Were you a fussy eater as a child and are you now?

MT62

Nope & nope to both of those 😂

Only thing I hated was my Grandfather’s scotch porridge made with water & salt. Also mince & tatties.
I love porridge now & eat it most mornings, made my way with milk.
I also like mince & potatoes now.

I was a War child. If you didn’t eat, you went hungry

In postwar Britian you could'nt be fussy, you had to eat what my parents could afford. But we definatly did'nt starve.

I hate the word fussy when it refers to people like me who cannot eat certain things. My Mil used to sneer that I was running a canteen for my children. At nursery school I would still be sitting in front of my meal when my mum came to collect me.

This is not something we choose. My eldest son, now 50 is still chooses what he eats as does his daughter. His son eats any thing. My youngest sons’ daughter like her cousin is also quite restricted on what she eats. His son too has a big appetite.

I don’t know if it has any bearing, but the 4 people in the family who have food issues are very slim. Food intolerance is genetic.

My parents were of the expressed opinion that children ate what they were given.

If you did not clear your plate, no great fuss was made about it, but a request for a piece of bread later would be met with, "No, you may not have a piece of bread. If you had eaten your lunch (dinner or whatever meal it was) you wouldn't be hungry now."

So we learned to eat what was put before us. At the age of about seven, I was allowed to say no thank you to a fried egg at lunch time, as long as I ate whatever it had been accompanying. When I was fourteen, I was finally allowed to refuse brussel sprouts - the only thing neither my sister nor I have been able to face as adults.

We accepted these rules like most of the others our parents had. There was little point in trying to evade them, as doing so evoked the calm request, "Behave yourself!"

Yes I was terrible and have not changed at all and I'm 70 now! 🤣

As Aggie says, those of us who were brought up in the war - or for me, just after - largely got to eat whatever there was.
I can recall at a young age, we toasted bits of bread on a long fork in front of the stove, or an open fire (no central heating, in winter we got icicles on the INside!) - then we could spread dripping on the toast, a real treat.

We got whatever veg dad grew in the back garden, cabbages and caulis seemed to be his speciality, kale as well I think.

It was a culture shock at 'big' school, when eating school dinners in a huge dining hall, but on balance they weren't too bad. Though with hindsight, the 'tuck shop' did a roaring trade?! However, though I like pasta, to this day the smell of macaroni cheese makes me nautious (we could smell that stuff all the way from the dining hall, that was the day everyone hoped they had a second choice on the menu, and there was some left for your turn!).

I wouldn’t use the term fussy……but I knew what I liked and that which I didn’t. My tastes have changed over the years but I still cannot eat blue cheese, ox liver, shell fish, squid, insipid looking savoury sauce, rare meet - if the blood follows the knife I’m off - plus a few more gut wrenching foods 🤮🤮🤮

😂😂😬😬

No - always enjoyed trying different foods and still do. So I’m still discovering tastes, textures and flavours I haven’t tried before and some are absolutely delicious.

Never a fussy eater. No choice really, eat what was given or leave it then wait until next meal. Never a fuss made or forced to eat anything. My kids were the same.

Did you know 25% of the population are supertasters, another 25% are non-tasters? So I'm assuming those who eat anything are in the non-tasters group.
I'm a supertaster, so there are a lot of things I cannot eat or drink.
A quick test for being a supertaster - do you like tonic water in your gin? Or do you like beer? Both are disgustingly bitter and completely unpalatable to a supertaster. Non-tasters won't even notice any bitterness, and the other 50% of the population may say it's bitter but they don't mind it.

So, it's not just some people being "fussy", some find things genuinely revolting.

I was apparently a very fussy eater when I was a toddler. My grandad actually found a book called. ‘Wendy won’t eat’ which I wish he had kept. But I soon moved on and will now eat almost anything (with the exception of tripe and jellied eels).
After I was widowed my mother checked on me when I got home from work every day asking what I was having for dinner. I realised after a week or so she was checking I was eating! I did manage to persuade her that I was eating dinner every evening (not ready meals) and then she stopped asking.me. But, bless her, she was obviously concerned about me.

My mum used to give me pigs brains on toast. Bits of raw sausage as a treat. Pigs trotters were a great favourite. Mind you I eat as little meat as possible these days so maybe it did have an effect on me.

Not really, I did hate boiled parsnips, and offal.
But happily scoffed every thing else, you sort of just did in the 50’s and 60’s. My daughter however was dreadfully fussy. All she would eat at age 5 was lettuce, ham, salad cream, bread and hot chocolate. Nothing could touch anything else on the plate. My health visitor told me not to worry. What a sensible lady!the less fuss I made the more she tried things. Apart from being vegetarian in her teens, she happily eats anything and everything now. Same with my son, I made no fuss over his feeding foibles, and he too eats anything these days.

Not fussy, my mother was a lovely cook and made a variety of meals, puddings and cakes. I used to hate when she took them to church fetes!!
School dinners were made on the premises and were very nice. College refrectory was horrible chips with everything. I always loved Indian, Chinese too but have found recently that it gives me indigestion!

The Grammar school I went too offered only one meal option at dinner time. No choice. I don't know what you did if you had any dietary requirements. Three sittings each dayand you had to sit on your allocated table with the same people. You got chips (with fish fingers) once every three weeks on a Friday. If you had to swap your sitting for any reason on that day then you missed your chips! And everyone took it in turn to clear away after.

The only food I wouldn't eat was " Pig" ie Boiled Bacon ...I still cant eat it ...

Bazza

I was a very fussy eater s a child but had it knocked out of me at boarding school when I realised that if you’re hungry enough you’ll eat almost anything. My youngest DD was an extremely fussy eater which I didn’t handle well at all which I do now regret. She is still really fussy but prefers to call herself “particular.” She now has two teenage sons who seem to be permanently starving so she will never know what I went through!

I too went to boarding school and learned to eat anything. Also, if you ate quickly enough you could get seconds. I think I will eat anything now, although obviously have preferences. I have a friend who drives me mad, there are so many things she won't eat that it is really difficult to plan a meal that she will be at.

MayBee70...you have just reminded me that my mother loved chitterlings. Yuk! 🤢

Mom was a good cook and us kids enjoyed her food. So school dinners were usually a disappointment and my brother and I were often made to sit and finish lumpy potato and gristly meat. We developed a way of moving food off our plates, into hankies, then into pockets and then distributing these remainders, Great Escape style, over the school playing field

I wouldn’t eat meat of any kind as a child but as a teenager I started eating it but never really liked it. Now I am vegetarian and that is the way I shall remain, although I don't think I would ever become vegan as I like cheese and eggs too much.

We were extremely poor, you ate what was on your plate or went without, as an adult I’ve always avoided wasting food, I’m not a fussy eater neither are my children or grandchildren, except one who has a severe peanut allergy.

I was and I still am. I would rather not eat at all than eat one of the foods I despised.
I like simple meals - meat or fish with rice or veg.
Loathe curries and not keen on beef.
I think I’m cheap to feed 😗

MT62

MT62

Nope & nope to both of those 😂

Only thing I hated was my Grandfather’s scotch porridge made with water & salt. Also mince & tatties.
I love porridge now & eat it most mornings, made my way with milk.
I also like mince & potatoes now.

high five...I was the same...