very picky eater

Jet

The moneysaving side of things isn't good and I do feel for you!

Do you plan your weekly meals in advance? If you do, show him what you will be cooking for the next week and ask him if he will be eating with you. If not, buy only enough for one. You could divide the food budget accordingly. So if he said he wouldn't eat anything you were cooking - he could have half the food budget. If he said he would eat with you 3 days per week (and not for the other 4), you could give him 4 x 14ths of the food budget to buy his food on the nights he wasn't eating with you. I hope that makes sense!

With any luck you may find he spends all his budget on a takeaway on the first night and then is hungry for the rest of the week. Maybe that would persuade him! :rotfl:

snuffilin

Hi emma_b!

I know exactly how you feel!

My OH grew up with in huge family ( grandmother, mum and 14!!! aunties and uncles on mums side) all living together and he could do what he wanted cause he was "the baby of the family". This means that when we moved in together he was a very fuzzy eater and did not eat vegetables under any circumstances apart from sweetcorn.

However, he has got alot better over the years by me nagging, trying, begging and hiding vegetables in his food and I can now proudly say that he eats : Broccoli, green beans, onions if cooked, carrots if cooked, mushrooms ( loves them), asparagus, spring onions and tomatoes. not perfect but much, much better and he is even proudly telling his family about all the vegetables he is eating now, they can't believe it:)

The trick I found most helpful was to ask him before cooking if he liked a certain vegetable. The answer would be NO without fail but I would use it anyway and hide it and then ask afterwards if he liked his food. The answer would then be: Yes lovely darling (bless), and I would tell him what he just ate. He never got angry, just surprised and would then try that same vegetable in different recipies.

What I am trying to say is that it is definitly about the fear of the unknown but once he has tried it whether it was volonterely or not it is more familiar and less scary.

I wish you the best of luck, I'm sure it'll get better, just keep on trying!

Snuffi

MrsB_2

How about trying the old trick of sitting him at the kitchen table and blindfolding him. Then making him try a selection of things that you want to know if he genuinely likes or not.

Remember - you've got to include stuff you KNOW he likes too, otherwise it's not fair. But it gets him to taste things with no preconception as to whether or not he's going to like it.

Savvy_Sue

MrsB wrote:

How about trying the old trick of sitting him at the kitchen table and blindfolding him. Then making him try a selection of things that you want to know if he genuinely likes or not.

Remember - you've got to include stuff you KNOW he likes too, otherwise it's not fair. But it gets him to taste things with no preconception as to whether or not he's going to like it.

And then if he does gag, you'll know there really is something there he doesn't like. I know it would be unreasonable to expect my eldest to eat anything with nuts in, he really doesn't like them!

Rave

I wouldn't worry too much about his health. I don't have the statistics, but I reckon that the incidence of heart attacks amongst people who aren't overweight is pretty low. If he can eat cruddy food and still stay slim then all you have to worry about is whether he gets his vitamins.

I can now eat most stuff that I didn't like as a kid- the only major exception is fresh tomatoes which still make me gag to this day (I can eat sun-dried though- yum!). However, that doesn't that I like them much, and given the choice I'll always skip courgettes, cucumber, raw onion, cooked carrot, celery etc. I lived for years on a diet of yorkie bars, peanut butter (or chocolate) sandwiches, bran flakes and minced beef. AFAIK it's not done me any harm:).

fruityslh

My hubby is a diabetic and should be following the same principles as the GI diet, when we started living together his refusal to eat veg, mince, fish and a whole host of other things used to drive me mad. I got to the point where I just didn't have the time to deal with cooking 2 meals, so I made a meal if he didn't want to eat it, he went out and got himself something else, however it was out of his money and wasn't from my shopping budget, soon got fed up with that, now eats what I put on the plate but can be a bit fussy with veg, if it's just on the side he'll leave it, if it's mixed in with the meal he'll eat it all.

I suppose I am lucky though he does like fruit (however it does need to be chopped up) and because he's lazy and can't be bothered to cook, he eats what I cook mostly, sometimes I do indulge him (like chopped fruit) but if he doesn't like what I'm cooking he'll eat toast with beans or soup (wholegrain of course - but only after a telling off from his dietician).

emma_b_4

i think he might get more flexible with food as time goes on, maybe when we have kids i could wean them together???!!!!