Self-described “meat and potatoes guy” Lincoln Tyson was at a glam dinner hosted by Tiffany & Co. last year when he was compelled to choke down the very first salad he’d eaten in his life.
Never again says the 32-year-old owner of a consulting firm in Laurel, Md.
Tyson is among legions of adult picky eaters, otherwise intelligent men and women who banish from their diets specific tastes or textures or sometimes entire food groups. They are grown-ups who somehow haven’t outgrown the finicky food preferences most people leave behind once they’re out of the highchair. Or college, at least.
Pass them on the street, and you’d never know the quirks they harbor. But invite them over for a meal or join them at a restaurant, and the truth emerges. Some find pasta and oysters too slimy. Others can’t bear chewy meats, gritty berries, rubbery cheese or mushy tomatoes.
There are those who shun “foreign” or spicy foods as a category, or all produce with seeds. There are the dairy-averse and condiment-phobes.
Some finicky eaters will not mix foods on the same plate, or they insist on finishing one item entirely before starting the next. Others refuse to eat anything at all with their hands, whether a sandwich, peanuts or pizza.
These are not people with medical conditions, food allergies or religion-based food restrictions. Nor are they dieters, cuisine snobs or diners who simply prefer steak well-done rather than rare.
They are otherwise well-adjusted adults with unyielding, often secretive, eating practices.
“A normal person might enjoy hundreds, if not thousands” of combinations among all the fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, fowl, grains, nuts, juices, herbs, soups, sweets, sauces, spices, desserts and flavorings in today’s markets, says Marcia Pelchat, a food psychologist.
By contrast, adult picky eaters in extreme cases limit themselves to as few as 20 or 30 tolerable edibles, says Pelchat, who works at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a research institute in Philadelphia specializing in taste, smell and nutrition.
Although it is not known how many American adults are picky eaters, a growing number are seeking treatment, says Bradley Riemann, clinical director of obsessive-compulsive disorders at Milwaukee’s Rogers Memorial Hospital, which treats numerous patients with eating issues.
“All of a sudden, in the past six months to a year, it is bursting out more than I have seen in my entire 18-year career, partly because there is so much public awareness of obsessive-compulsive disorder,” or OCD, Riemann says. “Typically, this is not OCD-related, but there is a fear reaction [to specific foods], disgust, and it is affecting their lives.”
But picky eaters can become seriously ill or depressed, Riemann says. “The line between food preferences and disordered eating is whether it hurts their quality of life.”
The chronically finicky often feel comfortable eating only in private, because at parties and restaurants the sight, smell or texture of foods they dislike can make them physically ill.
“The important defining question is, do they worry when they have to go out–to a business lunch or dinner, or to someone’s home for the weekend, where they cannot control the food. They’re not just worried about finding something they’d like to eat, but there is some embarrassment admitting this to new people,” Pelchat says.
Picky adults exhibit “extreme reluctance to try new foods. A party is a nightmare because you have all these enclosed packets [of finger foods], and you don’t know what’s inside,” she says.
Extreme eating habits almost killed the romance for JoAnn Polickoski, 34, who lives in a suburb of Columbia, S.C. In the early 1990s, her Marine boyfriend flew her to Spain for a vacation that was to include a marriage proposal.
But James Polickoski, 34, did not fully comprehend his sweetie’s ironclad culinary credo: “If it looks like what it is–if it has a head, bones or scales–forget it.”
When confronted by the day’s catch in a seaside restaurant, “she completely melted down,” he recalls. The paella he ordered contained “oversize prawns and crawfish with heads on. She wouldn’t eat anything; she wanted to go to McDonald’s, to eat commissary food. We had a horrible time.”
He waited a year to give her the ring, and did so only after she promised him “to try every food at least once. She can’t just look at it and freak out. I told her I can’t eat this way, and if we’re going to have kids”–their fourth was born in May–“they are not going to grow up to be finicky. It was hard for her, but she agreed.”
