Do picky eaters annoy you?

[zeruty]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
There was a time in my life where picky eaters went hungry...or ate C-rations...(some of which weren't actually TOO bad)

I KNOW I ate things in Vietnam that I probably wouldn't have if I'd have known what it was...and other things that I'd probably not have eaten under "different circumstances," but, when you're hungry, and tired of "Meals, Combat, Individual," AND, you don't want to insult your hosts, many of whom perhaps couldn't really spare the food they were serving you, you ate what was offered...

I like a lot of MRE's...

If I could find them cheaper, I'd probably eat them frequently

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: zeruty

I like a lot of MRE's...

If I could find them cheaper, I'd probably eat them frequently

For the most part, MRE's are a HUGE improvement over the military field rations of years gone by...

 

[silverpig]

I enjoy hosting dinners and cooking for friends. I don't like it when vegetarians come over though.

"Oh, I don't eat meat."

"Well shit, I guess you'll have a big empty spot on your plate then."

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really tasty vegetarian food, and I do have days where I don't eat meat by coincidence, but I don't like having my cooking be dictated by an arbitrary choice. If someone's allergic to something, I can deal with that happily.

It's like having someone ask me to come over to hang out and talk, and me agreeing on the condition that they don't use any pronouns.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: G Wizard
i am a reformed picky eater.

how foolish i was.
so many lost years.

i used to hate onions. now, i love them.

Yay, me too . If only we could help the others. My latest reform? Chili.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
And equally stupid is the "you're an asshole for NOT liking it" stuff too. It's not their fault they don't like ethnic food.

People have their preferences. Though I do feel sorry for American kids raised on Kraft macaroni & cheese, Hamburger Helper, Wonder bread, Skippy peanut butter, ketchup, McDonald's, and any number of other entirely flavorless food-like products that make American cuisine look bad. I don't fault them for not liking interesting food, but their weak, underdeveloped taste buds simply reject anything that contains flavors.

There is good American food, of course. Barbecued anything, spicy creole food, Tex-Mex, delis, even midwestern casseroles can be great if they're done right. It's the love of highly processed, manufactured food that confuses and actually saddens me.

Personally, the only lines I will draw in terms of what I will and won't try are these:

1. I won't eat anything that is still alive
2. I won't eat heads or any part of a head (brains, eyeballs, etc.)
3. I won't eat bugs

That's about all.

I agree with 90% of that, however I think you have it backwards. It's not that they eat flavorless food. It's that they eat things completely laced in sugar. Ketchup? Sugar. Peanut butter? Sugar. If it's not sugar, it's white starch made from sugar. Etc. This means that when they try to eat something not laced in sugar, they can't taste it well enough and they reject it as bland. This is why water tastes bad compared to soda. You are bombarding your taste buds with so much sugar that they are practically "taste-deaf" to normal foods. What most don't realize though is that it is fixable. Some people, like my dad, can go their whole life without correcting it though. After awhile they become so set in their ways.

I have my sister and my own dieting to thank for not getting stuck in that mentality for my entire life. Giving up soda was a huge step, however it went far, far beyond that.

The cool thing about it is that it's not just about making food tolerable, but once I started tolerating new foods, I found foods that I enjoyed 10x more than other things I used to eat.

My younger sister is still a lost cause though, we can go to a seafood restaurant and she will order chicken fingers. *blank stare*

 

[Beanie46]

Originally posted by: txrandom
Do picky eaters annoy you?

No, and why would they? Sometimes they make me laugh, but annoy? I try not to let others and their peculiarities bother me, esp. when whatever the other person is doing in no way affects anything I do.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: Cuhulainn

Originally posted by: zeruty


As it is, I can be eating something... say a burrito from Taco Bell... and there will be 1 tiny little piece of lettuce, and that fucks up the flavor for the entire bite... lettuce overpowers any other flavor and makes me gag. I really think I am chemically incompatible with lettuce... not allergic, but it's not edible either.

I didn't think picky eaters bothered me... until I read this.

Imagine biting into a burrito with a scrap of tin foil in it. That's kind of what it's like to me.

 

[TheSlamma]

I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

 

[txrandom]

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Marinated green olives with garlic are awesome.

 

[CRXican]

I ate some awesome Thai food last night - spicy rice noodles with RED BELL PEPPERS and LOTS OF ONIONS

what's wrong with you people!!!!!!!!!!!!!????

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Heh, I don't like them on pizzas or sandwiches or anything, but they're great on their own.

 

[TheSlamma]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Heh, I don't like them on pizzas or sandwiches or anything, but they're great on their own.

Pickey aren't you

 

[jonks]

yes. very high on list of bannable dating offenses

 

[Redfraggle]

They only bother me if they make it a big deal as though the world revolves around them. Being reasonable and saying they can't eat a certain kind of food for a good reason is ok, there are other places to eat/dishes to make. Acting like you are trying to poison them for suggesting something they don't like is irritating.

"Picky" is also highly subjective -- are vegetarians picky, are vegans? If no, then why are vegetable-haters picky (which I often think)? I've noticed that people who seem to be picky for the sake of healthy diets are often not labeled picky, but those who choose unhealthy diets are. I eat a very healthy diet, so I'm not defending myself here, I'm just wondering.

People who won't try new foods for no apparent reason (no allergy, no digestive issues, no bad history with said food, etc) are annoying and deemed picky in my mind, too.

 

[KMFJD]

Only a few, raw onions, peanut butter and seafood for the most part....

 

[CZroe]

When someone refuses to eat something just because it doesn't fit their preferences 100%, I usually look at them with disgust. For example, my nephew would not eat a taco because it had a single sredded bit of a piece of lettuce in the wrapper touching the shell... he had demanded "no lettuce." He also would not touch a hamburger if it had anything more than meat & cheese on it. A drop of ketchup or an easily picked-off pickle was too much for him. This "your way" self-importance we are teaching our kids is making a nation of little monsters.

That said, even people who go through the trouble to pick things off can sometimes be annoying. For example, I'd never specifically pay for mushrooms on a pizza because they don't add any flavor... just a sometimes-slimy texture. I can appreciate the texture that some things add to foods (mayonaise is more about wetting a dry sandwich than adding an egg flavor), but even if I don't prefer the texture that mushrooms add, you'd never find me picking them off like a wuss. Isn't that way too much effort? Isn't the extra effort every bit as undersireable as any perseived flavor/texture impact?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Heh, I don't like them on pizzas or sandwiches or anything, but they're great on their own.

Pickey aren't you

I'm picky about olives in that I'm an olive snob. I hate the generic canned black olives that they put on pizza, sandwiches, taco salads, etc., but I like really good olives. I can tolerate generic green olives, but I really prefer good kalamatas.

 

[Redfraggle]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Heh, I don't like them on pizzas or sandwiches or anything, but they're great on their own.

Pickey aren't you

I'm picky about olives in that I'm an olive snob. I hate the generic canned black olives that they put on pizza, sandwiches, taco salads, etc., but I like really good olives. I can tolerate generic green olives, but I really prefer good kalamatas.

MMm, olives! I ate at this place called "Olives" while in Vegas. They served (surprise!) olives and olive paste (I just blanked on the word for it) with delicious bread before the appetizer comes out. Best olives I've ever had in my life. I completely admit to being a food snob. However, I still eat things like hotdogs now and then.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

whats wrong with hamburger its ground beef = protein yummy


no girls I've ever dated for any extended period of time were picky.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: CRXican
I ate some awesome Thai food last night - spicy rice noodles with RED BELL PEPPERS and LOTS OF ONIONS

what's wrong with you people!!!!!!!!!!!!!????

TBH, I just don't get bell peppers.

why eat a pepper if it's not going to burn your tongue off?

I'm pretty anti any ingredient added for purely presentational reasons (ie: adding color to a dish)

 

[BoomerD]

My step-dad was stationed on New Guinea during WWII. He said you could tell how long someone had been there by the way they ate their bread.

The new guys picked all the weevils out of the bread

The ones who had been there a while, just ate the bread, weevils and all

The long-timers went around, gathering up the weevils the new guys picked out...and added them to their bread.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: TheSlamma

Originally posted by: nakedfrog

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I try to eat foods I normally didn't like just to grow a taste for them, like olives. I used to hate olives, after eating them on pizzas and sandwiches now I can plow those suckers down anytime by themselves

Heh, I don't like them on pizzas or sandwiches or anything, but they're great on their own.

Pickey aren't you

Yes, I am

Originally posted by: CZroe
That said, even people who go through the trouble to pick things off can sometimes be annoying. For example, I'd never specifically pay for mushrooms on a pizza because they don't add any flavor... just a sometimes-slimy texture. I can appreciate the texture that some things add to foods (mayonaise is more about wetting a dry sandwich than adding an egg flavor), but even if I don't prefer the texture that mushrooms add, you'd never find me picking them off like a wuss. Isn't that way too much effort? Isn't the extra effort every bit as undersireable as any perseived flavor/texture impact?

Obviously that's a personal preference. Some textures literally turn my stomach, enough to make it difficult to hold back the vomit. Mushrooms are very offensive, I thought maybe some gourmet cheese-stuffed mushrooms caps would be palatable, but no. It's involuntary, so if you don't like it... well, I don't give a rat's ass

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: skace
I agree with 90% of that, however I think you have it backwards. It's not that they eat flavorless food. It's that they eat things completely laced in sugar. Ketchup? Sugar. Peanut butter? Sugar. If it's not sugar, it's white starch made from sugar. Etc. This means that when they try to eat something not laced in sugar, they can't taste it well enough and they reject it as bland. This is why water tastes bad compared to soda. You are bombarding your taste buds with so much sugar that they are practically "taste-deaf" to normal foods. What most don't realize though is that it is fixable. Some people, like my dad, can go their whole life without correcting it though. After awhile they become so set in their ways.

By the same token though, isn't that also true for people who find anything bland that isn't lathered in Tabasco sauce, strong onions, etc? The only reason they can eat such stuff is because it's the only thing they can taste. It's not unlike those who are going deaf who need their audio cranked up to hear anything, an experience wholly unpleasant for someone who can hear just fine.

 

[actuarial]

Originally posted by: loki8481
TBH, I just don't get bell peppers.
why eat a pepper if it's not going to burn your tongue off?
I'm pretty anti any ingredient added for purely presentational reasons (ie: adding color to a dish)

Sounds like you're hung up on the name. I LOVE red/yellow bell peppers in my spaghetti sauce, and they definitely do change the flavour.

If they were called something other than 'peppers' you would probably be just fine with them.

Also, I consider myself a picky eater, but I'm not much of a problem (IMO). Even though I was brought up in a house free from spice, and pretty much anything non North American, I've always found something I like at any restaurant (though Indian is the hardest for me), and I never shoot down a suggestion to go anywhere.

The only thing I really don't like is sushi, and I have tried it on numerous occasions. I usually just order some other dish at a Japanese place, and try to avoid sushi only places. The texture of the rice always gets me, though I do like the raw fish aspect.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: surfsatwerk

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: surfsatwerk

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I'd rather be mad than eat raw tomatoes, in any case.

So wait, if I take a freshly cut tomato and put it on a burger, that is gross?

Veggies have no place on a burger. A burger is meat + cheese + more meat. I like my burger to be hot, when I'm eating a hot burger and bite into a cold veggie it makes my mouth unhappy. And I think a hot tomato would be even more nasty on one lol.

You are not human.

People who like HOT and COLD in the same bite aren't human. And 2 of my favorite burgers come standard with no veggies on them at all. So there must be quite a few people unhuman like me who don't like nasty ass veggies on a HAMBURGER. I wouldn't put veggies on a Steak or Chicken so why the hell would I want to put them on a Hamburger?

You and your kind are like a cheese doodle compared to an ear of corn. You're a homogenized processed trans fat human.

No way, Tran Fats have been banned in California, I dunno if it's in effect yet though. I love salads as much as anything. But I'm not going to eat shit that should be in a salad on a burger. A burger is meat + cheese only, MAYBE some sauce to keep it from being too dry. Just like I'm not going to put a hamburger patty on my salad.