I have been labeled a finicky eater, and I will admit that there are many foods I can't eat. My parents have been understanding from the onset and it has made my life much easier. However, I was more than a little appalled when the mother of a friend informed me that my parents spoiled me and indulged me instead of making me eat what was proper. I am writing here in hopes that some people at least will be educated out of such ignorance. Finicky eaters refuse to eat certain foods because they simply cannot stand the taste. I have tried on occasion to force myself to eat a food that I did not like the taste of. I was nauseous after four bites, to the point where I was afraid I was going to lose it all. This is not a matter of a petulant child who was indulged, it is a matter of being able to consume some flavors and the very unpleasant rejection of others. Do you have any advice on how to reply to comments like the one I was faced with? At the time, I did not reply at all, not wanting to cause a scene by calling my friend's mother a moron. Cause, you know, that's certainly no way to make a good impression, even if they are in the wrong...

Well, the next time she says it just say you've got a sensitive stomach and there are a lot of foods you can't eat because they make you feel sick. If she still thinks your parents should make you eat this stuff (whatever it is), then she's crazy and will make herself LOOK crazy just by saying it after you tell her that.

I'm that way, but it's more texture than taste for me. Anything slimy like okra or steak fat and I'm ready to vomit. Can't eat fried chicken because of the sticky, greasy texture of the meat. A lot of processed meats gross me out.

Well, explain to this person how you explained to us. xD If she/he doesn't understand, well they're just a bit thick-skulled. Explain there is a difference from not being able to eat foods and totally prejudging and refusing to eat certain foods.

there is such a thing as a taste disorder, where in some cases certain foods which can taste lovely to some people, can taste horrible to others...i, for example, can't eat brown bread...to me it tastes incredibly bitter, whereas to everyone else i know it tastes really nice...the same goes for quite a few food items i've tried to eat in the past...

what it comes down to is that everyones taste buds are different and develop in different ways...there are countless millions who couldn't stand the taste of a certain food when they were young, but love it when they're older, and vice versa...

we're all different...it's a fact of life... ;)

I'm a picky eater too. Plenty of people are, don't worry about it. Life's too short to eat things you don't like.

i'm a very picky eater and have been since ever. -_- Tough, i believe we are able to stand more tastes with the time. And i don't think it's a thing someone who eats normally will understand. /:

I'm curious, how old are you?

I read that children are more sensitive to tastes as an evolutionary survival instinct against plants and foods that are poisonous. I used to be a relatively picky eater, but I found that as I got older (late teens), foods I used to hate and not eat I now LOVE. :o

Wow, spoiled and overly sensitive.

I love a ton of different foods and unfortunately both my ex husband AND my fiance are finicky eaters.

My ex husband, growing up, was only given crappy unhealthy foods such as hotdogs, pizza rolls, pizza, fast food hamburgers, etc. Greasy fatty foods. He didn't like really much else nor would he try anything else. There was no way we could afford to buy groceries for his way of eating AND mine. What I've learned to do is find foods/flavors that finicky eaters like in the foods that they don't. For example - my ex husband LOVED BBQ and salsa, so I bought BBQ turkey and salsa turkey deli meat. I slowly started adding tiny bits of other foods to his sandwiches and other dishes I'd make. Today, even though we're divorced now, he'll eat just about anything.

Same goes with my fiance. I've managed to take the flavors and foods he likes and tweak them for him to try new things, even if they are unknown to him.

I understand the reasoning behind finicky eaters, but unless you are allergic to something, I'm bound to sneak a variety of foods in your diet. xD

I don't get what's wrong with being picky about your food. I mean I've always been a picky eater.

I'm definitely more interested in trying new things now, but I'm not going to keep eating something I hate.

So, if I don't like something, I either don't eat or I make something I like.

im a pretty picky eater. ive never encountered someone so self-righteous about food like that though.

ive hated the same foods as i did since i was little, and my parent STILL attempt to make me eat them. its not in a forcing way though, theyre just all casual about it like theyre trying to be all sly and stuff. its as if they pretend to not know i dont eat those things in some kind of useless attempt to convince me to like that stuff.

like if they come over and theyre making food, theyd be like "do you want me to add tomatoes/mushrooms/cucumbers?" knowing full well that ive never liked those things. or theyd say "i know this recipe with blah blah blah and eggplant and blah, do you want to try it?" NO I HATE EGGPLANT AND YOU KNOW THIS STOP PLZ -__-

im not sure whats more annoying. that or when i pick out tomatoes and they say, "it has antioxidants", or, "its anti-cancerous". OMG I DONT CARE. ive heard that spiel since i was a small child. i dont need to hear it every time they witness me picking them out D:

I have the exact problem. People always tell me I am too fussy and should just try things but I really cant stand to. It's nothing to do with parents.

i'm a picky eater as well. i don't eat onions 'cause i don't like how they feel on my tongue. s'that picky enough for you? and that's just one food out of many.

srsly though. tell her what you just told us. try to make her understand that being picky =/= being spoiled.

.... srs

i'm kind of the same way, only it's not the taste of food, it's the texture of it. i can't eat any kind of fish or eggs without gagging. even if i manage to choke it down, i end up being sick afterward~

Some are though. My sister wouldn't eat anything, not because she didn't like it, because she just didn't want to. She got a kick out of people thinking she was weird for eating plain spaghetti noodles and going to Subway and only getting tomatoes and pickles on her sub (which killed me because the reason she wouldn't put sauce on her noodles was because she hated tomatoes). My parents didn't care what any of us ate, and considering when we got fast food, they would stop at 2 or 3 different places... well, people probably would have called that spoiled and indulgent.

So the thing is, it's impossible to tell why someone won't eat something, especially when they're younger. (Now my sister will eat anything - she's older and isn't trying to shock anyone, or get attention, or whatever she was doing.) If someone sees someone's kid refusing to eat anything but Cheerios and canned ravioli, the assumption is always that the parents just aren't enforcing good eating habits. How in the hell could they possibly know that anything but Cheerios and canned ravioli makes the kid throw up? What they're seeing is a kid who isn't eating the things that he should be eating - veggies, fruits, etc.. not getting a balanced diet.

And yes, people should stay out of other peoples' business, parents can feed their kids whatever they want, etc, but parents tend to concerned about all kids, not just their own, and that's why they do stick their noses in sometimes if they see something unhealthy or potentially dangerous.

For your situation - just ignore it. You know why you don't eat the things you don't eat, and no one else needs to know. If your parents understand, there's no problem.

I'm a very picky eater. I'm weird about textures and consistencies of foods and I'm very picky about taste, in addition to having somewhat of a sensitive stomach. For the most part I know what foods I shouldn't eat, or what foods I should avoid. My family (and boyfriend) generally know what foods I won't eat, but they won't stop cooking/getting/eating those foods completely just for my sake. I've never had anyone call me spoiled or indulgent, though, and I wouldn't say that I am at all. It's true that some kids may be picky just for the fun of it, but obviously that's not the case for you. If the woman brings it up again, just let her know that she's wrong.

i think you should all get over it and try to stomach it somehow. or find a way to prepare the food so you will like it.

i was a finicky eater... when i was a child. i just think anyone like this should get used to it unless you never plan on dining out anywhere in your life. it's awkward and rude to go anywhere and say to whoever is preparing your food "i dont like this or this or this or this" etc :/

yeah, that was the case with me, too. when i was little i didn't like vegetables of any kind (unless, of course, they were deep fried like french fries), and now no sunday dinner is complete without peas and mashed potatoes. :p

i am a rather picky eater, but i'm not quite as bad as i used to be. i like to try new foods; although i end up disliking almost all of them, it's good to refine your tastes. and when i'm at a friend's house eating there, they usually make some kind of weird dish that my friend knows i won't like. it's like they're teasing me by giving me food i can't eat when i'm really hungry...but i try to stomach it anyway :c

my younger sister is picky to the point it pisses me off. seriously, she eats canned spaghetti almost every night because she doesn't want to eat whatever my dad and i are having. and the worst thing is that when she was just a few years younger she LOVED everything we eat. she only recently got back into eating tacos. my dad spoiled her a lot after my mom left because he wasn't really sure how to raise a toddler (he was the husband who was always at work, and my mom was the stay-at-home-and-raise-the-kids kind of wife), and even though he doesn't put up with her shit anymore she still acts like a brat.

I was a picky eater as a kid, and my parents tried very hard to make me eat everything anyway. Honestly, looking back, I was an unreasonable little brat about most of the food that was set in front of me. When I think about the grocery list worth of food I refused to eat I want to get a time machine and go back to kick my own ass for being such a pain at meal times. If I didn't grow up and get over it there would be so many foods that I would be missing out on. I used to hate mushrooms and onions, nothing with either could be anywhere near me without me starting to fret, and now I can't get enough of them. Garlic, cheeses, smelt, pastas, tomatoes...there's this huge long list of things I never would have experienced if my parents didn't force me to keep eating at least part of my dinner every night, regardless of what it was.

I'm still supremely pissed at myself for ruining my Great-Gran's home-made chicken soup. It was the holy grail of things I would not eat as a kid, and I worked myself up so badly over it that even today, at 23, I can't eat it without wanting to puke. That's my fault though, I know it's all bullshit in my head left-over from when I was a kid. Hopefully some day I can force myself past it, because damn that soup looks good.

I can only speak from my own experience. I think I was a brat about the things I would not eat, and that's my own opinion and not the one my parents trying to make me pick up on. My 19-year-old sister remains unreasonably picky about stuff like onions and it makes me want to scream. She'll eat food with onions in it when she doesn't know they're there and love it, but as soon as she knows an onion touched it she goes into a fit of nausea. Same thing I used to do as a little kid, it was all just bullshit.

there is nothing i hate more than kids who don't eat what they are given. it's totally unhealthy to just eat like, bread all the time.

if you had eaten all foods from the start, your taste buds would have matured and you would not have this problem. i used to hate asparagus, now i don't mind it because my parents fed it to me since i was a kid.

when i was a baby, instead of baby food they put WHATEVER they were eaitng in a blender and fed it to me.

you HAVE been spoiled.