Is anyone married to or marrying a picky eater?

One thing I do do is when I cannot take another day of beef ... is I will cook him up a burger but I'll use 1/2 the ground meat (yeah I know kinda nasty) and make myself hamburger helper or meatballs. And there are occassions where I'll want a piece of fish and I'll cook that for myself and fix him a chicken breast ... I always add veggies and a starch to my dinner so it is there if he wants to try them.

FH will eat pretty much anything that doesn't eat him first. We have disagreements about things though (he prefers his veggies to come from a can, I prefer fresh or frozen if fresh isn't an option).

In our relationship, I'm the one that has the food restrictions, but mine are based out of necessity rather than a preference... I have several confirmed food allergies (dairy, soy, peanuts, shellfish, yeast, beef, and bananas), and an appointment with the allergist for later this month, as I'm currently reacting to SOMETHING that I'm eating, but I have no idea what it is! So our diet is somewhat limited in some aspects... We eat lots of chicken, pork, and turkey. He'll sometimes fix a steak for himself, and I'll fix a chicken breast or pork chop for me. I also eat bison, but if I'm having a bison steak, HE is having a bison steak too.

Ugh don't even get me started!!!! My FH doesn't like veggies either or anything green! If it was up to him we would eat pizza, hamburgers and french fries all day everyday! I basically make two meals for dinner and that how I have been doing it for the past 4 years that we have lived together.

OMG yes. I did a lot of what Rebecca said. I started out hiding veggies in things and making substitutions without telling him. Plain greek yogurt instead of sour cream on taco night. Now he eats greek yogurt on purpose every day.

And then we had to start out really fatty/unhealthy and work our way lean. Like, at first I made veggies with butter and bacon and cream sauce. Or I had to batter and fry fish and cover it in sauce. A lot of it was in his head so if he eats broccoli covered in bacon grease he goes, "Hmm, maybe I like broccoli?" and then I can slowly take out the calories and cook it more healthfully.

Taco night is a staple for us. I can hide a bunch of chopped veggies and sub ground turkey for beef, and easily make my dinner a taco salad.

Sauces are really important for H. I'm getting better at making them out of roasted blended veggies with yogurt. He'll eat asparagus covered in sauce, or under a poached egg for example but wouldn't eat it alone.

The best way to get people who don't eat veggies to try them is to cook them with other foods - make chili with celery and peppers and onions added, or grill campfire chicken with potatoes and green beans.

Also, everything is better (and more manly) on a grill - learn to roast veggies on the grill, complete with awesome looking char marks, and maybe he'll try them

I couldn't deal with making two meals. OMG, what happens if/when you have kids? You're going to become a short-order cook! That would make me cuckoo.

There are some great cookbooks out there about how to sneak veggies and healthy foods into kids' diets - honestly I started out cooking from those. In the 4 years I've known H he has gotten SO much better.

Another thing I'll do b/c I pack his lunch, is make him a batch of something I won't eat and pack it for him. So he loves bread and pasta - I'll make sure he gets his carb fix at lunch and then he's more likely to be open minded about dinner.

It's got to be really hard to blend two kind of restricted diets together though. I shy away from gluten and processed things but cooking from home that's way easier to do than say, combining a carb loader and a vegan.

Will he try different grains? Quinoa, millet, barley, couscous? Quinoa pasta is awesome and more nutrient dense than wheat pasta IMO.

Oh and per usual Ryan is wise- the BEST thing in our kitchen that gets used twice a day is our griddle pan. I can roast pretty much any veggie in there with oil and salt/pepper and get him to at least try it. He likes the char flavor and the grill marks. It's a great sub since we don't currently have an actual grill.

You can grill anything - breads, peaches, pineapple.

Sorry - I could post in this thread all day, especially since I stay at home, H's diet has seriously been a major project of mine the last couple of years, so I have a lot to say on this subject. I think I've had some success!!!! We're still working on it but literally when we first started dating I never thought we'd be able to even share a refrigerator. And when H realized he was actually feeling better eating a wider variety of foods besides turkey sandwiches and doritos and Burger King, he got even MORE open to trying new things.

You'll get there!!!

I'm the picky eater in our relationship, but I'm flexible. I'll eat around what I don't like & compromise with FH. Tonight I'll make the fancy-pancy stir fry for us, but I generally only eat the chicken. Tomorrow though we get spaghetti :]. I'm really not as difficult as most, but I still really hope that any of our future children pick up my FH's eating habits & not mine haha.

With that said though, I like to tell people that they are the picky ones, not me ;]. I don't need onions, mustard, lettuce, & tomato on my cheeseburger. I'm sooooo much easier & cheaper sometimes haha.

My FH was picky and over the past 4 years is getting better. When we first started dating the only veggies he would touch were carrots and celery (raw). Now he eats salad, grilled onions, cooked carrots, and green beans. Chicken is his favorite protein, but now he loves steak and grilled pork! His kids don't like it but they are eating better too.

Tell him to cook his own meals if he is going to be so picky. FH's dad is like that and his mom just stopped cooking for him a long time ago!

I'm such a picky eater and just last year I was diagnosed with a digestive disorder so the list of foods I can't/won't eat just got longer. You can't force someone to try something new and believe me, it's just as frustrating for the cook as it is for the picky eater. I wish I could eat anything but I can't. So I cook 2 meals, always have. My mom use to cook 2 meals too. It was the only way I would eat. For me its a texture thing and now with my disease I'm limited even more on what I can eat. Just bear with him and don't nag him about trying new stuff, hopefully he'll try new things on his own : )

I had to ease mine into a lot of things. Saurkraut. Being from the north, I absolutely LOVE it... but notsomuch my southern husband. I started slowly incorporating into recipes. For example, I would start by putting it on my hot dogs. Then I would make it with bratwerst and saurkraut, something he didn't have to eat it with. Then, I transitioned into recipes where it was a big part of the recipe. Now, he loves it! I did the same thing with avacados. I also start by making recipes with a southern twist.. then make the real recipe after he loves the old one.

Haha, my FH hates dessert!!!! Every time we go out to eat, "Would you folks like dessert or coffee?" I get the look and I say no

I do the raw diet every 2 months so I have found some great recipes that I do sneak in and he has no idea.

He hates chicken, really chicken, I am screwed!

My DH is somewhat of a picky eater. For him it's mostly a texture thing. Items such as pudding, yogurt, jello, etc he won't eat because his brain can't decide what to do with it; chew it, swallow it. He use to not like many veggies, but since I've come along he eats a lot more. I also agree with the grilling of veggies. We have a BBQ and do carrots, peppers, onions, asparagus on it with some spices and olive oil. My DH will gobble the veg down before touching his steak. At least for my guy he'll try it once and then if he doesn't like it, I'm fine with that. My mom has even gotten use to and works around his pickiness. When we go to visit my parents, my mom will make sure she has watermelon around since it's one of the only fruits my DH eats. I'm glad he's not quite as bad as some of your FH's and DH's. Would drive me a little bonkers.

OMG YES,I am in the same boat as you..he hates almost all vegetables,except corn,potatoes and canned green beans(yuck) i prefer fresh or even frozen to canned..hes more of a meat and potatoes and corn guy every night but he LOVES pizza..trying to cook for him is very boring because he likes the same type of stuff everyday.also he doesn't like any fruit except apples and doesn't really like them much either..he says the fruits and veggies is a texture thing and he will gag if he eats them..i can blend veggies in spaghetti sauce and he will eat them but if they are not liquified he will not even try it..seriously i think his mother should of made him eat it as a kid and he would not be so picky.but i love him so i am willing to make separate foods for him.

I"m probably not going to be much help but I'll try. If you made things and just have him tast it, maybe he will try to eat it. My FH is the complete opposite and I keep telling him if anything was to ever happen to the world I would stick with him because we will eat something that is roasted on a fire. Some things I'm not willing to try but its not much.

LoL I'm the super picky eater, and he will eat whatever is put in front of him basically lol

My FH is also very picky! He will not eat the same kind of meat in a week. If we have beef on Monday then we cant have it till the following week. It gets really hard trying to prepare meals with different stuff each time. He also refuses to eat any kind of leftovers unless it is green chile. He also has to have onions on mostly everything he eats, which I cant eat it or even touch it because I am allergic to it.

he has to have a bowl of one certain kind of cereal before bed every night, and his food can not touch each other while on the plate unless it is smothered in green chile.

I'm lucky in that mine will eat almost anything--except grilled grasshoppers, which I love (it's a Oaxacan thing lol)). If he was picky, we'd have issues since I refuse to be short-order cook. Flat. Out. Refuse. I've already told him that if we have kids, they will eat what I cook. The same applies to him.

Yeah, I'm kind of a hard-ass that way but this is a hot-button issue for me. I've seen way to many moms (I was a nanny all through college and then for a bit after) end up cooking three or four different meals at a time and I refuse to go that route!

Oh please - I can write a book about what FH doesn't eat. Basically he only likes fried foods, doesn't eat fish, allergic to seafood. Everything has to be cooked hard (which I hate) and if I make a dish that I like to eat, then I have to make a different dish for him. It's very difficult for me to get him to try anything new - I'm to the point of giving up. The saddest part is that I'm taking on his eating habits to the point that lately I feel like if I eat one more fried something or other I'm gonna SCREAM!!!