Fish Fingers and Waffles

Hello, again.

I thought today I would talk about something which is a big part of my life – fussy eating.

So let’s begin. I am a fussy eater. Always have been and suspect always will be.
Allegedly when I was a very small baby I would eat whatever my parents ate mashed up but sadly my parents divorced when I was quite small and I then would refuse to eat anything unless it was Birds Eye fish fingers and waffles (no joke). I can presume that the sudden shock of an absent parent meant I decided to take back some control through my eating.

My childhood, in relation to food, brings back lots of frustration from adults and lots of heartache from me. My Mum did the very best she could as a single parent and I think ultimately this meant giving me whatever food I asked for. She went to the doctors worried and they told her it was a phase that would pass. 20 + years later this seems like a pretty long phase.

I wasn’t born of a time where perhaps children were forced to eat whatever was in front of them before they could leave the table, instead I believe my family did the very best they could to try and help me overcome it, one mouthful at a time.

The truth is, I haven’t overcome it and I really struggle with the concept that I may never will.

I have tried many, many things to try and overcome this horrible fear of food (and lets not be mistaken, this is a fear), and although my variety is a little more diverse than fish fingers and waffles, it’s still not what it should be. I think my family really dismayed when I was younger and tried everything from disguising foods as other items (my Nanna once cut a parsnip like a roast potato and roasted it and it wasn’t until I bit into it I realised what it was) to allowing me to pick and choose my own foods and educating me. To be honest nothing stuck and I think the ‘disguising’ made me a little worse in terms of the trust between me and food. Eventually, as there was only Mum and I in our little home, we slipped into a very limited weekly menu of foods which I liked and would eat. Now at this point all this may seem like I was very much pandered to and that the entire family unit revolved around me and my food needs. And to be honest that is probably true but I cannot imagine what my Mum went through and the conflicts she faced as a single parent and trying to do the right thing.

Eventually I grew out of the single meal of fish fingers and waffles and began to diversify onto other things and although now I eat lots of different things, it is nowhere near what it should be. I will only eat apples, bananas and grapes, but no other fruit, and no vegetables except mange tout (which doesn’t really count). I don’t really enjoy meats which are plain, but can’t stand a lot of sauces and most definitely not gravy. Sauces need to be smooth with no lumps and I will never have two items on the same fork. I usually work around my plate item by item and never mix two. Except curry. Which is odd. VERY odd. I LOVE chicken Korma and I mean that. I love it. I can think of nothing better than a garlic naan with korma and rice on top. I’m complex. I’m sure that can be seen.

So what is it like to be a fussy eater, I am sure you are all DYING to know? Well it’s fine. I am able to function in my normal happy life everyday with no troubles and care free, because I generally chose what and where and when I eat. But sometimes I am placed in situations where I have huge problems. Things like weddings or formal balls where I have absolutely no choice of the food and no say in its preparation. At occasions like these, I will do ANYTHING to try and find out what the food is going to be so I can mentally prepare myself beforehand as to what I am going to have to tackle. I will try and influence the menu anyway I can (usually by making a special request which is mortifying), but if I am not able to this, I try and mentally prepare before it comes. When the food does arrive, I definitely enter the ‘Fight’ or ‘Flight’ state and because I can’t leave, I have to ‘Fight’. My body fills with adrenaline and I get very hot and tetchy (that’s a good word isn’t it?!) and I very quickly scan the dish for ‘enemy’ items and plan how I will tackle it. I also experience this when food arrives which is not as I expected. It’s a running joke with friends that I can’t just order something as it is on the menu, but instead always have to change it. Once I ordered a cheese burger with chips, with no cheese, no relish, no salad. Just a burger, and bun, and chips. A cheese burger with no cheese!!

It is not just me this affects. It affects lots of situations and people around me. My other half, like Mum all those years ago,  is limited to my food choices unless he makes two meals per night. When out with friends, each menu we chose has to be vetted to make sure it has something on I will like and we, as a group, never have dinner parties or invite each other around for food, probably because they are worried what they will make. But for me it’s much more than that. It affects the meal choices I make and a lot of the foods I like are very unhealthy and so this causes me to put on weight, and also not be able to lose it as easily or quickly. Whole sections of the supermarket are unavailable to me and I often feel like I truly missing out on the variety of life. The situation I was in a little while ago, whereby I lived alone for about eight months of the year, meant that I really was allowed to choose all of my meals and sometimes my fussiness could really manifest itself quite badly, which was more of a struggle when my husband returned home.

So why don’t I just suck it up and get on with it? I SO wish I could. Honestly, I truly, truly do. I hate it. Absolutely hate it. I wish I could like everything on the menu, never ask for a modification and enjoy all the different types of food out there. But for some reason I can’t. I try new things (sometimes) and often I physically cannot swallow it or manage to and instantly regret it. I try to tell myself there is physically nothing wrong with me and that all this is in my head but I don’t know whether it’s just lifelong habits or whether there is some malfunction in my brain but I can’t seem to enjoy it. I have tried; seeing a dietician, blending my food, eating in teeny tiny pieces, eating things raw, talking to NLP expert, but nothing seems to work.

I’m ok right now. I’m not dying and no one is dying because of my theories with food, but I do worry about the future. I worry about not getting the right nutrients and it affecting my health, about it affecting my close relationships but most of all how it might affect my child. I have brought a beautiful kiddy winkle in the world but I whole heartedly don’t want her to inherit my bad habits and traits. I don’t want her to say “Well you don’t.” when I ask them why they aren’t eating their vegetables. All I know right now, is that it’s a long slow journey but I hope that I can continue to make very small, incremental changes for my future.

Well, that was a bit of a heavy one but hopefully I am not alone in this pretty lonely world of fussy eating and that it will help people to understand themselves a little better. If you see a fussy eater changing the whole item of a menu, don’t think badly of them, they already feel bad enough.

Speak Soon,

L xx