The Picky Pants Family...

So if you've ever eaten with me, you've probably commented or at least noticed that I'm a little picky about my food. The funny thing is, I come from a family of the most picky eaters in the world and I'm pretty much considered the "renegade" food eater in my family. I'll try most things, and there are very few things I don't like.

I know it may seem hard to believe for some of you, but trust me, until you've eaten a meal with my family you've not seen anything. Both my mom and my sister top the charts when it comes to picky eaters. My mom has only a slight advantage over my sister, but not by much. My mom and sister like about 10 things each...maybe 15 for my mom. They like hot dogs, bologna, cereal, hamburgers, mac and cheese, and boneless, skinless chicken breast. You may think I am joking, but really, I am not. There are a few other things here and there but that's pretty much it. My sister does not like a single condiment out there with the exception of bbq sauce but only if it's been grilled on to the boneless skinless chicken breast, and that's only an occasional thing. No ketchup you say? Correct, she hates ketchup. Not even mustard or mayo? She'd rather die. My mom at least eats ketchup & mustard. Between the two of them I think they only like 1 veggie: corn. My mom likes potatoes, but again, Leslie would rather pass out cold then even think about eating a potato product with the rare exception of PLAIN potato chips.

Having grown up with them, it really doesn't phase me anymore. But it's also because of them that when someone calls ME picky I nearly lose it. I know it's all relational, but seriously, I like mostly anything!

The thing that really kills me is trying to go out to eat as a family. Leslie & my mom are the worst. Every time we say "Where are we going to eat?" they say "Oh wherever" or "You choose" as if they like to eat anywhere except for AppleBee's, Chili's, O'Charleys, Cracker Barrell, or Olive Garden. It's like HELLO??? You two are the ones who don't like anything. Why would you a) pretend like you don't care or b) act like the rest of us have some free choice where we want to go??? So my usual answer is something like "Oh, how about some Thai food?" which usually gets them to pick something. I accept the fact that when I go out to eat with them, we are going to go to some commercial restaurant and they are going to eat a hamburger or chicken fingers and I'll try and find something palatable to eat. Even if I think their eating habits are extreme, whatever, it's their choice and they can eat whatever they want. Just stop making us play the silly "Where are we going to eat?" game!

However, that brings me to the fact that I'm incredibly sympathetic to other people's food issues. I always try and be sensitive to other people, because even though it drives me crazy that my mom and sister are so picky, I know how hard it is for them to have to deal with the constant barrage of comments about their eating and how annoying it is to constantly hear about how picky they are. I think eating habits are very personal, just like religion and politics. In a future blog I'm going to talk about being a vegetarian and my personal thoughts around it. Although I'll go into depth about this in that blog post, the one thing I hate about many vegetarians is that they are constantly trying to make other people feel bad about eating meat. That annoys me to death.

In college my friends and I came up with a saying "Make your own choices" which was kind of our mantra throughout college and it worked really well. Even as good of friends as we were (and are still) there were still many differences in our beliefs, behaviors and thoughts about a variety of topics. "Make your own choices" was our version of "let's agree to disagree" with even less jerkiness. And that's pretty much the way I feel about food. I might not like what you eat, you may not like what I eat, but hey, make your own choices and stop harassing others about theirs. So that's my spiel. Try and remember this post the next time you want to harass someone about their food and/or eating habits. Some people find it very annoying and are tired of hearing it over and over. Make your own choices man!