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Help!

This isn't exactly "outside the kitchen", but I couldn't really find a better place to ask for help, haha.


My fiance and I just moved in with each other about a month and a half ago.  As the pickyest eater on the planet, he's asked me to help him broaden his food horizons.  At this point his diet is limited to cheese pizza and cheese burgers (with only American cheese and ketchup).  He sometimes throws in a grilled cheese sandwich from his work cafeteria for variety.  As you can see, not very healthy.  


Because I want him to live past the age of 35, I'm keen to honor his request to mix up his diet a little bit.  My issue is finding things that he's willing to try.  Does anybody have any idea of generally bland but nutritious foods that we can try out?  Bearing in mind, of course, that he's generally unwilling to eat poultry, fish, ham, or pork.


Thanks!


Rachel

8/23/2010 9:54 AM
14 Replies to Help!

Hi rachelsholiday!


Are these the only foods your fiance eats?  Does he eat any veggies or fruit?  Try cauliflower and cheese sauce.  Mild and cheesy.  Meatloaf is always a good alternative to cheeseburgers.  You can use oatmeal in meatloaf instead of breadcrumbs for a more nutritious alternative.  Put catsup on top when baking.  I also add brown sugar and a little yellow mustard with the catsup.  There is a thread on this site regarding meatloaf.  Check it out.  Does your fiance offer any suggestions for foods he would be willing to try or does he want you to surprise him.  Surprising him would be an exercise in futility.  Try to get as much input from him as possible.  Try ground turkey breast or chicken breast as an alternative to ground beef.  Good luck. 

8/23/2010 2:12 PM

Thanks for your suggestions!  I was thinking meat loaf would be a good thing to start out with, to east him into eating other foods.


And I guess I didn't give a complete list.  He also sometimes eats grapes, but otherwise that's it.  

8/23/2010 4:41 PM

I suppose it's too late to tell you to run, run far away from this man?


His refusal to eat a decent diet will lead to you eating an unhealthy diet, too.  He may SAY he wants to eat more variety, but that is the nature of the beast. Put anything new in front of him and he will hate it, then go out and buy a cheeseburger. I am married to a picky eater, and I can honestly say that it has cost me 50 pounds and a case of type 2 diabetes. Think carefully before you marry this guy; if you don't see actual dietary improvement in a matter of weeks you will never see any significant change. Once you are married he has no motivation to change, but will expect you to feed him the food he likes. My husband sees no hypocrisy when he tells me I can cook anything I want for myself. What he doesn't say is that I had better cook something he likes for him. Gee, thanks for the permission to cook 2 meals. I realy needed permission to do that.

8/23/2010 8:10 PM

rhiamom:

I suppose it's too late to tell you to run, run far away from this man?

 

His refusal to eat a decent diet will lead to you eating an unhealthy diet, too.  He may SAY he wants to eat more variety, but that is the nature of the beast. Put anything new in front of him and he will hate it, then go out and buy a cheeseburger. I am married to a picky eater, and I can honestly say that it has cost me 50 pounds and a case of type 2 diabetes. Think carefully before you marry this guy; if you don't see actual dietary improvement in a matter of weeks you will never see any significant change. Once you are married he has no motivation to change, but will expect you to feed him the food he likes. My husband sees no hypocrisy when he tells me I can cook anything I want for myself. What he doesn't say is that I had better cook something he likes for him. Gee, thanks for the permission to cook 2 meals. I realy needed permission to do that.

 

Hon, this isn't really helpful. You're gonna scare the poor girl before she even gives this guy a chance. Being married to a picky eater myself, I can say that, yes, it takes work and sacrifice. But it's worth it to keep the guy you love happy.

I'm proud of Rachel for trying to please her man and ease him into a healthier diet. It can be done. Trust me. It takes work but everything in marriage does.

Rachel, try lazagnas and pasta dishes. If he likes pizza, he should like those. I find that I can sneak in some spinach and shredded zucchini into those and my man hardly notices. ;)

They say that a man will develope a whole new set of tastebuds in seven years. Be patient with the guy. You won't see changes in the first couple of weeks. Keep trying and he'll love you for it. Don't give up and don't be discouraged when (not if) he turns his nose up at a meal you worked hard at. Give him time and remember, you probably do things that annoy him too. Love your man and be willing to sacrifice time and effort to keep both you and him healthy. That's all I can say.

8/24/2010 11:28 AM

Thank you all for your suggestions!  It's really good to know that there are other people who have dealt with things like this successfully.  


 

8/24/2010 3:15 PM

Maybe you could try macaroni and cheese, it's bland and has cheese.


 


I have to agree with Rhiasmom though, I would definitely try her advice.  Not only will his bad eating habits influence you, but if you have children they will want to eat what daddy eats, and dislike and refuse to eat what daddy won't eat.  You will have a houseful of picky eaters!  This man's parents did not do him any favors when they allowed him to be this way. What a shame.

8/24/2010 8:37 AM

Hi Rachel!


You may want to enlist the help of your fiance's doctor on this one as well.  He should have his cholesterol checked considering his diet of huge amounts of saturated fats and almost totally devoid of fiber.  As far as getting him to try new foods, it takes three times trying a food for most people to like, or at least tolerate, a new food.  Keep at it.  Ask him what he is willing to try, within reason.  Some foods are easier to tolerate than others.  Don't try to get him to eat brussels spouts.  Try corn, peas, or carrots.  If he tells you he has a "thing" about foods of certain colors tell him you can't taste color.  Try the single-serving size packs of vegetables, like cauliflower with cheese sauce or broccoli with cheese sauce, for starters.  If he won't eat these at least you get two servings of tasty veggies.  What did his mother and/or father feed him?  Or, is this the root of the issue?  Try to get him to help cook the meals as well.  This validates the foods prepared, making it more likely that he will try them.  Good luck!

8/24/2010 9:29 AM

Hi Rachel:

The good news is you're not alone. The topic of "Picky Eaters" on here is more common than you think (and not just for kids). 

We have a few great threads on here that might inspire a meal or two:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/forums/11/2864

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/forums/17/1229

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/forums/17/1553

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/forums/11/10515

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/forums/11/44

Though I'm not a Kitchen expert, here are a few ideas I have:

1. Get him involved in the the shopping and the cooking. Somethings when you're intuned to the work that goes into making meals, you're more likely to be open-minded.

2. Talk about childhood meals. What types of meals did his family make that he liked? Sometimes you can take the type of flavors he remembers and get creative with them.

3. Tell him his tastebuds change every 5-7 years. What he's known to be good probably has changed...now he's just needs to see how much! I recently found out that I really do like beets! I can't believe I refused them as a kid. In that case, thank goodness they are changing. Smile

4. Think Meatloaf! Smile Or something like that. I think you can take elements of things he likes and transform them into new dishes. The Mac & Cheese was a good suggestion above. I would make a classic version... and once he eats it... kick it up a few notches... next time add little bits of ham or tomatoes. We have a ton of unique versions on this site like this one: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/smoky-mac-n-cheese/9b83876c-7ab3-43a8-8a85-4936a33a766d

BTW... Here was one of the 1st links I found about the taste bud fact... http://en.allexperts.com/q/Science-Kids-3250/Science-9.htm

Good Luck! Please let us know how it's going. Smile

Sincerely, Cate

 

8/24/2010 10:47 AM

Don't give up, my younger brother has the same issue and I will tell you that it isn't his parents fault.  (He has been to multiple doctors and psycotherapists.)  Sometimes they just have issues with consistency of things.  That is what you should try and focus on.  My brother will eat chicken but typically only chicken breast since it doesn't usually have "weird" things in it. 


There are lots of things out there to help you, I would look for recipes for kids that try and sneak in vegitables into the food he does like.  I would also suggest you get him to take vitamins, that has helped my brother keep his nutrition up while he is learning to try new foods.  Also, you may be stuck making two meals for a while.  I would suggest make something you want him to try and then have frozen cheese pizza on hand just in case.  Or give him both so he knows he won't go hungry and reduce the stress of it for him.  Sounds kinda like a child but all men are to some degree right :)


Good luck and don't run just because of one difficulty, that's why we have a divorce rate of 50% in this country, just try and compromise and remind him that in order for you to compromise, he needs to give a little too! 

8/24/2010 3:01 PM

Wow!  He is pretty limited!  But let's see....


How about introducing him to Mexican food.  He can still have his burger and cheese, but add in a little lettuce, onion, tomato, replace the bun with a corn or flour tortilla, and you've got a taco, or a burrito.  Replace the catsup with salsa and viola! - he's made a change already. 

8/25/2010 10:06 AM

Rachel,


As a picker eater growing up, I was amazed to find out as an adult, and after visiting an allergist, that I have a TON of food allergies! So if he's this picky, it may be because food literally makes him feel sick when he eats it, and he's sticking to stuff that doesn't make him feel bad. My first recommendation would be to take him to an allergist and find out what food allergies, if any, he has. Then later when you try new foods on him, you can honestly say "Hey, it won't kill you to try it." ;) 


(And there are some things that allergists won't point out that are true - like I can't eat pork because all the pork products in stores use Sodium Nitrates to preserve the meat, which gives me migraines... so just because the allergist doesn't mention something, doesn't mean there isn't an underlying issue to why he's turning his nose up.) Most of the things I'm allergic to taste terrible to me, like corn. So nature does try to protect us! :)


Once you know for sure what is safe to feed this guy, I would recommend making meals for him you know he already likes, and adding one new thing to the meal. So he likes grilled cheese sandwiches? Great! Try adding green beans to the meal. They're super bland if you don't add anything to them! ;) Try foods first without adding anything to them at all - see if he likes the taste of the food itself. Most people add bacon to green beans - to me this is disgusting! But the beans by themselves I can eat a whole mess of! :)


I'd say try getting him to eat a cheese omelette for breakfast (unless he's allergic to eggs - then it's an egg-white omelette with cheese... I'm allergic to egg yolks, so I know!). It's super easy for you to add the veggies you like to the omelette and leave them out when making it for him, and eggs are very healthy to eat, esp if it's an egg-white only omelette (heck, with all that cheese you might want to leave the yoiks out anyway). ;)


Once he likes eggs, then try expanding his breakfast by adding a different fruit. First week - grapes! (Since you know he likes them.) Next week? Maybe try grapefruit halves, then the next week strawberries, the next week blueberries... etc, etc. Just give him a whole week with each new fruit, telling him it takes 3-5 times eating a food before you can really know if you like it or if you're just rejecting it out of habit. This way, you know he gets fed with the eggs, and the fruit is a bonus. And you can try varying the fruit over the course of the week (ex: grapefruit plain day 1, with sugar day 2, with grapes on the side day 3 - mixin' it up! - fresh squeezed grapefruit day 4, and then maybe a different variety of grapefruit on day 5, 6, and 7 since there's more than one type of grapefruit out there!).Of course, if you find he likes a particular combo, like grapefruit with sugar, reward him by serving that the rest of the week so he can get used to eating it and then move on to a new fruit the next week, knowing you can come back to grapefruit safely in the future. ;)


For years, my dad would only eat pancakes for breakfast (and sometimes lunch and dinner), but now he'll eat almost any fruit out there for breakfast. My mom introduced him to fruit this way - adding it as a side dish to a food he already liked.


Do the same at dinner time. He likes cheese pizza? Great! Add a different topping to one slice each week for him... a little spinach one week, a little mushrooms the next week (I'd stick with white mushrooms - they're the most plain flavor-wise, and if you could put fresh-cut white mushroom on the pizza right before cooking it, it'll be dry not slimy, making him more likely to enjoy it).  Maybe pineapple one week, etc, etc. Let him eat one piece of plain cheese first, to whet his appetite, then have him eat the pizza slice with one topping, and if he doesn't like it, he can fill up on plain cheese the rest of the meal. If he does, then you can make him two slices with the new topping the next few days. Get him used to eating it!  :)


After a week of pizza, maybe try a week of cheese burgers. Try one new food on it for him each week, and you can buy a variety of foods for yourself (if you're buying from restaurants) or make other stuff for yourself than just cheese burgers (show him it's possible to eat other things! maybe sandwiches, or souop, or chicken fingers, or whatever you want). The temptation will be if he likes tomatoes on his cheeseburger, to keep them on and add pickles the next week. I'd recommend just one food at a time, tomatoes one week, pickles the next week, lettuce the next week, etc. If you want to speed things up, you can do cheeseburgers for lunch and pizza for dinner (or vice versa). Just recognize that preparation of foods make a big difference! Some people like tomatoes sliced, some like them diced, some like them fried (eww to me! but to each their own), some like them julien, so try varying how you present the tomatoes. Same with pickles - there are 100s of types of pickles on the market, so try a different type of pickle each day til you find one he likes! (You might even try cucumbers - yum!!! because I hate vinegar - LOL). Some people like a leaf of lettuce, some like it shredded, some like romaine, some like iceberg, etc, so experiment each week with the new food you're putting on, and don't mix them. I love onions carmelized, grilled, raw, purple, white, (but not yellow), diced, fried, almost any way at all! You might find a way of preparing them that he likes. ;) Once you've found a few foods he likes (if you do), then you can try having him eat them at the same time on the burger. He might like that, he might not. He may even find he likes the taste of them better if there's no cheese! (But that's once you get to more advanced experimenting levels). ;)


Meatloaf ... wow! Everyone on the planet seems to put ketchup on meatloaf. To me - barf! The nice, plain way I like meatloaf is the following recipe: one package Lipton Onion soup mix (you can use fresh diced onions and a half cup beef stock as a substitute, or a beef bullion cube and onion and a little water if he doesn't like the soup mix), one whole egg (cooking it well enough to get the meat thoroughly cooked destroys the egg protein in the yolk that I'm allergic to, so it's safe in this instance), mixed well with the meat, shaped into a loaf, cook and serve. That's it! No breadcrumbs, no maters, and I like to eat meatloaf with mashed potates that have nothing in them but a couple pats of unsalted butter (I HATE salt, and that's because I'm allergic to iodine). No milk, no gravy, no salt or pepper, nothing else! (He might like cheese on top though - LOL). So if he likes bland, you can't make it much blander than this! Oh, and I usually eat my no-thrills green beans with this meal too. ;)


Change is hard, but often people take to sweets pretty easily. I'd only feed him one dessert a day, and only after you've found breakfasts and lunches and dinners you can feed to him, so it's the dessert that's changing. Figure out if he has texture aversions. My sister-in-law won't eat boiled okra or mushrooms "because they're slimy". I love both, but hated hard candies until just a few years ago (I love wintergreen lifesavers now). LOL


Try different pies, different cakes, different cookies. I hated oatmeal raisin cookies as a kid, and love them now, so taste changes over time (I prefer oatmeal chocolate chip cookies though). ;)  Oddly, despite the fact that I prefer bland food, I love carrot cake! It's the only thing in the whole world I like cream cheese on. He might like it too, once you've expanded his food horizons some. ;) ... Personally, I hate cheese cake, but he might love it since he's a cheese guy.


There are truly hundreds of ways of making chocolate cake out there. Since I'm allergic to wheat, I love flourless chocolate cake, but I'd say don't give up on chocolate cake if you like it and he doesn't. Find a chocolate bar he likes the taste of (if possible) and make a homemade cake using that chocolate. Some men just hate chocolate though, and you can't change that. So see if he likes strawberry cake, yellow cake, white cake, cherry pie, pumpkin pie, apple pie, etc. Make or buy ones you actually like the taste of to start, so if he takes to them at least you're on the same page. ;) The fewer ingredients that are in these recipes, the better your odds of finding one he'll like (the flourless chocolate cake I like only has three ingredients - eggs, butter, and sweet chocolate). I'd say, keep it simple! :)


Picky eaters can be a handful, but we know what we like and we're very, very loyal, which makes us good mate material. :)

9/10/2010 6:21 PM

Oh, and I forgot to mention about spices! The easiest way to figure out if someone is going to like a spice (usually) is to have them smell it first. If they like the smell, they'll probably (though not always) like the taste of it in food. I wouldn't recommend sitting down and having a smellathon, though. Get him to smell a couple different spices each day, so he's not overwhelmed. Trust me, it makes a difference! :)

I love making spiced rice at home by putting in some (a few tsps) paprika, some dried green onion, and some dried white onion to a half cup of rice for just me. I also like rice with a can of chicken broth, dried celery flakes, and dried white onion (tastes like chicken and rice soup, without the chicken in it). :) I also like rice with beef stock and dried onion and dried green onion in it. (Can you tell I like onion?)


Every person is different. Rice is a great way to experiment with spices. You can make a half cup for yourself in a way you like it, and make a half cup for him with spices he expresses an interest in (here's where being a good cook helps, so you'll know what to mix with that spice to make the rice dish taste good). I have a friend who loves garlic, and puts that in her rice. There's also different types of rice - white, brown, parboiled, pilaf, couscous, etc. Try different things! Rice by itself is bland, and he might just like it with nothing on it. Rice and broccoli and cheese is a wonderful meal to me, and he might like that (healthier than a grilled cheese sandwich, too). He might like odd things like rice n cinnamon, and hey, that's okay! Whatever branches out his palette to start is cool. (My little brother won't eat anything with cinnamon in it, but I love the stuff.) I think cinnamon makes chocolate cake taste better, and cookies, and apple pie. :)


Oh, and if he likes cheeseburgers, he might like steak. There's tons of different cuts out there, and tons of ways of making it, grilled, steamed, barbequed (no sauce), or baked spring to mind. I don't like anything at all on my steak, but some people like A1 steak sauce or barbeque sauce or butter or whatever. I like mine cooked  tender (but very well done) so it's just falling apart. I love pot roast, but it's very bland he way I make it. In a crock pot, with cut up russet potatoes, baby carrots, onion (dried or sliced fresh, either works for me), and water. Nothing else (I used to put Lipton onion soup mix in, but got to where I don't even like adding it any more to my pot roast). Cook all day and eat! I've tried putting rosemary in it once, and it was okay that way, and I've tried it with basil, and it was okay, but I prefer it bland. ;) The nice thing is, if he doesn't like the veggies, you can eat them and he doesn't have to! Oh, and sometimes I put fresh sliced white mushrooms in my pot roast when I'm in the mood for them. Yum!

These are just suggestions. I'm just trying to say, there's hope! And you have time to try things. Oh, I have a friend who only likes potatoes if they're cut up and boiled. That's how she eats them with nothing added. So get creative!

9/10/2010 7:00 PM

Hi Rachel:   I like the meatloaf idea.   My first husband was pretty picky  and the last thing he wanted to eat was meatloaf, until I made a stuffed meatloaf.  Mix up a stuffing/dressing along the lines of what you would put in a chicken.  Flaten out 1lb of ground beef - not too thin.  Spread the stuffing on it and roll it up jelly roll style.  Bake it at 350/375 until it is nice and brown.  I have used Stove Top Stuffing mix.  Works great too.  Add some gravy and mashed potatoes and what guy could refuse it!!!!!

9/10/2010 9:48 PM

I would try the cookbook Deceptively Delicious.  It helps you to hide nutritious things in foods that otherwise leave a little to be desired in the nutrient division.  But I agree with the post about finding out about food allergies and also introducing 1 new food each week in different ways.  It's true that it takes at least 3-5 times of eating something to develop a true like or dislike for it.

10/12/2010 2:20 PM

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