture is actually quite lenient in this regard. > > If I make make a WAG (but one informed by my degree in Anthropology and my current professional work with horses) other people take your rejection of the shared eating experience as a form of social control over them or a statement that you are outside of social norms. This is why many times, as posted previously, the outrage over Picky Eating is disproportionate to the “offense” therein. By rejecting the shared food experience you are also rejecting full inclusion in the social sphere, and potentially setting your status as higher than the rest of the group (or at the very least, stating with actions that your status is outside of the group). > > I realize this is not your intention – you just like what you like and there really isn’t anything wrong with that on a logical level. But rejecting food is an action that gets right down to our monkey brain as a “wrong” or “abnormal” way to act. > > I wont go so far as to say that we are “hard-wired” to care deeply about eating alongside others, but it is the case that for much of human history bare subsistence was the norm and the act of sharing food was an extremely important social activity with long-term consquences for social stability and reproductive sucess. Very interesting, **Hello Again** , and also very fucked up. I’m not shooting the messenger here; I know you didn’t create this phenomenom. It just goes so totally against the way I (and others here)view the whole eating issue. That’s what makes it so awkward for those of us who are gastronomically apathetic. We just don’t put any importance on food, yet we have to bare the brunt of society’s neuroses? If your theory is correct, doesn’t that mean that me and Picky Pickerson are more evolved? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/44 "2006-04-18T16:17:01Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Seriously though, following this analogy, when you “foodies” go out for a meal the whole focus is the food? As others have mentioned, the pleasure of dining with other people is, for me, the _people_ Depends on the restaurant. When we go to the local pub where we eat at least 2-3 times a month, we go for the company, and to get out of the house, and all those other reasons. When I cook a fancy meal at home, or we go to a new or upscale restaurant, it’s very much about the food. We read through the whole menu and talk about what to order. We taste each other’s choices; we try to deconstruct how it’s made. We compare how the salmon at this restaurant is versus the salmon we had last year in Seattle. If something is particularly good we gush over it. We talk about what wine or beer or cocktail would go particularly well with it. And we love every single minute of all of this. That’s not to say that we don’t talk about other things as well, but when the food comes, chances are that the conversation turns to the food. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/45 "2006-04-18T16:18:03Z")
> [@Hello Again](#): > > Therefor, when people speak of eating as a social activity, they are not speaking of the events that surround it, such as conversation, but the act of eating together with others. Perhaps an analogy would be watching a movie or TV show with others, which is another social activity. The analogy isn’t perfect, because part of the appeal of sharing a meal with people is the conversation, but if you focus on the eating itself, I think the analogy holds up fairly well. I can enjoy watching movies by myself, but if I’m watching one with other people, who are also enjoying the experience, my own enjoyment is somehow enhanced or magnified. But I wouldn’t want to watch the movie with someone who did not like movies, or whose taste in movies excluded the kind of movie we were watching. And I think a similar thing is true with enjoying food. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/46 "2006-04-18T16:25:12Z")
I figured it out. It’s exactly the same feeling I get when people tell me “Oh, I don’t read books”. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/47 "2006-04-18T16:30:47Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Very interesting, **Hello Again** , and also very fucked up. I’m not shooting the messenger here; I know you didn’t create this phenomenom. It just goes so totally against the way I (and others here)view the whole eating issue. That’s what makes it so awkward for those of us who are gastronomically apathetic. We just don’t put any importance on food, yet we have to bare the brunt of society’s neuroses? If your theory is correct, doesn’t that mean that me and Picky Pickerson are more evolved? 😛 Yea I agree. I’m not wired that way, but that explanation makes sense. In my case, if someone politely refused to share the food I had, I’d shrug, say okay, and keep eating and chatting with them. We can both have fun interacting, and I can get nourishment. That’s why the movie analogy that I see on preview breaks down for me, personally. If you don’t want to watch the movie that everyone else is looking at you’re pretty much stuck. You can’t strike up a conversation with the other people because they won’t be able to hear, and they won’t be able to enjoy the show. Unless you think that sitting quietly for 90 minutes is fun, then you’re going to be pretty bored. I see how it would fit for the rest of you though. ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/48 "2006-04-18T16:37:42Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > I went out to dinner _once_ with a woman (the best friend of a friend) who made Sally from Harry and Sally look normal when ordering. > > She asked how long the cook had been a cook. > > She asked when the beef came into the restaurant. > > She asked when was the bread made. > > She made insane requests that my brain has purged since that awful night. > > It took at good 10 minutes to complete her order alone. > I, long before learning just how entertaining these yahoo’s are and to just sit back and savor their assholerly, had a slight domestic with her. > > " God, you are a nightmare." I seethed in exasperation while shooting the waitress and the table of really cute guys who were at one point eyeballing her extreme hotness (model pretty in every way) until the ordering ordeal began an apologetic look. Nobody else at our table seem to notice her behavior was odd. It is perfectly acceptable behavior to treat the waitstaff like a serf with a condescending tone. None of us were over 30. > " What do you mean by that?" She had no clue that she was a nightmare. " I just like things done my way." > > “This isn’t fucking Burger King, your highness. If you want it done your way, cook it yourself!” I looked over at the waitress and said pleasantly, " I’ll just have a cheeseburger any way the cook wants to prepare it. He can spit on it for all I care if he has any phlgem left after what he horks up onto your meal, Princess. I don’t care. I’m just happy I can afford to eat out. Oh, and she isn’t my friend. She’s _her’s_" [size=1] and I won’t mention that I somehow worked into my tirade that _sex with her would be beyond a nightmare._ because it was a cheap shot that I should be embarrassed of but ain’t. > > The guys at the table across from me bought my meal and drinks. 😃 > I haven’t eaten with her since. > > I wonder why. Well, if you had acted like that at a restaurant with me, I wouldn’t have eaten with you again, either. Sorry, but another person’s rude behavior does not excuse your own. I was a pretty picky eater as a child. There are still some foods that I don’t like/won’t eat. However, I have never gone to a restaurant where I couldn’t find at least one thing on the menu I liked. Frankly, if people are going to be that critical of my food choices and exclude me from functions because of my food preferences, they’re probably not the kind of people I want to hang around anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/49 "2006-04-18T16:49:48Z")
I was quite picky as a child. In my 20’s, I made a point of trying different things and found I liked some and learned to like others - some of which are now favorites (e.g. seafood). I do enjoy eating and especially enjoy certain foods. I can find something I like at almost all restaurants and at-home dinners. Still, there are things I hate, and I’m picky compared to most people I know. I am quite sensitive to taste, smell, and texture. From my observation, most people have little trouble eating stuff they don’t particularly like. In contrast, there are some foods I DETEST. It’s not a matter of simply not caring much for them, it’s a matter of finding them definitley nasty and EXTREMELY unpleasant to eat, and often to even smell\*. I’ve been eating food for over 50 years, and I know myself in this area. There are some things I will not put in my mouth because I **KNOW** I’ll find them distasteful. I find it quite irritating when some people can’t accept this, and insist I try something. It’s hard to make them understand, because often there aren’t any foods that they have the same reaction to. My plea to these folks is if I say I don’t eat such-and-such, take my word for it and drop the subject. * * * \*Speaking of smell - when I was a kid there were things I knew I wouldn’t like because of their odor (squash is one example). My parents always made me try one bite, saying I couldn’t tell how it would taste just by smelling it. Then in school, they taught us that much of what we call “taste” **is** the smell, as the tongue only senses four basic things. It baffled me that my parents didn’t seem to know this. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/50 "2006-04-18T16:59:20Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > I figured it out. > > It’s exactly the same feeling I get when people tell me “Oh, I don’t read books”. Which is, what, _superiority_? Not trying to put words in your mouth, **even seven** , just using your quote as a segue to my question as to why people find a lack of interest in food such a negative trait. The whole “social compact, food as a uniter” theory aside, if we’re talking about people that you know somewhat intimately and they’ve explained that it’s nothing personal, they’re just not into the food thing, why is it still a problem? Again, not saying this pertains to you, or anyone else here, but I get the feeling that some people think a great interest in food = sophistication. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/51 "2006-04-18T17:01:17Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > Well, if you had acted like that at a restaurant with me, I wouldn’t have eaten with you again, either. Sorry, but another person’s rude behavior does not excuse your own. Yeah, I sure hope that conversation was a hyperbole. Cuz like I’m sure that the woman just loved to have her food quirks laid out for ridicule by one of her “friends.” I agree that if she’s that persnickety about the food restaurants probably aren’t for her, but that doesn’t mean the people she’s eating with should make fun of her. I’m sure the staff already got their eyerolls on. And I for one think that talking about food is really boring. I’m sure things I talk about are boring too, but that doesn’t mean I get to have a superiority complex and say people who don’t “get it” have some kind of psychological disorder. Geez louise. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/52 "2006-04-18T17:17:28Z")
**Are you “picky” in other areas of life besides eating?** Not really, no. **Do you value familiarity and comfort over variety and adventure?** Definitely not. I love trying new restaurants, and with friends and dates I try to avoid going someplace we’ve been to in the past. There are a few places where I’m a “regular,” but they’re usually diners where I feel comfortable alone; I can study or read the paper and not feel hurried. **Do you have a higher-than-normal sensitivity to tastes or smells or textures?** Most definitely. Texture more than anything can cause reflexive gagging, even if the taste is wonderful. “Just swallow it!” isn’t an option. **Can you trace your eating habits back to some psychological association or conditioning, with regard to certain foods or to eating in general?** No. **Do you have allergies that force you to be wary about what you eat?** When I was a child, yes. Less so now. No peanut allergies, thankfully. **Do you have some “control issue” in insisting on a certain narrow selection of foods?** Certainly not. My diet is MUCH broader than the white bread and mac n’ cheese that some here believe picky eaters limit themselves to. It’s been expanding through the years; my diet is a few orders of magnitude broader than it was when I was a child. The contents of my cupboards and fridge look like anyone else’s. I can find lots of things in any restaurant that I can eat. I don’t complain, and I don’t project an image of being a “downer” when it comes to food - unless people insist on pushing the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/53 "2006-04-18T17:50:51Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Not sure what constitutes a “real adult restaurant”. I find it hard to believe that your MIL can’t find _something_ to eat at a basic coffee shop or Bennigans type restaurant. I mean yeah, she’s even pickier than I am, but unless it’s a restuarant that only serves one kind of food, say like an ethnic restaurant or sushi bar or something, every place has burgers or chicken fingers or whatever on the menu. Some of us, who are picky eaters _and_ have religious restrictions on what we can eat, have more trouble finding something to eat in certain restaurants. I keep kosher. I will eat at non-kosher restaurants, but won’t eat meat or poultry there, or anything made with meat or poultry (including stock), or non-kosher fish or shellfish. I wouldn’t be able to find anything to eat at McDonald’s (they cook their fries and fish in oil that includes flavoring from beef) or a very authentic Mexican restaurant that uses lard in most dishes. I’m not big on raw vegetables (and I don’t like fruit), so a salad isn’t usually a real option. Plus, a lot of restaurant salads include meat, chicken, or bacon bits, none of which I can have. Casual dining chains often have only one or two things that I can choose from- everything else has something I can’t have in it. In the Bay Area or urban areas on the east coast, most restaurants offer at least something vegetarian that isn’t just a salad (or something with kosher fish), so I can usually find something at most restaurants (with the exception of McDonald’s or other fast food places, or Mexican restaurants that use lard). That’s not necessarily the case in less urban areas or more old-fashioned restaurants. I will usually want to look at a menu before agreeing to eat at a certain restaurant, to make sure there’s something I can eat there. I will often question the waiter about ingredients- what kind of fish is in this fish dish, is this dish made with chicken stock, et cetera. Those questions are for religious reasons, though, not pickiness. I do try to be discreet and not make a big deal of things, but I will make sure I’m not eating non-kosher meat or fish. If someone makes a big deal over what I’m eating or not eating, I won’t back down and eat whatever it is. I’m sorry if it annoys you or hurts your feelings, but I’m not going to violate my religious beliefs to make you feel better or to fit in. And don’t try to sneak non-kosher meat or fish into something you give me and tell me it doesn’t have it- you will seriously damage my relationship with you for a very long time if you do something like that and I find out. I value comfort and familiarity in areas that matter- jobs, where to live, et cetera. But I’m generally willing to try something new if it won’t make a difference in a day or two. I’m very sensitive to food textures- there are a lot of foods I won’t eat because of the texture. No allergies, psychological issues, or control issues with regard to food. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/54 "2006-04-18T17:52:27Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > My biggest problem is with the people who have a problem with my food choices. What the heck do you care as long as I don’t make a pain in the ass of myself (which I don’t)? And for the people who say they won’t socialize with “picky” eaters, is it because they make a big deal about it? I honestly don’t understand why anyone would be concerned with what anyone else eats or doesn’t eat. I dated someone who would only eat plain hamburgers (bun, meat, bun), chicken fingers, mashed potatoes. Nothing spicy, nothing he had never had before - no bean sprouts, for example. He didn’t make a big deal out of it; he wouldn’t put up a fuss or make a scene. He was like Bartleby the scrivener: if he didn’t like something, he just wouldn’t eat it. If I wanted to go to a restaurant that served food he didn’t like (ie, anything other than ‘American’), he would refuse to go or sit there and not eat anything (which was just soooo awkward). I have a hard time fathoming how someone could see this sort of behavior as _not_ having an impact on me/ us. It limited where/ what I could eat, it caused conflict in our relationship (as someone was always compromising, by definition, since I’m not big into chicken fingers, and while it’s not an instant “deal-breaker” sort of thing, it has an effect). It limited what I could cook for him, which meant there was one less way I could show him I cared for him. > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I personally don’t tend to accept dinner invitations to people’s homes if the meal is the main event. To be invited for a meal (as opposed to a barbecue / pool party type thing where there’s other things going on)and then not eat is rude. In the case of your Easter brunch where it sounds like it was kind of a pot luck (?) I really don’t see why anyone felt the need to tiptoe up to you and ask why she’s not eating. But don’t you think you are missed? If I had a good friend that was a really picky eater, to the point that they wouldn’t come to a big dinner, I would feel bad: I would miss their presence, and I would also miss that I couldn’t give them the gift of a dinner I worked hard on, as a sign of affection for my friends. Lots of people (though apparently not all) express their affection for others through food. My friend gets sick? I send over a pot of soup. My parents are celebrating an anniversary? I make them their favorite dishes. It’s one thing to say “I don’t understand the emotional attachment people place on food”, but it’s another thing to say “People shouldn’t put an emotional attachment to food (in general or because I don’t)”. Even though polite, you are effectively refusing to take part in the interaction (I don’t mean to imply that you’re at all rude or impolite). But just because it’s a polite denial doesn’t mean you can claim incomprehension that people are upset/ sad at your absence. ---
**Author:** ![Burrido](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Burrido](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burrido)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/55 "2006-04-18T18:18:52Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > I’m curious about is what happens to these kids when they become adults? They cook for themselves like I do. I generally won’t eat anything I don’t cook myself. A very few limited things by my mom and generally nothing by my so. If we go out to a place I don’t like I’ll just pound some drinks instead. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/56 "2006-04-18T18:27:09Z")
I joined the Navy and learned to eat a lot of things I wouldn’t touch as a kid. ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/57 "2006-04-18T18:35:52Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > My brother and SIL are friends with a couple where the woman is a freakishly picky eater. > > She will eat: chicken with NOTHING on it (not even salt and pepper). > > Plain rice. > > Brocolli with nothing on it. > > Carrots with nothing on it. > > White bread. My dad’s sister eats like this. We call her a closet anorexic. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/58 "2006-04-18T18:41:01Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > You know, not to pathologize anything that’s outside the norm, but that sounds borderline pathological to me. I agree, but drop the borderline. In fact, the woman in question agrees that it’s pathalogical. But she’s the one that does the cooking in her household, so she buys the stuff that she eats, and her husband is so happy to have someone cooking for him, he just eats it. They’re not a super fun couple to either have over for dinner, or to go to their house to eat, or to eat out, as I’m sure you can imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/59 "2006-04-18T18:43:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, if you had acted like that at a restaurant with me, I wouldn’t have eaten with you again, either. Sorry, but another person’s rude behavior does not excuse your own. I agree. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126/60 "2006-04-18T19:13:40Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Again, not saying this pertains to you, or anyone else here, but I get the feeling that some people think a great interest in food = sophistication. No one has said that because it goes without saying. Look up the definition of [sophisticated](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sophisticated). There’s really no argument. Anyway, the OP’s question has already been answered on this board. Most grow out of it, and learn to resent those who don’t. Then we all get into a [big fight](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=302338). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-to-incredibly-picky-eaters-in-adulthood/353126.md?page=4)