ransos – you’re not a fish monger are you? 😉

it’s the otherworldyness of ‘seafood’ that bugs me in the unprepped look.

anyway it’s generally not an issue in my home life – my wife is Vegan!

<deep breath>

As a kid, I had what I recognise now to be a phobia when it came to food. I was the sort of kid that today they’d make a documentary about. Apparently as soon as I learned to say “no”, I did. As odd as it sounds, I think there’s a part of my psyche that’s always found food invasive.

I lived off maybe half a dozen “safe” staples as I was growing up and most attempts by my folks to get me to broaden my pallet failed. Offhand, I’d eat: chips (but not mash potatoes or in any other form); tinned spaghetti; Heinz tinned soups (tomato, lentil, oxtail, chicken, but the latter two only if they were sieved first); white bread / toast / sandwiches (lemon curd, jam or marmalade so long as there were no bits in it, Marmite). Oh, and sweets and desserts I had a taste for.

As I got a bit older I realised that this behaviour was freaky, and I got massively self-conscious about it. I’d go round to friends and their parents would offer me food, I’d lie and say I wasn’t hungry or had just eaten. Sometimes with the best of intentions they’d be insistent, and I’d be stood there going “no, I’m fine, thank you” with a voice in my head screaming “make it stop! leave me alone!!”

A couple of things turned it around for me. The first was being a student at University. I remember once being offered spaghetti at a mate’s and without thinking said yes, and he proceeded to crack open dried spaghetti and a jar of Ragu. I was mortified, but cornered, aged maybe 19 by now I had no way out without looking like a freak, so I said nothing. I was putting on a brave face but shaking like a shitting dog by the time it was served. That was the turning point for me, though. Small bits of things that I couldn’t really detect, working up to chunkier stuff once my brain had worked out that I “liked” it now, over a long period of time. Therapy.

The second was going vegetarian. At least in part initially, this was just another excuse not to be fed by a third party, but I’d started to realise that a big part of my adverse reaction was meat. It freaked me out, but it was so bundled up in the bigger psychological car crash that was my brain, and practically omnipresent in food in the early 90s, that I’d just never realised.

I was never really a big meat eater in the first place so going vegetarian wasn’t a great leap. My meat intake by my late teens was probably the aforementioned soups, pork luncheon meat, Plumrose hot dogs, gravy on chips, and Bovril. In living memory I’ve never had a meat sausage, a burger, a steak, fish. I tried chicken once (KFC) and the texture wigged me out, and I had a mate’s home made chilli con carne shortly before I went veggie. I think that’s about it.

Even so, going veggie was a revelation. The restrictive diet meant I wasn’t bombarded with all this stuff all the time, and I could expand my diet slowly without the pressure of everything all at once, and without the terror of all these unidentifiable bits of dead animal everywhere. I learned to love various veg, try different flavours, and go out for dinner without having a panic attack or eating a bowl of chips whilst everyone else had a three course meal. That was a laborious journey itself; going out say with work and trawling through a menu with rising dread that there was nothing I could eat, and then having well-meaning colleagues trying to be helpful to the vegetarian but just in fact drawing more attention to my plight and making me want the ground to open up beneath me (and then starting the inevitable “so why are you vegetarian?” discussion that I have to have Every. Damn. Time. I go to a restaurant). The reason I’m vegetarian, as I’ve said before, is that I find the concept of eating meat absolutely revolting. For some odd reason though, explaining to people that eating meat feels to me like eating turds probably feels to them never seems to go down too well at the dinner table.

Fast forward to today. I’m a lot better, but I’m still not right. I still generally have to know what I’m eating; people going “here, try this” and shoving food towards my face, even if it’s something I like, will make me recoil in panic.

One thing I’ve realised relatively recently is that it’s often it’s a battle between conscious and subconscious. Not long ago I bought some sort of beany pot noodle soup thing from Pret A Manger. Checked the ingredients first, of course, and there was nothing particularly offensive in there, maybe a few ingredients that I wasn’t sure about but was feeling brave enough to try. And it was delicious. I got maybe halfway through it, and something in my brain clicked and panicked. I couldn’t swallow without gagging. I talked myself down and managed another couple of mouthfuls, sitting there with my long-suffering girlfriend and telling her, “this is bloody ridiculous, it’s lovely and I’m really enjoying it,” but I couldn’t finish it in the end and I’d to throw the rest away, still hungry. If I’d carried on, I’d have thrown up. I was proper cross with myself about that.

So yeah, anyway. That’s my “coming out” story, I guess. Even being able to type this is progress; up until relatively recently, even talking about this would’ve been really difficult. I don’t really have a conclusion or a moral other than perhaps to say that pressuring / forcing kids really doesn’t help, and perhaps ask that you recognise that for some people, kids and adults, this can be a lot more to it than just being “fussy”. Or perhaps my story is what happens when you let “fussy” get out of control rather than nipping it in the bud? I don’t know. But for me it was a far more fundamental problem than just being awkward for the sake of it because I wanted my favourite tea all the time.

Interestingly, as an aside I’ve a mate who was the same as a kid. He was at least as bad if not worse than me. Ultimately he married a chef, and his road to recovery was tangential to mine; his go-to on a menu these days is stuff like steak and chips. He once reckoned he was a ‘supertaster’ (there was a programme on TV a bit back about this), whereas for me I’m the opposite if anything. I love strong flavours; hot chilli, vindaloo, I could eat Marmite from the jar with a spoon. So I guess the other conclusion we can draw here is, similar issues might be down to different reasons.

Wow, I think that’s the longest post I’ve ever made on here.

One other thing I’ve just thought of in response to the OP; if you want to encourage kids, don’t overface them, and don’t trick them. If you want them to try peas for instance, don’t give them a plateful, give them one pea. Make it identifiable; finding something lurking unexpectedly in something else is just going to turn them off that something else as well. Or at least, I think that would’ve helped me, other kids might not be the same.

Well said Cougar,thanks for sharing that.

Our oldest was a wee bit like that as a kid and would throw up if you pushed it too much with things that he was refusing to try.
We eased off and tried not to make food ( and mealtimes )an issue ,it slowly worked ,but he got much better with food when his Gran and Nana started teaching him to bake and cook.
In the early days it made it very frustrating trying to find something on a menu that he would eat.
He still doesn’t eat a huge selection of stuff ,but the things that he does like are healthy enough and he would never starve 🙂

That was some outpouring Cougar – good for the soul though and helpful to others, thanks for sharing it.

My youngest was a bit fussy in his earlier days, so we got him involved in the whole process from choosing the menu to cooking the food – worked a treat. He will now try anything veggie and any style of cooking.

As a kid my parents were very strict with me with regards eating habits. Basically I was encouraged to try things and I found I liked most items so continued to eat them.

As a result pretty much the only food I wont eat is turnip and rhubarb. Having said that I had rhubard the other day as I mistakenly ordered it with a desert and it was alright.

What I have found getting older though is my taste buds have evolved. When I was in my teens I used to hate olives but can’t get enough of them now. I also love capers and anchovies!

Edit: I forgot cockles. Can’t do them. They look like little fannies.

i must be weird…i used to love eating fish when i was younger…especially as a curry…fast forward into my late teens and i suddenly went off the idea of having fish as a curry…fry it, bake it and i’m fine but soon as its in a curry i run a mile…
other than that my only other real hate is fat on meat…i love meat but something about the fat makes me heave…lean, fat free meat for me only…
with regards to kids…my 5 year old son is a difficult one….very fussy about what he eats and drinks…certain foods and drinks he will never touch, others he cant get enough of…we do of course try to trick or blag him from time to time…as a baby he was the same…he also has OCD about mess…anything out of place i.e. bit of food on the side of his face and he goes mad…demanding it be cleaned off right away…can be either annoying or hilarious, depending on the situation
my 1 year old daughter is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum…will eat anything and drink anything..even after she has had her feed if she sees some more food she will lick her lips to say she still wants more food then will happily carry on munching away…she is though the messiest little girl i have ever seen…loves to be caked in food and will make a mess of the food before eating it…
we use her as the example for the boy so now he will eat what we give him to a certain point because he sees his little sister eating it…we try not to push it too much though as we dont want to make him hate it even more than he does…

cougar – i know the feeling about eating out at restaurants…have the same issue…always look for somewhere that has a halal menu…but failing that will have a vegetarian meal…but vegetarian choices are very limited in many places…

Alcohol.

Swore blind as a kid that I would never drink it (after being allowed to try sips of my dad’s beer).

Now I have it for breakfast instead of cornflakes.

And leek. Yum.

And curry – didn’t have my first one till I was about 24!

@Cookeaa – this seems to work:
http://twentytwowords.com/2013/08/08/dad-tricks-baby-into-eating-vegetables-with-a-kit-kat-bar/

I’ve always been a fussy eater, not really sure why. I would start to throw up before food had even entered my mouth. I’ve always been fit and healthy though. As a young adult I tried to do something about it, various meetings. The dietitian unsurprisingly told me that my diet was bad and that I should be twice the size I was, but was unable to advise on how to increase the range of food I ate.
Then there was the psychologist, who was at the time training and it felt like I was a case study for her. She definitely got more out of the sessions than I did.
I decided to try hypnotism. A truly relaxing and wonderful place. I did kind of get an answer, my sub-conscious was protecting me, but it wouldn’t say what from!! 😕 I did however manage to hypnotise myself which allowed me to eat my 1st ever full Christmas dinner at a works party. Now it may have been the alcohol or the fact I wasn’t used to the food, but it all came back up….
The biggest change in my diet though has been when I met my wife. Between us we’ve been able to work out what I can/will eat and what’s a non-starter. For me it’s a texture thing. I don’t like sloppy or mushy food. (I have my cereal dry) I do however like strong flavours. My diet is some much better now, it’s still not that big a range but it does make socialising easier and health wise it has to be a benefit to me

Edit:
Cougar I’ve just read your post and I can relate to quite a bit of that. When asked about why I only eat certain things, I tend to joke that its a mental health problem. Quickly telling people about the rest of it, they do find it interesting, but then struggle to let it go

And I will try pretty much any food but I still can’t abide tomatoes.

Tomato soup – fine
Tomato ketchup – fine
Tomato puree – fine
Tinned chopped tomatoes – fine
Cherry tomatoes – fine

But if I try to eat a normal tomato, fresh, in a salad or something I just gag and can’t swallow it.

If I didn’t eat what was put in front of me as a kid, I’d get slapped right in the face, the food was never as painful as the slap. Then I became a chef and now nearly 20 years later I still don’t like tripe, Bovril and Marmite, but eat everything else.

I’ll eat anything that’s put in front of me with the exception of

Oysters
Raw tomato
Mushrooms

Fussy eaters do my head in

3rd post on the topic made me smile! Oysters – yeah I can understand why that might be the case and in any case the number of times they are going to be put in front of you is pretty limited for most folk unless you move in very vaulted circles.

But not eating raw tomato and mushrooms – two pretty big staples of the western diet makes you a fusssy eater for me! Do you not do your own head in? 😆

as a kid i wasnt keen on black pudding, liver or curry , but did eat lambs hearts,

im still not a massive fan of liver but like black pudding and luuurve curry (partly to do with my mums version of curry!)
but on the whole ill eat anything

my brother was a nightmare never ate any veg apart from beans,
wouldnt go near anything vaguely spicy or cooked in a sauce, ate certain meats and chips, no pasta or rice
mealtimes were a huuge drama he absolutely loved lambs hearts though, stuffed with mint jelly!

then he joined the navy

dunno what they did to him but he eats absolutely anything these days

oh and well done cougar that mustve taken some balls

edit
ill never eat anything from the kebab window at the top of manor house tube station (again)

I could never eat rhubarb crumble that my mom made,but now I have tasted rhubarb that hasn’t been cooked to death I love it.

I’m pretty good at taking on pretty much anything but was tested a bit when staying with a local in Singapore. I’m sure she was testing us out as every night it got more and more extreme. Got our own back when she visited us though – watching her quietly retching at a nice ripe stilton was entertaining. Cultural norms and expectation of what food should look, taste and smell like can mess with your head!

I wish there some more foods I hated – might make shedding a few lbs easier – but everything tastes so good!

Cougar

Thanks for sharing that – sounds awfully familiar. I too have a list of “safe food” and anything that’s not on it defaults to unsafe. Someone offering is a forkful of unknown food might as well be offering me cyanide wrapped in arsenic. I’m Well aware how ridiculous it is to be like this as an adult but its so deeply embedded that its a real struggle to do anything about it.

About 2 years ago when I was in a better place with other mental health stuff I managed to try an apple, a mushroom, an orange and a banana. Ive not eaten any of them since, but I know that in other forms I like the taste eg apple or orange juice. I have made some progress over the years and will now eat rice and pasta and some curries and Chinese, but its slow progress.

It makes life really hard – eating out is always about eliminating all the “unsafe” options and hoping there’s no surprises with the “safe” ones, going to friends for a meal involves giving them an embarrassing briefing, foreign travel is dominated by “what can I eat?”. I wish I could fix myself to be someone who just eats whatever is on the plate but that’s a long and difficult way off.

I’ll eat anything, some people find that amusing. As long as it’s actually food and not some silly test I’ll eat it.
I was a child of a single parent in the sixties. My Grandad who spent a huge part of his life in the army serving in India would lock me under the stairs if I didn’t eat everything.

Klingon food.. 😥

My one and only visit to a Greek seafood restaurant didn’t go well…

That looks lovely – chewy, in a nice way. 😉

🙁

Onions

I ate anything as a kid, except baked beans (not sure why).

I eat anything now, except parsnips (even drizzled with honey, don’t like them.

But, I avoid processed food (except sausages/bacon), pretty much cooking everything from base ingredients. I just prefer the taste of ‘proper’ food as well as avoiding all the crap they put in them.

My one and only visit to a Greek seafood restaurant didn’t go well…

Wow, that’s a lot of oil…

Will try most foods as I come from a food loving background. I also like to clear my plate especially if I like what it is, even if I’m full.

I didn’t really like tomatoes as a kid after eating a glut of them and being sick, had a similar experience with banana. Both fine with now.

Not a fan of smelly fish cooking but will eat it once cooked, so it’s more about smell than taste for me.

I must admit I was concerned Kip Jr was a picky eater as I’ll eat pretty much anything and she won’t, but actually, after reading this post…no, I think we’re doing fine. We do almost exactly what Cookeaa says and this seem to work. I’m sure she’s tried more foods than I had by her age and has a better idea of when she’s full than I do.

only two things, celery…what is the point?? and salad cream the name alone makes no sense , apart from that i’ll eat or at least try owt (I like a bit of fermented fish me).

I wouldn’t touch cabbage as a kid, till I was in hospital with measles then a nurse put vinegar on some & I lapped it up!
I love cabbage now, speshly with mint sauce on.

I have always hated cucumber, It’s the Devils Knob. (People often say, ‘but it doesn’t really taste of anything’. Yes it does, it tastes of cucumber.

Still can’t look a sprout in the eye. Ugh.
Hated Marmite as a kid – love it now.

I wouldn’t eat octopus again
I wouldn’t knowingly eat whale again

Thanks for sharing Cougar… Out in the opens good.

Ok not me but my Cuz.
For some reason from the age of 9 or so he’d only eat fish fingers & chips, that sounds fine you say until you realise that’s for both lunch and dinner for 6 years then all of a sudden he’d requested sausages and chips that lasted for about 6 mths then he returned back to fish finger and chips.
He’d eat nowt else, drink Guiness when he turned 18 and only drink tea at any other time.

We got used to it, his family just thought he’d grow out of it, unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to grow out of it.
Poor lad.

wasn’t too keen on anything with white wine in as a kid.. or anything done sweet and sour

I find fussy eaters a real turn off

I have a terrible disorder, as a kid I ate everything and now as a grown up I ….eat everything. I’m litterally a garbage disposal, there are no foods I dislike the taste of. Seafood, meat, marmite, all weird fruits. Food is something to enjoy not worry about, get it down your neck.

Still don’t eat tripe, pineapple, or greasy food. Might grow up one day.

As a kid my diet was quite limited. Parents were not adventurous eaters. None of that foreign muck. My mum came from a long line of Welsh cooks. Veg went on at the same time as the meat, then boiled until grey and over salted. You ate everything that was put in front of you. Whether you liked it or not. The consequences were brutal. My brother still has quite serious food issues. I can’t leave anything. The plate has to be cleared.

When I was 18 I started working in a brew pub come gastro pub. The chief opened my eyes to food. There’s only a few things I don’t like. Anchovies, okra, pickled beetroot, brussel sprouts, roll mop herring. I don’t tend to eat bony fish. I just can’t be arsed to pick out the bones.

I just wish I could overcome the clearing plates issues. Would help a lot in shedding some weight.

Well done Cougar. That must have been tough.

The dietitian unsurprisingly told me that my diet was bad and that I should be twice the size I was, but was unable to advise on how to increase the range of food I ate.

That’s interesting. I’ve never seen a dietician, but I’ve stuffed my face with chips and cake (and beer) for years and now into my 40s I have a 30″ waist. (Slippery slope perhaps, I was 28″ for years…)

For me it’s a texture thing. I don’t like sloppy or mushy food. (I have my cereal dry) I do however like strong flavours.

I think I’m the same (apart from the mushy bit). That and the smell, if I don’t like the smell then it’s game over. That’s why I’ve never eaten fish (amongst other things).

oh and well done cougar that mustve taken some balls

Yeah. Thanks for that (all of you), I kinda thought I was going to get taken apart. Appreciated.

Something else I’ve just realised.

People have suggested getting kids involved in the cooking process. For me, one thing that’s helped is cooking stuff and then not having to eat it because I’m cooking for my other half. So it’s not just demystifying foods, but it’s also taking the pressure off.

I made a meal for myself that I’d never had before the other night; the sole reason I managed to do that is because I’d learned to cook it for my partner and got acclimatised to the ingredients and flavours over time.

I never had any problem handling or cooking stuff. The majority of things I cooked at school, I never ate

There were very few foods that I truly detested as a child, only cauliflower, aubergines, and olives.

Unfortunately, despite trying them all on a regular basis throughout my life, I still detest them.

Certainly had to clear plate. I can’t not.

I am starting to dip a cautious toe around tomatoes. Although I cannot quite get the image if me bring left at school dinner table on my own with a plateful of hateful wet plum tomatoes in front of me until I ate them all. I still cringe in shame.

I am fussy about fish – don’t like the taste of a lot of it, though ok with the tuna/haddock/cod/salmon. Don’t eat fresh fish.

I don’t eat nuts of any variety*; they make me sick (throw up). Even coconut. I’ll be willing to try most things but if anyone offers me something and refuses to answer if it has nuts in it then game over.

Strangely I like coffee but don’t like coffee cake/chocolate.
And whisky makes me heave when I smell it.

* yeah, yeah, I know, heard it a million times… 😆