Do you mean there's hope???

I really hope my 12 y/o meets some friends like that one day! He is so darn picky. Thank you for giving me hope. I keep telling myself he'll have to learn to enjoy more foods on his own, I can't force it. But I tell him all the time, if he doesn't, he's going to be one awful date one day. There is a reason he is my skinniest child.

I had the same experience with DD. She would eat anything as a toddler and suddenly at around age 5 she became extremely picky. The only items she would eat in a restaurant were plain buttered noodles or oatmeal for several years. I'm sure people thought we were abusing her. LOL

In college she started trying new things but kept to simple foods she recognized.

Today she eats all sorts of ethnic foods and is always ready to try something new. The only things she still has trouble with are eggs,cottage and cream cheese. She's working on the egg thing. She can manage a small scrambled egg now and then.

Same here. My now 30 year old would sometimes be so skeptical of the food I gave him that I remember telling him I would not poison him. He now enjoys a variety of ethnic foods and shares his discoveries with us. This was the kid who at one point in his life exclaimed, "I can't believe this is Chinese food" as he gobbled down wonton soup. There is hope and, like others, it seemed to happen when friends in college and beyond exposed him to their favorites. Now, if I could only get him to date and cook. Sigh.

When my DH was a kid he was very fussy. He said he ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches because that's what his mom would tell him to make, if he didn't like what she served.

There are only 2 things he hates now.....mushrooms and eggs.
When I make my scalloped potatoes, I always strain the mushrooms out of the soup so he doesn't see the little nuggets.
He's actually a joy to cook for.

I will tell my sister there is hope for my nephew.

He is 14 years old and only eats....fried chicken strips and french fries. I often wonder if he will ever eat a hamburger....or a piece of pizza.

I think with my nephew it is a texture thing going on. He is super thin, I have always wondered if he has an eating disorder also. To me, he is mighty close to being anorexic.

Deb

I was the worst as a child. I only ate a handful of things and just about drove my dad crazy. I got better as I got older, but it was really when I got pregnant with my son that I began to really taste things differently. Now I am willing to try just about anything. Still do not care for mushrooms. I like the flavor, but not the consistancy of them. When I was little I would eat fruit and iceberg lettuce- that was it! Now I love almost every veggie out there! Since moving to the south I have discovered Okra- I am the only one who eats it too. At least in my house.

Trish

sheilajoyce, May I send my 46 yr old husband to hang out with your kids? Something good might rub off onto my DH.

DH won't eat it if it's green and not lettuce, won't eat vegetables other than potatoes, in general won't eat fruit and vegs because they crunch when he chews them...even if it's cooked, he says it crunches! He will eat red colored pureed things, though, ie tomato soup and V-8 juice.

Yes, I have the cookbook that shows one how to sneak healthy items into their cooking. I get grilled every day - what have you hidden in this? And, yes, I hide food all the time.

With 5 kids in the house the rule was; If you don't like what's served, better luck next meal. Preparing a different meal for one child was never an option. They're not going to starve to death by missing one meal and by the next meal they'll be hungry enough to eat almost anything.

Ron

My DD used to be very picky, she liked very few vegetables and rarely ate meat.

Today she eats most anything - she is much more food adventurous than I am... she ate sea scallops and snails when she went on her cruise. She eats very healthy too and is thinking of becoming a nutritionist.

Yes, there is hope.

DS is very, very picky and always has been. I've tried what Ron suggested, but I think some kids are beyond that. When he went to hockey camp for a week, all he would eat was breakfast, the other boys told me later, and they were on the ice all day. He's always been thin, but he came home dangerously underweight. He ended up with serious problems with the fat pads on his feet (too thin on one, a hole in the other) caused by losing too much body fat. It takes about a year of healthy eating and low exercise to fix that problem, and he was always unusually active, so it took longer.

Anyway, he is 23 and is still picky, and I guess he always will be. Every now and then he will say that he thinks he has an eating disorder, but he won't agree to talk to anyone, and the next day he denies he even said it. I envy the moms whose boys will eat anything.

I was one of those fussy eaters. I would pick the bits of mushroom out of tuna-noodle casserole. On top of that, I demanded a separate fork for each food. If there was meat, potatoes and vegetables, I needed three forks. I never ate Chinese food until I met my husband. On a date, he bought Chinese. I tried it and liked it. I am now 56, no longer fussy. I will eat just about anything. I like every vegetable there is, except maybe turnips and beets.

My problem is that along with the pickiness comes hypoglycemia which = a very crabby girl. She enjoys "ethnic" foods more than American since she was brought up on them, and usually those that take forever to prepare. Perhaps when she's on her own and has to cook for herself her palate will relax a little.

I was a very picky eater when I was a child. My own daughter,
wasn't picky, but I started her out eating vegetables, etc. and also, never gave her commercially prepared baby food or sweets. She didn't get anything except breast milk until she was 8 mo., and then whatever I ate, I minced up for her. I tried baby food....gosh, it is awful, so no wonder kids become picky eaters and also, no sweets.

Today, she is extremely adventurous about food...will eat anything. Me? I'm still picky. I eat a lot more than I did when I was a kid, but I am picky how it is cooked, don't eat canned food, don't care for casseroles, and there are probably about 10 foods that I really like and eat often.

That's interesting. My kids were all adventurous eaters, and our family was into various ethnic foods when they were young. Now one of them is with a SO who eats three or four things, and that's it. If I had to deal with that, it would take all the fun out of cooking, I think.

I know what you mean. I married a man who was spoiled by his grandparents and never made to try anything. Meat and potatoes were fine, but just corn, peas, potatoes, and fresh tomatoes and carrots. If he did not like something, he was allowed to have a bologna sandwich--ugh. Well, I met him in college. I had been chief cook for my widowed father, brother and younger sister. So in exchange for his buying the groceries, I cooked dinner on Sunday as the dorms did not serve Sunday dinner. He learned he liked vegetables because I cooked fresh ones as often as possible and seasoned them well. He had grown up with only canned vegetables. This was in the old days when winter fresh vegetables in the Midwest were hard shell winter squash, onions, cabbage(?), carrots and potatoes.