Limited diet must be awkward ?

[OverWyreGrower]

Ouch!!!!!!!!!!

Yup.... this is why I always suggest eating out at a place of her choosing!! Even then, it's awkward!

[HayleyB]

Do your head in don't they fussy eaters

[Alison]

Don't mind if people have tried stuff and genuinely don't like it or can't eat it for medical reasons but faddy is just annoying. Have a friend who claims to be vegetarian, she's not, she just doesn't eat much meat which would be OK apart from the fact that she won't eat ANY veg apart from spuds. It's a nightmare even if you eat out as she just plays with her food as she says it's too much effort to chew - god help us!

[Glutton4...]

Yup.... this is why I always suggest eating out at a place of her choosing!! Even then, it's awkward!

What does she eat?

[coreopsis]

Don't you feel like these people(fussy eaters)are sometimes making more fuss if you jump around them?I was trying to be nice to people like that,asking what they'd like to eat.After a few full plates left("sorry,I can't eat that"-list of excuses)I stopped bothering.My attitude now is "There's the fridge,fix yourself something".They won't starve,eventually they'll have to eat something.
I felt guilty of being rude at the beginning but then I stopped blaming myself.First I asked them what they would want to eat,prepared that with their approval and at the end they say"sorry,I can't eat that because...blah,blah,blah"Suit yourself,if you're hungry you know where's the fridge...

[smallblueplanet]

Just cook your best attempt at something edible and if they don't eat it, tough - with such fussy eaters they'll be used to going hungry!

[Alice]

I would just cook what we were having for the meal.
If he doesn't want to eat it - tough.
After all, he is a guest in your house. I was brought up with if you are a guest you eat whatever is on the table and say thank you and it was lovely. If he has no manners let him starve.

[coreopsis]

I would just cook what we were having for the meal.
If he doesn't want to eat it - tough.
After all, he is a guest in your house. I was brought up with if you are a guest you eat whatever is on the table and say thank you and it was lovely. If he has no manners let him starve.

Couldn't agree more

[snohare]

Could be that he is thin and pale and doesn't eat many things for the same reason - that he has some kind of gut disorder. I have a lot of friends with Crohn's Disease on a medical forum - they tend to come in "flavours", some can't eat one slew of things and others can only different items - but they all have restricted diets and suffer badly if they eat the wrong thing. Worse, with some foods it is really hard to tell when they will definitely have dire consequences ! (Chocolate is mine.)
I'm the ultimate fussy eater I suppose, gluten and dairy free and organic. I can risk non-organic with some things, ditto dairy - but it is playing Russian Roulette with food. "How lucky do I feel ? Hmmm...."
Poetic justice really, I used to be the world's worst fridge bandit. I would eat anything not nailed down. The idea of actually not eating something, never mind a whole host of things, simply because you don't like the taste... strikes me as unimaginable luxury !
If I am visiting friends or whatever, I find I prefer Coreopsis' approach. I don't want fuss, I will do my own thing (usually with food I have taken with me). It is the rare delight of eating together that matters to me, not the food so much.
Happily I seem to be able to eat a lot more since I discovered digestive enzyme supplements, I am now off the cheese wagon !

[Two_Sheds]

Just cook your best attempt at something edible

I would just cook what we were having for the meal.

As a "fussy" eater myself (no meat, fish or pastry) I would actually do what Manda and Alice suggest.
I expect he's just never had to cook for himself, and so only eats the same thing all the time.
He might like to try something different.

My FiL doesn't like veggie muck apparently, yet he wolfed down my nut roast last Xmas when I told him it was stuffing.

[FionaH]

As a "fussy" eater myself (no meat, fish or pastry)

See I dont think that is fussy, just vegetarian + pastry Vegetarians are not difficult to cook for, even with limited cooking skills like mine, just takes a little thought if you are used to cooking with meat.
I really feel for people who have huge amounts of food they can't eat for medical reasons, must be horrid.

My mum was dreadful for saying I can't eat that I don't like it. On questioning it would usually turn out that she had never even tried it Now thats just plain rude! To be honest I think she used to do it just to annoy me, and it worked!

I have a friend who is vegan and only eats organic, that I find hard to cater for. She usually just brings her own food, spending time with her is more important

[HeyWayne]

My sister has Crohns and LadyWayne used to suffer with IBS. Neither have been difficult to cook for, they just don't/didn't eat the things they couldn't.

Our God-daughter is a particularly fussy eater, but that stems from her upbringing. Her father thinks that spaghetti Bolognese is "foreign" and is always reticent to try anything "new" we put in front of him.

We try and introduce Bean to all sorts of foods - and thus far he's not really turned anything down. He even ate Marmite (very thinly spread) on toast the other morning.

Some other friends of ours have a 9 year old daughter. She has never tried fish because her mum doesn't like it, and as a result won't cook it. Such a shame.

[piskieinboots]

...He even ate Marmite

Good lad Bean

[RedThorn]

although I'm vegetarian, my daughter has tried most things and we're forever saying to her you cannot say you do not like something until you've given it a proper try. Having said that, even before she could understand daddy doesn't eat meat, she's not a big fan of meat. She does not like large chunks of meat, so roasts and steaks etc are off her menu.

If I'm eating at a friends and they're having a roast, I'm very happy with the tatties and veg and a yorkshire!

[Rhona]

He even ate Marmite (very thinly spread) on toast the other morning.

Love it. Get him on the Marmite bandwagon nice and early.

My MiL is famously intolerant of vegetarians. I think she can't quite believe they Don't Eat Meat. I've twice heard her exclaim to a veggie she was trying to feed "it's only a bit of ham stock' and "but they're only lardons." Small meat isn't really meat apparently.