Ask Lemmy

Autism.

Textures & temperatures are problematic. I stay with what I know so minimise the chance of freaking out.

I'll eat my own cum but won't touch ranch dressing. Do with that what you will.

Disgust is an emotional response. No one can choose their emotions.

wHy LiMiT yOuRsElF

You think I want to live like this? That I’m choosing to? Bewildering.

Growing up, my family has always accused me of being a picky eater, and it comes up every time we're eating together. Every family get-together, it's always a big deal whether I'm going to eat the prepared meal or not. My sister especially likes to offer to make a separate meal just for me because I'm "sooo picky!"

I can't get it through their skulls that I'm less of a picky eater than they are - I'm just vocal about the very few specific foods I decided I don't like. Which happens to be in a lot of recipes my extended family makes.

I spent 20 years traveling the world with the US military and I made it a point to try local cuisine everywhere I went. I became a bit of a foodie, and some of my favorite foods are from foreign countries. Every time family members came to visit me in other countries, I'd spend half of their visit just introducing them to amazing cuisine in the local area.

We'd eat out practically every day to give them a taste of the local culture. And surprisingly, most of them didn't care for it. They wanted their "American food" instead. They weren't very adventurous when it came to trying new things. There's nothing worse than going to a ramen shop in Japan or a döner shop in Germany and having your family ask if we can go find a McDonald's instead.

But sure, I'm a picky eater because I've hated squash since I was a child, and that's apparently a staple of every family banquet.

I'm genuinely scared of eating eggs, don't know why I've always been like that even as a baby. The texture, the smell of plain eggs are just unbearable and if I eat a food that tastes eggy I might have a slight panic attack. Mushrooms as well, I hate them with a burning passion. Can't explain why.

I'm a picky eater, but it's mostly because of texture-related issues. (However, I am also picky about flavors.) Wrong textures make me want to gag. I don't actually gag, because I've learned to suppress it.

I have no problem trying new things. I just often immediately hate the new things. However, I will try it again after enough time had passed. Sometimes, it will be prepared differently enough to be appetizing. Other times, I will start to like a flavor that I once hated. I have never had my texture preferences change.

Which texture do I hate? I call it the "wrong kind of mushy." It's hard to explain, because I do like some mushy foods. Mashed, baked, or boiled potatoes? Almost always gag inducing. Oatmeal? Wonderful. Hiding small amount of wrong mushy foods among foods with a better texture sometimes helps, but only if I like the flavor despite the mush.

Edit to add: I hate onions with a burning passion. Every way except powdered. Onions induce the strongest gag reflex, and many people think I'm weird for hating onions. I've come to hate the flavor of (anything but powdered) onion by association, so I often can't eat foods that once had onion in them even after being completely removed.

For that example - I might go blind (or at least towards it) if I eat a rare steak. I keep having to send back burgers because they don't cook them through despite me requesting that.

If the texture/flavor triggers my gag reflex and I can't physically swallow, the question is not "why am I limiting myself?" but rather, "why would I attempt to abuse myself?"

Trying new food can be risky, its not cheap and if you cant eat it you just wasted your money and the food. Food also takes time to prepare which you may not have the time to make or order something else which then can snowball into larger issues. Not to mention the social pressure/judgment to finish a meal you wish you could force down your throat and getting accused of being dramatic and wasteful.

I like to try new foods here and there but I need to be able to get a small portion to avoid waste and know theres a back up I can eat to avoid skipping a meal altogether. It also needs to be with a crowd that I feel safe enough with not to get shat on if I cant eat it.

That being said I can only imagine making a blanket statement that I'd never try something if I already know it's very similar to something else that I can't eat.

Some foods just make me gag. Don't know why. Of course my life would be fuller if I wasn't such a picky eater. And it did get much better with age. But some things I just cannot tolerate. I know that I'm allergic to shellfish. But that's just a small part of stuff I don't eat.

But I do like pineapple on pizza. Especially because uncooked pineapple likes to digest my mouth.

I reject the tone of this question because I wasn't given a choice in my sensory issues and you turning it into a mortal judgement about me is fucked up.

I was an extremely picky eater as a kid. The funny thing is how I became less picky after I went vegan (in my teens.) It tracks with how we lose taste sensitivity as we age - children have more taste buds than adults. It serves them because a lot of things that can be harmful are bitter (poisons are often bitter) or sour (spoiled food goes sour), and for a small child a small amount can be more dangerous than for an adult.

Anyway, as others have said, it's a combination of texture, smell, and taste. Being a "super taster" isn't as fun as it sounds - it means a smaller amount of flavor can seem stronger for you, and can easily become overwhelming. I still prefer bland foods sometimes for that reason. Light seasoning can go a long way. Texture can be awful or amazing, sometimes I crave a food not for its taste, but for its texture. As I noted in another comment, mushrooms have a texture that repels me. Eggplant also has a texture I struggle to tolerate, but I put up with it when somebody prepares something for me with it (occasionally people prepare vegan foods to help me feel included, but they don't usually know my texture issues and I don't want to be rude.) Hell, half of what drove me to veganism was texture, smell, and taste-based - a lot of animal products have textures, smells, and tastes that I couldn't tolerate when I was a kid and made to eat them.

Eggs smell awful, and the fat from meats have a texture that was too much for me. I remember sitting at the dinner table and cutting all the "fat" from my meats just to isolate a single square to eat... but my parents made me sit there and told me to eat the whole thing, even if we sat at the dinner table for hours. I never liked bacon, and I know the internet hates me for that (well, they already hate me for being vegan, but still), since it's pretty much all fat even if it's crispy. The smell does it no help, either. A lot of people enjoy the smell of cooking meat, but I never did. The closest thing would be chicken, but ever since I had pet birds, it became awful, too - ever smell a bird up close? They smell like warm chicken. Once that smell became associated with my pets, whom I lost too soon (they were only two years old, victims to teflon poisoning) I only think of them. Giving up meat was part of my closure after they died - it brought me a peace that I needed, and has continued giving it ever since.

Please be kind to so-called "picky eaters." Their sensory experiences are outside of their control. Don't do like my parents did and try to force it, as that helps nobody. If you want to introduce a picky kid to a new food, be gentle and start slow. That's how we do it at my job (working with autistic children, some which have extremely restricted diets that don't provide proper nutrition.) It starts with tolerating it being on their plate, then progresses over time to them touching it, then to putting it to their lips, and only after all that do we encourage them to try a piece. It can take months. But if it's something they absolutely won't tolerate near them, just try something else - there can be very valid reasons they don't want a particular food, but thankfully there are a lot of options out there.

My girlfriend is really picky, a lot of it is the texture of foods making her uncomfy. Its really subconscious, and that impacts what you try because you already know what textures you don't like

Sounds like you're lucky enough to not have any sensory problems - you probably don't get overwhelmed by textures, flavours or smells. Not everyone is like that. You also don't seem to have any particular cultural or ethical concerns about your food choices. My family is vegan and very neurodivergent; none of us would ever consider steak or shrimp, for ethical reasons, and most of us have texture and flavour sensitivities that mean that certain foods are off limits for some of us. We generally buy within those parameters, but some of us really like things others really hate, so cooking can be a nightmare. In many cases, it's the texture of food that causes this - often borderline textures going from firm to soft, too granular, "wrong" like soft when should be crunchy etc.

But I bet you have some things you wouldn't try, based on cultural or texture preferences, which some people love. What about...

• Soft biscuits (cookies) - baked crunchy, but have gone damp and soft?
• Dry, stale bread - baked soft, but just dried out and stale?
• Witchetty grubs - moth larvae from Australia?
• Dog meat, eaten in some Asian countries?
• Fermented shark meat, stinky and rank, eaten in some Nordic states?
• Reindeer poo - traditional Finnish cuisine sometimes uses it?
• Natto - stringy, slimy soya beans fermented by a bacteria, very strong flavour, popular in Asia, especially Japan?
• Tempeh - soya beans colonised by a particular edible mould fungus, eaten widely in Asia?
• Tofu - bean curd in various textures, but very little flavour, eaten widely by vegans and in Asia?
• Furry tofu - tofu colonised by another edible mould fungus, eaten widely in Asia?

Why would I force myself to eat something I will not enjoy. I will try a bit but I am not lrdering stuff I don't like the sound of.

Sometimes the smell which often relates to taste is the first indicator of something tasting not to my liking but if I know I don't like something (eg mushrooms, I hate those, both taste and texture) I am not willing to try anything involving large quantitiey of said foodstuff

Every now and then I'll eat food that I didn't like the last time I tried them. I still don't like pickles, mustard, eggplant, etc. and might never like them. There are other foods I don't like the texture of, e.g. seafood with rubbery textures. There are other foods I don't try because they just sound fucking gross, e.g. chicken feet. I understand the arguments for trying chicken feet, but it's a psychological thing preventing me from trying them. My brain just doesn't want a fucking chicken foot in my mouth. There are other foods that I've tried and might have even enjoyed, but I don't want to create more demand for that food for one reason or another. I'm fond of ducks. Ducks taste good, but I want ducks to live. I'm increasingly fond of cows, which are delicious, so I rarely eat beef now. I've had foie gras and I will never have it again. Geese are assholes but they don't deserve what humans do to them in order to make foie gras.

Some foods taste like litteral dirt. It's a genetic quirk some people have. Beets, carrots, mushrooms, grapes, all taste like mud. I can't taste the "sweetness" at all. Nuts also have a chalky flavor, but I couldn't tell you why (strangely seeds, legumes, and beans are tasty af). Parsley tastes like soap. Licorice tastes like old socks. People like to attribute pickiness to the foods I don't like, but why should I force myself to eat dirt and soap? That doesn't stop me trying new things. Eel is delicious. Shrimp heads are meh. Dirty rice is great. Conch is fantastic. Lobster is bleh. Ostrich is gamey. Gator is good. ~~Fennel heads~~ fiddleheads are amazing. I'm always trying new foods, but when I turn my nose up at "normal" food with carrots, or nuts, or mushrooms I'm called "picky" because people are quick to throw out that word.

If I try to eat something I don't like, I'll throw up. It's a waste of money and food, and gross for anyone around me.

Why limit yourself? It seems like such a closed-minded way to view food. Help me understand?

I don't think there's much of a choice to it. When my brain rejects a food (usually based only on smell) there literally isn't anything I can do about it. Even if I do push through and take a bite, it will always taste horrible.

My own picky eating is also in large part fuelled by some sort of authorexia tbh. This definitely isn't the norm for picky eaters though. It's just when I was a kid I was slightly averse to fish but my parents snuck some into my food anyways. When I realized I had a meltdown so large that I still can't even eat anything that even remotely smells like fish. Not even seaweed or vegan fish replacements. But it's even more that I can't allow anyone to have any control over what I eat. So I'm pretty particular about enforcing that I don't want olives, or mayonnaise, or other mundane stuff just to make sure I actually have a say in what I eat.

Going vegan was actually really awesome for that reason. I get constant assurance that my food choices are respected, and it's a ruleset that people are more willing to respect.

I will actually skip a meal, or leave an event to buy my own food, instead of eating food that I don't like.

When the alternative is actually and literally fighting against revulsion and gag reflex and nausea, or getting my hands and face dirty with food that can't be eaten cleanly, why would I subject myself to that if I'm not literally starving?

Best example I can think of is a work trip last year for which I marked myself "vegan" instead of "vegetarian" for meal restrictions. One outing had a bunch of pizzas ordered. The only meatless pizza had mushrooms. I hate mushrooms on pizza and the act of picking ingredients off of pizza is so degrading and so disgusting, not to mention they still leave their tastes behind anyways, so I just went out of pocket and got food somewhere else after I left.

Always been like this. Arguably I've put a ton of effort into trying new foods and I've been lucky to have traveled to a lot of foreign countries - I've had live grilled abalone (which I regret every part of), century eggs (tasty as fuck, would eat again), have developed a decent spice tolerance too (not easy growing up in the midwest USA :P). But some stuff still just is forever gross to me.

Also, fuck sandwiches and burgers that fall apart in your hands or have things fall or slide out or liquids or sauces drip stuff while you bite down. I am so repulsed and irritated by this that I feel actual rage.

There is plenty of food that I like, so I don't really see a reason to eat something I don't enjoy or try something that doesn't seem appealing.

I think bring picky is about food types, not being about if it's cooked enough or not.

For me it’s autism, I hate that I’m a picky eater, but I also know that I will visibly wretch from so many textures. I can’t control it and have tried very hard to overcome it.

Legitimately it really sucks because most people just think it’s closed minded immaturity or something. It’s not a choice

Brussels sprouts. "If you cook them ri" shut the fuck up right now. I've tried every single persons "right way" and they're fucking disgusting. I'm never trying them again. Dog shit wrapped in bacon and dipped in bbq sauce is more likely to enter my mouth than another Brussels sprout ever again.

Also asparagus... But that's for a different reason. When I was a kid my stepdad at the time told me of a dream he had where he saw an asparagus growing out of his thigh so he flicked it and rubbed it around and started pulling on it and it kept going and going. Never touched the stuff since.