[Closed] Fussy Eaters

Sprouts. I used to hate them, got to think of them a "acceptable" and now (thanks to Ton) love them roasted to buggery.

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 (the wife's one). growing up, I ate what my mum cooked for me or I went hungry.

Tomatoes. Got hooked one day in France. And Bakewell tart. After I discovered the ones made in Derbyshire rather than the school canteen.

mushrooms, olives and parsnips.

I still despise parsnips, but will eat them to be polite, and because I'm greedy.

I still believe that I won't get any pudding unless I've cleared the plate. I will also clear everyone else's plates so that they can get some pudding.

Hated fish as a kid, but will eat some now. I prefer white fish though, has a less fishy taste.

Didn't like cauliflower but don't mind it now.

Still don't eat raw tomatoes, blue cheese or mushrooms.

I was fussy as a kid and didn't really eat much veg.
Then I encountered veg that wasn't boiled for 20 minutes by my mum.
Delicious.
I still won't eat tomatoes or any internal organs.

There's no fussy eaters in Somalia. I don't know why people are allowed to get away with it, I've got a mate who cooks three seperate meals every night, in a household of three.

As a kid, I'd eat nothing (and I mean nothing) except cheese on toast or bacon.
As an adult, I eat pretty much everything except cheese or bacon.

Parsnips is a good one. Learnt to love them as an adult, but only after some serious roasting. Travelling certainly broadens the mind and tastebuds - I'm just getting a taste for Durian, but it still smells like something died - Biltong falls into a similar category.

Then I encountered veg that wasn't boiled for 20 minutes by my mum.

Didn't eat broccoli, cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower and parsnips as a kid.

Will now eat them all out of choice. Lovely.

Coleslaw. hated it as a child, now gone slaw' mad

apples. My sister liked apples, i liked bananas. I was 27 before I ate an apple. It was a whole new world! Apples, apple pie, apple sauce, cider... its amazing!

Would never eat liver, kidney or other such organs and still won't.

Hate(d) bananas and sweet potato. Will have them if chipped though, must be a texture thing.

I think the cooking ability of parents plays a big part

For me it was School dinners that put me off loads of stuff,jeez ,they were grim .
Stew that took an hour to chew and tatties that were always grey,veg that was 80% liquid ...bleargh 😯

I was always told I was a fussy eater as a kid, turns out my mum was a shite cook , putting the veg on at the same time as the meat.With the result that you could have hung wallpaper with the ensuing slurry .I know enjoy most veg but can't eat anything even slightly overcooked as it makes me want to retch .Things like red peppers and brocolli came along when I was a teenager and cheered up my diet

As a kid I'd eat potatoes, carrots and peas as long as none of the shells were broken.

Woke up one morning when I was 19 decided I'd had enough of crap, stopped eating meat there and then, walked into a green grocers and just bought a load of veg. I'll eat just about any vegetable now.

As a kid I ate pretty anything ... until my mother acquired a pressure cooker. All food emerging from that thing tasted the same whether it was stew or rice pudding. It was downhill from there ...

My overall diet is shocking to say the least. I'm not as fussy as I once was, I eat a larger variety of food now, but just the wrong amounts and the wrong times and either too little or too much.

My biggest problem is fueling myself for bike rides. I've gone on too many 3-4 hour rides without having much more than nothing beforehand.

Seems to me it's virtually considered abuse nowadays if a parent doesn't ask what their kids want for tea, and cook three different meals to accommodate each one. Then some parents whinge about being skint/busy etc. World's gone mad - kids should eat what they're given unless there's a very good reason.

Couldn't eat pasta with lines on (such as penne), still can't.
Wouldn't have dreamed of eating humous or couscous as a kid but will now.
Still don't like cucumber, or pears, or mayo...

What spacemonkey said.

But as a kid I wouldn't eat cheese, tomatoes, onions, curry (school meal variety)

Now I love curry and pizza and cauliflower cheese, cheese on toast, onions, etc

Would never eat liver, kidney or other such organs and still won't.

Given they don't taste the same, that seems a bit silly.

We're trying to give the little miss as varied a diet as possible - seems to be working as there's not much she won't eat.

Never had much money as a kid but always had brilliant, traditional food - Mum could make an old army boot taste like heaven. Went to Uni and encountered pasta, curry and vegetarianism - been a fussy eater ever since. 😀

As I kid I was the anti-vegetarian. If it came from something living I'd eat it, if it was plant based I'd generally avoid. Exceptions were made for potatoes, tomatoes, onions (if they were cut up small and in something else), baked beans, carrots and fruit. The carrots had to be cut up small too and cooked so I couldn't taste them.

I didn't eat peppers until I was 19, peas at 22, my first pear at 31, broccoli at 35. I now eat most things apart from cauliflower and sprouts.

Mushrooms, Currants/Raisins (in moderation now), Spinach (can only handle it raw as salad though i.e. baby leaf). Beer/Ale!

Still can't abide leeks or seafood with the exception of fish fingers and battered haddock. 😆

My parents were the classic, can't get down from table/have pudding until you've cleared you plate though .. and they never gave in.

Until I was 12/13 then they gave up and decided quality fish was a waste on me.

Brinjaals
Ladies fingers
Onions
Bitter gourds (unless they were fried)
Cabbage
Prawns
Crab - unless you broke the shell for me
Fish with bones in it

Things I loved as a kid I don't really like much anymore
- Deep fried gizzard
- Fried chicken liver
- Curried goat's intestine

Still can't abide leeks or seafood with the exception of fish fingers and battered haddock.

I've never understood people saying "I don't like seafood". It's not as if there's a consistent flavour that links all the foods you can get from the sea...

Was never a fussy eater as a kid, am not a fussy eater as a grown up.

But I won't eat pickled eggs, marmite or houmous.

Two reasons on the seafood really;

The look of it - especially un prepped - if I'm honest.
The general aroma of preperation.

I've been known to tackle some sushi salmon/tuna/fresh water trout out of politeness and it's not too bad as it's hyper fresh. But I find I gag on most other stuff, salty /oily stuff, shell fish, crab, lobster. I've tried it all as a supervised youth (see above about parents) and again out of politeness as an adult

Went to Uni and encountered pasta, curry and vegetarianism - been a fussy eater ever since

Friend's son came back from his first year at Uni .
He had some brilliant stories about his flat mates and their complete lack of cooking skills .

One of them tried to cook pasta without water,just threw it into a pan ,turned on the gas, then asked after a few minutes why it wasn't looking right 😯

As per ^^^^ cabbage and assorted veg greenery.

I wasn't a particularly fussy eater, but some of my early life food traumas have left a mark - I still can't think of corned beef (in pasty form) or plain spare ribs without wincing.

I didn't eat vegetables (apart from potato) until I was about 11 - _ started on tinned carrots, worked onto tinned sweetcorn when I was 14, and didn't any other vegetables until I moved out of home. Ate broccoli at the age of 29, sweetheart cabbage at 30 and cauliflower at 32. Turns out they're not disgusting! Who knew?

Still won't eat fruit,not even on cheesecake (unless we're counting tomatoes).

I'm slowly coming around to eating fish, particularly mackerel and salmon.

I used to love Ribena and coffee when I was a toddler, hated both after about the age of 6 though.

Chilli con carne, curry and bizarrely, sausages.
Love all those now.

Mushrooms will never be eaten though.

The look of it - especially un prepped - if I'm honest.
The general aroma of preperation.

But un-prepped meat doesn't bother you? Smell shouldn't be an issue if it's fresh...

Do now, didnt then:
Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Broccolli

Still don't:
Cauliflower
Sprouts
Liver/Kidneys etc
Tinned Tuna or Salmon

Am fussy about potatoes though.

Always hated school food and other peoples mums cooking. In particular what I now refer to as 'vegetables a la anglaise' or 'if you can still count them, they're not done'.
Still won't eat them.

We apply a bit of general motivation, our eldest gets Stars on her star chart for "Trying different / new food" and for "Eating up her meals", sounds lame I'm sure but Stickers are still among the most wonderful thing in the world so far as she's concerned...

We tend not to push them to finish the whole plate off, especially if eating out as the portion in front of them may well be a bit big...
I'd much rather then got used to just stopping when full than become pre-teen gut buckets...

What we have found is that they are both keener on veg than on meat generally, so we go with that there's normally plenty of different types of Veg on the plates for them to sample...

Fruit too, they love it currently so we keep the fruit bowl stocked and seldom refuse a request for an Apple, Orange, Banana or Grapes it beats being pestered for chocolate or sweets...

What we do insist on at meal times is that they at least try everything and decide honestly if they like it or not, if they decide they don't like something we simply say "OK, just eat the other stuff" this generally works, sometimes the same food will be put in front of her a couple of weeks later and this time she decides she likes it all of a sudden, no point trying to force the issue or bully them into eating stuff, as soon as meals become a battle ground you've lost...

Chipping in with some positive comments like "You've done well" and "I'm glad you ate the pepper and sweetcorn, its very good for you". seem to help.

It is all about tactics, remembering what they've said they like before, and applying a bit of pop-psychology to a four year old...
Accept that you will waste food, especially if your MIL is secretly plying them with sweets when you're out (Grrrr!)...

Whatever you do Never mention Ice cream or offer tasty, pudding type incentives for finishing a meal or for eating something they don't like, it doesn't work, and once they know something full of sugar and fat is waiting in the fridge that's it they are done with the main course and you simply end up inducing a paddy (My missus has yet to learn this rule properly)...

Those are my tips, I'm sure people will tell me they're all wrong but they've worked thus far...

Edit:

My own Dietary evolution:

As a Child most things apart from Marmite
As an Adult most things apart from Marmite

Fruit too, they love it currently so we keep the fruit bowl stocked and seldom refuse a request for an Apple, Orange, Banana or Grapes it beats being pestered for chocolate or sweets...

That reminds me. A friend's daughter kept asking her mum how many points she got for eating pieces of fruit when they were over at our house. I thought they were rewarding her but it turned out she wanted to get as high a total as possible, so was ramming her face with apples, grapes etc. Still, who got fat eating too many apples?

I misread the title.....off to pron jub with me it is then...

[b]ransos[/b] - 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.