Published on 12, July, 2020
I'll come clean to start with.
I am a very fussy eater. My diet is very bland. It used to drive my mother to despair the way I wouldn't eat much variety of food.
I hate strong flavours, with the exception of kippers and sardines. I eat very little meat. And I eat very few vegetables either, and cooked vegetables are a very big no, except for potatoes in the form of chips or baked.. Lettuce, radish, watercress, and raw carrots are the only other vegetables I eat. The only poultry I will eat is in the form of a boiled or poached hen's egg, except as part of the recipe for a cake. Bread, nearly always wholemeal (I do like white bread but avoid it because it is less healthy.) And milk, butter, cheddar cheese, yoghurt, and fruit (oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, strawberries, .... nothing exotic. ) There is very little else I will eat. I know I won't like it and 'gag' at any attempt. An onion I could detect at fifty paces and it is amazing that others insist there is not onion in what they are eating - many things have onions or onion powder in them which I can detect.. Strong smelling foods I find thoroughly revolting.
This extends to cookery programmes on television, pictures in magazines, etc. I have an absolute aversion. Lidls the supermarket, was selling snails the other day, they looked just like snails collected from the garden. How anyone could put them in their mouth I do not know, they looked disgusting.
This food aversion has been with me throughout my life. Right from just after I was on solid food. Nothing my mother did could force me to eat things I dd not want. I believe this is strongly linked to being autistic.
I am writing this not to ask for advice on how to eat. Nor to express my concern over my diet. I am 62 and am not dead yet and it has not done me a lot of harm. I just wonder how many others of 'mature' years also have a restricted diet. And I also hope that it may reassure parents that if their children are very fussy, as long as they are eating some healthy food they need not worry too much.
The main problems it causes me are that I cannot eat out (except fish and chips with no funny stuff on them, just salt and vinegar.) A meal at a restaurant I would look on as a punishment. Rather than that I would much rather sit down to two pieces of wholemeal bread and butter with a banana.
And if that is what I like, why should that be of concern to others?
I watch out for MSG, additives and antibiotics in all of my food. I find MSG to be the most common offender even at the most "clean" food you can find. Take sauces and meats for example, they add "seasoning" to mass produced food to make you feel full and enjoy the meal. Without it, it tends to be bland. MSG is also usually non-marked and goes by a massive list of "other names". Sneaky, unfair...but reality. Below is a short list and this is only with MSG and MSG derivatives.
I've been consulted the best way to avoid these is to cook at home with good ingredients. This is pretty true and sad for us to have to create this much safety in order to live our lifes. Hope this is helpful :)
To do my mother credit, she did say much later on that she would never have made me try to eat food I didn't like. Especially not eggs. That was after she developed serious food intolerances. I have a cousin who apparently craved eggs, but then went into wild mood swings afterwards. This was all because my mother had pre eclampsia whilst pregnant. Tbis was not alwayspredictanle news. Conversations could end up being 'if only you'd she'll your beans you'd vote Conservative. '
In fact, in her last years she did as her mother did before her, pretty well sztopped eating altogether.
My parents' riends made a point in joining in the criticism once by saying their Victorian parents brought up a refused meal to the next meal, until it was eaten. From.my parents, there were tales of how the starving Biafrans would be angry to see me turning my my ungrateful nose up at what I was expected to eat.
Not sure how patient I would have beenwith a child that might refuse to eat though. I'd have been worried for their nutrition. Whenmycsts started feuding their Whisks I was told at the nearby pet store they were right to, Whiskas is full of sugar and grains.
When I was pregnant I got so sensitive to food smells that a TV add for lamb burgers made me retch!
As a child , I.was brought up by my mother, having food values drilled into me. That food is sacred and one should eat and drink everything that is set down in front of you. Not leaving any scraps behind .
What a hypocrite.
When she disliked something! !!!!!!!!
Examples.
Yes... People have strong emotions when it comes to.food.
I got into trouble as a child for saying cooked kidneys smelt of urine... they really did!
Ugh!!!! I hated ready Brek too. My aversion to eggs has not diminished in the slightest. Some restaurants over here do a full English for the tourists, makes me retch if the smell is strong enough
I'd forgotten that thing I had about undercooked egg whites as a child. My mum did this terrible thing of stirring a raw egg into a bowl of hot Readybrek - I'm feeling nauseous at the memory!
nexus9 said:The things I could not tolerate as a child were eggs, especially fried or scrambled. The smell of egg white makes me gag.
Me too and exactly as you describe. At a push if I had to I could eat well cooked yoke as long as it had absolutely NO white in it at all but just the smell of egg white can make me sick not let alone the taste. Its not an allergy thing though as I have no problem with eggs as an ingredient as long as I can't taste them. Can't stand meringue though, the egg whiteyness comes though that stuff.
It is refreshing to read about other people's eating habits when you constantly get told your own are weird. But as you said in your first post why should it concern others.
I do put my three ha'pence worth in now and again!
I will eat raw carrots, watercress, a lettuce sarnie every now and then (gives me terrible wind if I have more little) and radish with a bit of salt and a bit of bread and butter (ditto regarding wind).
And I can't think of any other vegetable I will eat!
The things I could not tolerate as a child were eggs, especially fried or scrambled. The smell of egg white makes me gag. So does the smell of lard or butter being cooked. On fact I nearly threw up passing a greasy spoon recently, I think it was bacon of some kind cooking in some kind of fat.
Bit that could be a liver thing, in Italy they will say it is a liver thing anyway.
I did not like the smell of hot milk either, nor cheese, though I like it now.
So what vegetables do you eat and how?
Nice to know you are still around on this forum after a year!
I was amazed to see this thread suddenly get revived!
Without wanting to be too graphic, and trying not to be, most meat (especially with gravy), curries, sauces etc look like and smell very similar to, things that do not belong anywhere near the orifices that one eats with or smells with. The whole texture/ smell/ appearance is too reminiscent of something else for me to even contemplate eating.
I prefer food not 'mucked about with'. as detailed above.. And just simple bread, which I usually make myself in a breadmaker. Bread and cheese, a boiled egg with a slice or two of bread, a banana sandwich (really just slices of banana on a piece of bread and butter, sometimes with little honey, a cheese and watercress sandwich or bread and jam (strawberry or blackcurrant). The most exotic thing I will have is a cheddar cheese and strawberry jam sandwich. I cannot think of a single vegetable I would eat cooked except cereals in bread, breakfast cereal, or baked potato or chips. Fruits I prefer raw except for blackcurrants of which Blackcurrant pie is one of the very finest foods on the planet!
The one thing my diet does not lack is fibre!
Cold water. God knows why but water really must be lukewarm or warm.
Liver, prawns .
Just looking at it makes me want to. ....
I can't do salad or sandwiches. I'm not good with different foods being together. Although I am getting better with this. It was a nightmare as a child. Needed separate plates/bowls for everything. I'm not brilliant with green. Broccolis and peas are the ones. Oh and cucumber. I won't eat anything that has touched something I don't like. Like you I can taste it even if it's been scraped off. My mum tried to scrape things when I wasn't looking as a child thinking I'd be none the wiser but I always knew.
Bacon. The stuff is revolting. I can't understand why it is so popular.
Raw tomato is one of my most hated foods. Bizarrely, I can cope with most cooked tomato sauces, like pasta sauces and pizza toppings, but no way raw. If I end up with a sandwich or salad with raw tomato in, I have to leave it - even if I pick out the tomato, I can detect even the tiniest trace of the gloop inside them if it's come into contact with the other ingredients.
Broccoli, I'm fine with. In fact, "greens" are among my favourite foods - I'm always the one who'll greedily scoff everyone else's Brussels sprouts when they turn their noses up at them!
Fresh apples are the worst. Okder apples or cooked/baked ones are fine.
All veggies are just fine, but dry potatoes are horrible.
But steak, pork and dry chicken really don't sit well with me. Steak (however expensive) is impossible.
Some fruits cause problems, like green melon.
It is quite complicated :-D
Agree about tomatoes. They are evil. Don't agree about ketchup though. Sauce is also evil to me. And broccoli is one of the only vegetables I'll actually eat so can't agree on that one either. But definitely tomatoes are the most evil. Can't stand them.