Poll: Are you a picky eater?

[fatpat268]

With company, I'll eat just about anything and pretend I like it. I do tend to pick off olives and tomatoes off of sandwiches if a coworker brings in lunch, but that's about it.

Eating at home, I'm much more picky, but I just avoid the foods I don't really like.

 

[ShawnD1]

Now we just make our normal meals, and if he doesn't like it, he either doesn't eat or has ramen noodles or bologna. He's 17 and came from a poor home, but damn, you'd think he'd learn to stretch his horizons by now.

My dad once said something about this. The pickiest eaters are people who "don't have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of"
I don't know what he's basing that on but it sounded funny.

Also, why would you cater to a 17 year old? If he doesn't like it, he can get a job and buy his own food.
Most of my family would refuse to cater to people, and it always seemed to work fine. If people didn't want to eat, that's fine. Nobody is forcing you to eat, you don't need to finish your plate. If the only thing on the table you want to eat is carrots, that's fine too. Eventually people get hungry and they crave things they wouldn't normally crave. In extreme cases of fat starvation, people would literally drink fat because they craved it.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

What evolutionary advantage is there to being a picky eater? I would say it would be a disadvantage.

 

[ShawnD1]

What evolutionary advantage is there to being a picky eater? I would say it would be a disadvantage.

Being sensitive to taste means you are sensitive to poisons.
A lot of kids don't like vegetables because they taste poisonous. Many poisons are weak organic bases (alkaloids) that cause a bitter taste. Instinctively, bitter = poison. People who are more sensitive to bitter food will quickly recognize a plant is poisonous and spit it out.

 

[Texashiker]

What evolutionary advantage is there to being a picky eater? I would say it would be a disadvantage.

It means the non-picky eaters have more food, and as a result we are more likely to survive.

Its only through modern technology that people can be picky eaters. 100 years ago you either ate what on your plate or you starved.

 

[mb]

It means the non-picky eaters have more food, and as a result we are more likely to survive.

Its only through modern technology that people can be picky eaters. 100 years ago you either ate what on your plate or you starved.

Gee it's a good thing we don't live 100 years ago then 🙄

If the only food that was left was raw tomatoes with no way to cook them, cucumbers, mushrooms, etc, I'd fucking eat them you dolt.

 

[Dumac]

More strawman and sophistry. You have to be aware of what you're doing or your education is lacking in more than just manners.

Says the man who uses the term sophistry. Learn some history, will you? 😛

 

[BurnItDwn]

I'm generally not picky but there are some things that I do not like.

Last week I got my 10 year old cousin to try 2 different curries, escargot, and tempura for the first time .. and he liked them all....

 

[moshquerade]

More like one picky eat removes the freedom from every normal person in the area, as everyone else has to accommodate the wussy that doesn't like onions.

not true. i have just learned to set aside things like onions when they are in my food.

 

[mattpegher]

I will and have eaten almost everything humans eat. There are a few bugs left. But I don't expect everyone to be that way. What I do expect is that if you are picky, and you find yourself somewhere where they have prepared food and none is to your liking, then you get to go hungry. Either bring your own, find something or wait.

 

[xanis]

Nope. I'll eat just about anything (and try anything once). The only food I REALLY don't like? Asparagus.

 

[dighn]

I don't eat fish, even before I developed an allergy to it. I also don't like cream-based soups. Other than those I eat pretty much anything that's not too disgusting.

 

[Brigandier]

I will and have eaten almost everything humans eat. There are a few bugs left. But I don't expect everyone to be that way. What I do expect is that if you are picky, and you find yourself somewhere where they have prepared food and none is to your liking, then you get to go hungry. Either bring your own, find something or wait.

Do you know how universally rude it is not to eat food offered to you? Any place I would go where I cold possibly dislike the cuisine, I'd be smart enough to eat everything put before me anyway.

With a big smile on my face too, and say at least once how good it is.

 

[MetalMat]

I only eat pus......

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

What a failure of a thread... I am one of those people that notice the most subtle change in food, I can immediately tell when there is more or less of something etc, and people go like "what? it tastes the same" when to me, its obvious it doesnt

I am also very picky about the TEXTURE of the food... Some foods (like most seafood) I cant stand not because of the taste, but because it feels... terrible

Case in point: Shrimp... How can people stand eating that vile thing? They are freaking sea insects, its disgusting! If you eat shrimp, why dont you go and eat cockroaches too? Same thing, yet people find shrimp delicious, but cockroaches digusting, just lol!

And last but not least, people actually need to try food to know if they will like it? I find that strange, because I can tell whether I will like something just by smelling it... It should be common sense, especially with the technique of not breathing to nulify the taste of food you dont like

 

[Fritzo]

not true. i have just learned to set aside things like onions when they are in my food.

You're reasonable. Most picky people flap their hands up and down while jumping and whine "EWWWWWW....I HATE ONIONS! IF YOU ORDER THEM ON THE PIZZA I'M NOT EATING IT!!!!"

 

[CraigRT]

Will eat pretty much anything.
Picky eaters suck, they miss out on so much.

 

[Bateluer]

Not particularly, though I do have some foods I cannot stand.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

There are a few, very few, people like the ones Mosh talked about. The vast majority of picky eaters aren't interested in eating period. They would rather take the blue pill than eat.

They are the people who've never eaten a menu item straight in their entire life since they discovered they could have it their way. It has nothing to do with food allergies, intolerance of particular ingredients or, common dislikes. They exist as special snowflakes who believe the world should yield to their unique tastes except, were that to happen, they'd change them to remain 'unique.'

In short, they can die along with soup fishers and, people who aren't happy with the portions provided. You know, the folks who try to carve a smaller piece of food from a portion in a chafer, chasing it all around the pan destroying the rest of the presentation because the portion is to big. Obviously, there mothers never slapped them enough when they were little.

PSA to picky eaters. STAY AT HOME! You annoy the fuck out of people you eat with, people who feed you and, wait staff everywhere.

 

[moshquerade]

You're reasonable. Most picky people flap their hands up and down while jumping and whine "EWWWWWW....I HATE ONIONS! IF YOU ORDER THEM ON THE PIZZA I'M NOT EATING IT!!!!"

that's wanting attention along with being a picky eater. :\

 

[moshquerade]

There are a few, very few, people like the ones Mosh talked about. The vast majority of picky eaters aren't interested in eating period. They would rather take the blue pill than eat.

This article claims that 25% of us are in the supertaster category:

How to Tell if You are a Supertaster


Today I found out how to tell if you are a supertaster. What’s a supertaster you ask? More or less, it’s just someone with a heck of a lot more taste-buds than the average person. Specifically, someone with more than about 35 papillae per 7mm diameter circle on their tongue. Papillae are tiny structures on your tongue that contain your taste-buds. It turns out, about 25% of people are supertasters; 25% are non-tasters; and the other 50% are somewhere in the middle.

All these extra taste-buds tend to make supertasters hyper sensitive to tastes, due to the increased intensity of any given taste they are detecting. Researchers estimate the supertasters experience flavors about three times stronger than the average taster.

Because of this, supertasters tend to hate green vegetables, grapefruit juice, certain alcoholic beverages, coffee, green tea, soy based products, overly sweet things, and generally are just considered “picky eaters”. It turns out though, that it has nothing to do with personality with supertasters, as is often implied, and more to do with the fact that they can taste things that the people labeling them “picky eaters” and ridiculing them for it, can’t. So don’t get bitter at them, they can’t help it.

There are two primary ways to detect if you are a supertaster or not. The first and less “do at home” friendly, is to get some propylthiouracil (PROP), a prescription only thyroid medication drug. In this test, people are made to taste PROP and if they report a bitter taste they are either a medium or a supertaster (non-taster’s can’t taste PROP; supertasters find it repulsively bitter). They then are given a reference stimulus to determine how an individual scales their description of what they are sensing. With this, they are trying to determine if someone says something is “extremely bitter”, do they mean the same level as someone else that just says “bitter”, but has a different notion of how strongly to describe some sensation. From this reference stimulant, usually auditory, they are able to determine if someone who tastes the bitterness is a supertaster or just a medium taster.
Now for the more “do at home” friendly version.
Materials Needed:

• Piece of thick paper such as a 3×5 note card or construction paper
• Blue Food Coloring
• Mirror
• Magnifying Glass
• Cotton Swab (optional)
• Hole Punch (optional)

Step 1:

• Poke a hole in the paper approximately the size of a standard paper hole punch hole (should be 7mm or .27 inches in diameter; most hole punches range between 6mm and 8mm).

Step 2:

• Now rub some of the food coloring onto your tongue with a cotton swab or your finger. You will notice under the magnifying glass that the food coloring will tend to show up on your tongue, but the papillae will stay pink-ish, looking like little pink bumps on your tongue.

Step 3:

• Place the hole on the paper over the part of your tongue that has the food coloring and press gently, so as not to move the paper while you are counting.

Step 4:

• Use the magnifying glass and a mirror to count how many papillae you see on your tongue through the hole in the paper. The papillae should appear like tiny pink dots surrounded by blue food coloring.

That’s it. If you counted close to 35-ish or more, you are a supertaster. If you counted between 15 or more up to around 35-ish, you are a medium taster. If you counted less than 15, you are a non-taster. Obviously there are ranges within each group, but that’s generally how the three groups are classified. But beyond labels like “supertaster”, the more papillae you counted, the strong you taste things.


Bonus Factoids:

• Body type has been found to be closely related to ability to taste. Supertasters tend to be thinner and have less cardiovascular problems due to dislike of fatty foods.
• The term “supertaster” was first coined by Psychologist Linda Bartoshuk and her colleagues in the 1990s. In their research, they noticed some people tested in their experiments seemed to have a much higher taste response. However, they only coined the phrase and further studied the differences between taste sensitivity; the difference in ability to distinguish taste strengths had already been discovered. Specifically, work was done about 70 years previous by A.L. Fox, a chemist, who noticed that some people reported phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) as being bitter, while others couldn’t taste it. Later, Roland Fischer, in the 1960s, discovered that PROP, which was later used by Linda Bartoshuk for her research, could not be tasted by non-tasters and by some medium tasters, but was extremely bitter to supertasters.
• Though supertasters have a significantly lower risk of developing cardiovascular and weight problems, they run a much higher risk of colon, gynecological, and other cancers than non-supertasters. This is thought to be due to a drastically limited intake of green vegetables, due to their disgusting taste to supertasters.
• Women are much more likely to be supertasters than men (35% of Women vs 15% of Men)
• Asians are much more likely to be supertasters than the rest of the world
• Caucasian males have the lowest rate of supertasters of any known group.
• In The Simpsons episode “Father Knows Worst”, Homer eats a stick of burning coals and becomes a supertaster.
• The alternative rock band They Might Be Giants has a song called “John Lee Supertaster” about John Lee, a supertaster and the bass player for the rock band Muckaferguson, who “can’t drink coffee or beer” and “loves ice cream and pie”.

• http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/how-to-tell-if-you-are-a-supertaster/

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Mosh, you and the article are confusing cause and effect. Just because someone has more taste buds than another does not automatically make them a "supertaster." Taste is in the brain not, in the mouth.

According to the findings. Asian women have the greatest likelihood of being "supertasters." If you're familiar with Asian cuisine, half of Southeast Asia would have ripped their tongues out long ago.

If you want to call yourself a "supertaster" rather than picky, be my guest. I'm just going off of feeding people for the last 35 years or so.

 

[Anubis]

Fucking. Delicious. I got my kids drinking it too, much to my wife's dismay. 😀
.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I definitely fall into the more texture-sensitive side of things. I won't turn down most vegetables or any fruit juice (aside from papaya, blech D: ) but raw tomatoes and most fruits are hideous. Nasty, squishy, gooey things. I'm ok with apples and pears, though. I can consume small berries as well, although I probably won't like it. Give me an orange or strawberry and I'm gagging.

 

[Ichinisan]

There are a lot of things I don't like that most people do like.

Mushrooms, for instance. If there are mushrooms on my pizza, I eat it anyway.

I despise picky eaters.