Mom made my lunches during my school years, and I have no idea how many of those were pb&j on white bread....years and years. Once in awhile I'd splurge and get the Friday pizza from the cafeteria. Once in awhile in the fall, I'd bring tomato sandwich on white. But the vast majority was pb&j.

My mom has a friend who eats the same meals on the same days of the week every week. Monday beef, Tuesday chicken, Wed fish, and so on. Even if she goes out to eat, she orders the food that she would make at home on that day of the week. She says it is just easier than thinking about what to eat.

Such a timely topic, amylou! A few hours ago I went online to check the menu of the restaurant we are going to for our anniversary tomorrow night and was thinking to myself how navigating a menu feels like a minefield at this point in my life. I was left with a strong intolerance for any kind of smoked food after going through chemo for breast cancer and the aversion has persisted now for over 15 years.

My last bout of covid two years ago left me with an impaired sense of taste and there are things that are very unpleasant I just have to avoid - mostly tart/sour flavors including citrus and most vinegars and vinegary things, even mustard and ketchup. It's somewhat embarassing and very frustrating to have to dissect each menu item. DH gets frustrated with me sometimes, but he does understand.

I was never a picky eater except for not liking parsnips. I've coached myself to say "I don't enjoy eating that" instead of "I don't like that". I would LOVE to like bacon and lemon caper butter sauce again but I'm not able to enjoy them anymore, along with too many other things.

As a child who, for two years, had to have my lunch packed by my mom. I requested egg salad sandwiches, which she made with chopped-up celery. I told that I did not like celery in my sandwiches and always picked the pieces out. Did that make a difference? No, she kept the celery, and I kept removing every last piece for two years!

I will eat almost any food, however there are some I like much better than others. One in particular is chickpeas. I love hummus but cannot stand to eat chickpeas in any other form. I have tried many times…in soups, salads, etc but just cannot.

I was chatting with someone recently who told me she had a change in taste for some things after heavy anesthesia for a knee replacement. I had never heard of that reaction, but maybe it’s a thing too, like how Covid affected the tastebuds of some people.

I do find myself ordering the same items a lot in some of our favorite restaurants. I try to branch out and order a different item when I catch myself doing it more than a couple of times.

Since I've been watching my carb intake closely, I've mostly stopped going to restaurants. When I do, I always order a plain grilled piece of fish with a side of the lowest carb vegetable they offer. Boring, but easy to keep me on track.

At the grocery store, I buy exactly the same things every week, heads of green cabbage and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I also try to keep eggs, canned tuna and mozzarella cheese on hand to introduce some variety.

I love all types of food and do miss ethnic options and pizza, but all of those are on hold for now.

I don't get the same meal everywhere I go, so I can consider it variety. I get the same sushi at the sushi place, but I get the same meal in the cafeteria at work, which might be teriyaki chicken, or one fried chicken leg and one fried chicken thigh. I always get the Kung Pao chicken at the Chinese place. I always get the cheeseburger pizza at the pizza place... I think I agree with always getting the same thing that I know I like, rather than risking something different.

This part of my answer may be different than anybody else's: I get a decaf mocha everyday. There may be 50 to 100 drinks at Starbucks but I'm always going to get a decaf mocha, everyday. I grew up living so many places, seeing so many different people, that I like a little "stability". It's the same, everyday, everywhere. I can get it in Disney World, the Atlanta airport, on my block, and it will always be the same. Same reason we have fast food chains that are the same from place to place. Something you can count on.

I have my favorite restaurants and my favorite dishes at those restaurants. I don't really eat out at place where I dont LOVE the food, or places that I don't check the menu online to see if I want to eat there. That said, I usually default to something on their menus that I cannot or will not cook at home. Like I would never order steak or a fish filet, but I might order fish and chips because I don't really fry things at home. I used to always order scallops but our fish market has two kinds of really fresh scallops, so I've learned to cook them at home and never order them when I go out anymore. I might order prime rib because I don't make that at home. If I find Geoduck or Calamari steak on a menu, I would order that without a second glance at the menu.

I have my favorite dishes at Thai and Vietnamese restaurants here and don't really vary when I order. I do try different things at Mexican restaurants, but once I find something really delicious, I have a hard time ordering something different on the menu. Altho I love pasta and we have a few really great Italian restaurants here that make their own pasta, I only order something that I wouldn't fix at home....no red sauce or clam sauce for me because I can and do make those at home. I'd choose something like a lobster ravioli or a pumpkin/squash ravioli, or some other filling that sounds good - I never make fresh ravioli any more, tho I used to. I always order the same pizza, regardless of the restaurant, take out or delivery only, I never go to a restaurant for pizza. A vegetarian pizza with extra veggies and cashews and Italian sausage, lol. No longer vegetarian!

@seagrass_gw Cape Cod wrote: "I've coached myself to say "I don't enjoy eating that" instead of 'I don't like that'." I entertained quite a few of my grandson's friends for playdates when he was in grade school. For the most part they were easy to cook for, my grandson being the fussiest of them all. But one little girl who was his closest friend would say, "I don't prefer that," when offered food she didn't like. I just loved that she'd been taught to say that instead of "I don't like that."

"I don't prefer that," As an adult gifting a child a snack I would find that hugely more insulting than "I don't like that". People are not in control of their dietary likes necessarily. Tastebuds and familiarity with certain foods can run the gammot. A child not liking tuna I can 100 % understand. I don't want to eat what I don't like either! To tell someone I prefer steak to the hamburger they offer is an affront!! For a child to tell me she would prefer I offer her something else, would irk me greatly. It's perfectly reasonable to ask someone to eat what's offered even if they would rather eat______. To ask them to eat something they truly dislike is unkind. Much better to teach them to say 'no thank you' and just NOT EAT would be the most polite. We do not owe people explanations for our NO.

Sometimes, going out means I get to have a favorite that I can’t or don’t make at home, and no other restaurant makes it the way I like. So, I think I said in the soup thread, I love Panera’s cream of chicken and wild rice, and it’s what I always get. At our Nepalese/Tibetan/Indian restaurant, there is a dish I really like that I don’t see anywhere else, and I always order that, along with of course other dishes. (and at a Japanese restaurant we’ve been to a few times, the last time I considered a particular dish. DS’s GF reminded me ”I think you didn’t care for that last time.” She was right, I actually couldn’t eat more than a few bites. Thank goodness she paid attention. I ordered something else and was happy with it.) I’m not picky, but if I can have a favorite, then I do.

But, I don’t think there is any place I frequent enough to have the staff consider it my usual.

There have been other threads about picky eaters and kids etc, so I won’t touch that.

Only at one restaurant do I always order exactly the same thing. That is Longhorn Steak, which friends laugh when I go there saying you haven't eaten meat in 45 years. True, but they have the best Parmesan crusted chicken with great chopped salad and a huge baked potato with all the trimmings. At other restaurants, which are almost all Asian or Italian, I chose different things on the menu.

I think it's wrong to expect royal family level enunciation or formal phrases or word choices from kids. When I heard such things over the years, I could only imagine the poor kids being brow-beaten by parents who had misplaced priorities.

Kids need to be taught to be polite, flexible, to be appreciative and accommodating, and to say please and thank you. Oral erudition can wait until later in life.

Remember the Eddy Haskell character on Leave It To Beaver? That's what unnecessary non kid-like speaking sounds like when coming from a kid.