This poll is inspired by the WaPo story — blogged here — about a 9-year-old schoolchild forced by a cafeteria monitor to eat waffles that she'd thrown, packaged, into the trash. I realized I have never, in my entire life, been forced to eat food. I've eaten some things I didn't like because it was what was available or I didn't want to waste it, but no one has ever made me eat anything or threatened me with a loss of privilege — no TV! — if I didn't eat something. I don't think anyone even ever suggested that if I don't eat an item — or take just one bite of it — I won't get dessert or anything like that.
I asked Meade, and his experience was just like mine. So now, I'm asking you:
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Apparently Friday is for food fights.
Time to queue up "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Chrismas Time?". After all, can't have a food war without sanctimonious liberals pushing their food morality on the rest of the world.
When I was 8 or so, my mother served us split pea soup with cut up hot dogs for dinner.
I think I culled the hot dogs to eat but left all the soup.
My father (a very tough guy) wouldn't let me leave the table until I'd finished the soup.
I was still sitting there at midnight when he finally got sick of it and wanted to go to bed himself.
Chalk one up for the little monster (me).
My parents had a strict rule. If I took some food (i.e. put it on my plate), I had to eat it.
my bleeding heart liberal mom made me stay at the table, until i finished my liver
as i was choking it down (this took about 1 hr),
my mom said: "it wouldn't have been so disgusting back when it was warm"
It was right about This Time, that my loathing of liberal democrats started
Asparugus. Sat for hours at kitchen table but refused to eat it. It always got so late my parents gave up and sent me to bed. Mom died when I was young so never had a chance to confront her about it as an adult. Seems like she never made an effort to make it more palatable (hello throw some cheese on it?). Dad was a "you don't know what's good" type. I was raised by morons.
In elementary school I ate in the cafeteria once a week - Thursday was hot dog day. This was in the 50s and cafeteria moms grew up with the depression and scarcity of WWII, so everyone ate what was served. I disliked peas and corn, which was served with most cafeteria meals. When the mom wasn't looking, I would put the veggies in my empty milk carton.
If you didn't finish your lunch you would have to sit in the cafeteria until lunch recess was over, or until you relented.
It was always about the starving children in China - at home and at school. Knowing what we know now, better to have let them starve.
It was normal, at home, at catholic grade school and public junior high. And I am not even close to a picky eater, I just had lot of crappy food I was told I had to eat before I left the table. Ham loaf, potato/tomato casserole….
Seriously?
When I was young, my parents forced me to eat what was on my plate, or no dessert.
It wasn't a big deal. The only time I recall it bothered me was when my mom made her disgusting canned chipped beef. You could chew that nasty stuff forever and it would not break down. (liver and broccoli were others - lucky she only made liver on rare occasions)
*I wish I knew about the Seinfeld Mutton-napkin method.
I've had the threat of having dinner for breakfast, but the worst thing was when I was around 5ish (too far back to get the age right) when I would not eat my breakfast. I would just sit there, finally the babysitter had me drop trou and gave me some swats.
You left out the ever-popular "Children are starving in [shithole of choice]". It never worked.
I selected the “just one bite” option even though the rule was “don’t say you don’t like it unless you have tasted it,” and of course we were taught polite ways of avoiding food we didn’t want to eat like “I enjoyed these potatoes so much I don’t have room left for that lovely tuna surprise. Thank you for offering!”
Conversely the lovely Mrs. MJB was allowed to subsist on peanut butter sandwiches and hot dogs until she took an interest in widening her palate. Her experience would be closest to “zero cajoling” growing up but she was quite willing to try new foods by the time we dated and married.
"If you don't eat your meat you can't have any pudding."
I thought that was universal.
Lucky hippies.
"Children are starving in Africa!"
I got that one, too.
Oh, it’s far worse than that. Your poll fails to ask if you’ve ever forced a child to eat food. With five children in close age proximity, either you control them or they control you. Years later they thanked me for requiring they try at least one bite of food put in front of them, because it turns out their (blessedly few) youthful food aversions were based on superstition and brattiness.
In our house we all had our turn at being the 'rotten kid for this meal'. We didn't plan it, but we managed to rotate the turn to aggravate our parents at many a meal- both at home and at the occasional restaurant (which was always followed by the announcement that we'd never go out to eat again). I'd be rotten one night. Then one of my sisters on the next night. And so on. We were very good at it.
It was many things. Eat your dinner or no dessert. Eat your dinner or go to bed. Eat your dinner or you're not going to play baseball. Get up from under the table and eat your damned dinner! The funny thing is that my mom was a great cook. A seriously good cook. We were just annoying kids.
Typically we could withstand my mom. But when my dad got pulled into the game, he would simply raise his voice and we became like cartoon characters- up in the air with our feet spinning below us trying to find some traction.
Either way, I thought this was a pretty normal way to grow up. No hitting. No swinging. Just a lot of yelling. My folks have passed, but my sisters and I still find time to yell at each other. Such good family memories and traditions.
I do have to tip my hat to my older sister who gamed the entire situation. She'd act like she was eating, then put the not-hardly-chewed food into her napkin as she preteneded to wipe her mouth. A few bites in and she'd announce she was full and would leave the table in a victory walk. Our grandmother, who lived with us and was in on the game with my sister, would sneak food she liked up to her room later in the night.
Again- to me this was all a normal, happy upbringing. Sorry you all missed this sort of action.
Because, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"
The parents of my brother-in-law (when he was about 9 or so?) refused to allow him to leave the table until he ate some sort of vegetable he did not really want to eat (probably lima beans!), and after succumbing to the pressure he promptly vomited on the table which, according to versions of the story that possibly may have evolved over time, lead within seconds to sympathetic vomiting onto the dinner table by one or more the similarly aged siblings.
My grandmother forced me to eat peas, and I threw up.
My grandmother forced me to eat peas, and I threw up.
When I was 7 years old I was sent to boarding school in England where we were required to eat whatever was served to us. At that school physical punishment was a constant threat. The teachers would also punish all of the students at a table if one did not finish the food! Most of the food was pretty terrible but I particularly remember the glutinous porridge that was served daily. To this day I cant stomach porridge!!
The one lesson that I learnt at that school is that most children are far more resilient than most parents realize.
"You left out the ever-popular "Children are starving in [shithole of choice]". It never worked."
That's racist! Haiti is a beautiful country.
Yes, once. My Dad's favorite vegetable, which we had to eat every year on his birthday (which is also Althouse's birthday, although he was born in a different year). I loathe and despise this vegetable -- especially its terrible texture. Once I actually ran away from the kitchen table to the upstairs bathroom to gag/throw up, after that I was no longer required to eat them.
I am 75. Both parents had come from large, poor, families and grew up during the Depression. We were expected to clean our plates, even though my father had a secure, good-paying job.
My mother boiled her vegetables until they were mushy. Corn and carrots were about it for most of my life. I only learned to like asparagus when our across-the-street neighbor had us over for dinner and I ate my first crisp asparagus spears. My wife’s recipes for Brussels sprouts, broccoli, squash, and zucchini put those veggies on my list of edibles, and her getting the recipe from our neighbor put asparagus on that list, too. However I still cannot bring myself to eat cauliflower.
The diktat "Eat this crap because other people are starving" might be one of the great sources of economic illiteracy in this country. Intellectual child abuse.
My father threatened that if I ever "double-dipped" into the peanut butter jar, he'd force me to eat the entire thing in one sitting. I never took him up on it.
Mom forced me to eat brussel sprouts once. This was in the sixties when they tasted like hydrogen sulfide. I did what I was told, then willed myself to vomit onto my plate. Was never forced to eat anything after that.
Just one bite was the closest option. At Sleepaway summer camp they had what was called a no thank you portion, for when you didn’t want to eat any of a certain food, but they gave you a small serving anyway. The item that day was chili con Carney. I took one sniff and knew I couldn’t eat it. I told the counselor I couldn’t eat it. He told me I had to eat it. I did. And I threw up. After that, I did not have to eat chili con carne anymore.
walk don't run I feel you. The lesson I leaned from 9 years of English school food is that almost all food is delicious if prepared properly. Friends loved to come to our home after school because they had not experienced the American tradition of dinner as the main meal of the day. And I later loved the boarding school tradition of visiting parents taking one's friends out for a meal in a proper restaurant.
I am amazed at how many of the commenters were coerced with dessert. In my family, desserts were only for holidays and birthdays. Now I'm wondering how common were desserts?
I took it for granted that I had to clean my plate, because that was the way things were in the
Sixties and Seventies. But I could not accept that the rule extended to Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the dreaded mashed turnip was served. Trying to dilute it with mashed potato just made things worse.
"You can't get up from the table until you finish your dinner."
My mother was the pickiest eater I have ever known. She never made us eat anything we didn't like, but we weren't picky. When I Left home, there was a wondrous new world of food to try. So there is a downside to never being made to try something new. If someone had made her "take just one bite", maybe there would have more choices for her kids.
Apparently I grew up with all y'all's parents wrapped together in one neat, tidy, lower-middle class package. (Except for you Britishers. A league of your own, you are, with your boarding schools and what not.)
For me, the best forced food environment was US Army boot camp. One of our drill sergeants was of the sadistic breed that the Army pretends never existed but are now replaced by emotion-affirming pantywaists.
I was always a picky eater. Around age 12-13, my mother forced me to eat a hard-boiled egg yolk. I promptly vomited it back up. She apologized and never forced me to eat anything else again.
I selected physically forced, though I wasn’t held down. If I refused to eat I was/threatened with spanking. I was considered a picky eater. Some flavors and textures made me nauseous and I would end up gagging. I know the doctor told my parents that I needed to eat and that was the only way they saw to do it. I didn’t weigh over a hundred pounds until I was in college and didn’t get over 110 until I was pregnant.
As soon as I was allowed to control my food (middle school) I settled into basically intermittent fasting. I eat if I’m hungry, which is usually once a day. If I’m not hungry I don’t eat. I’ll sit at the table and keep people company while they eat. If I get hungry at midnight I’ll eat at midnight. Typically I end up eating between noon and two. At times I’ll end up going over 24 hours with a meal.
My son is the same way. It drove my husband crazy when I refused to force him to eat. After a contentious argument I told my husband to take our son to the doctor and discuss it with her. She told him that our son would eat when he was hungry and as long as we provided healthy choices he’d be fine. She had been my doctor for over a decade and she knew how I ate.
My son was always in the 90th percentile for height and between the 10th and 20th for weight.
I remember two foods an adult tried to force me to eat. When I was about 4 my dad forced me to eat oatmeal. He had a violent temper so I ate it, crying the whole time, then I vomited it up on the kitchen table. I was 55 before I tried oatmeal again. The other time was at school when they served pea soup. The oldest, meanest teacher at the school had lunch room duty that day and she wouldn’t let me leave the lunch room until I ate it because, yes, children in Africa were starving. I cried and cried but wouldn’t eat it because I was afraid I would vomit that, too. Fortunately for me, my aunt was the school cook and she came out from the kitchen and saved me. Never have tried pea soup.
I picked the last option. While visiting at the grandparents' place I was given a smallish serving of cooked carrots whi I refused to eat. I was told to sit at the table until they were gone. The family went out to the backyard to take in the evening sun. Grandpa wandered back in, and said, still here? Yes, says I. He gobbled down the carrots and we joined the family outside. Until now, it was our little secret.
Oh, and now I love veggies, even Brussels Sprouts.
I was expected to "clean my plate" - as in "take what you want, but eat what you take". However, my mother never made anything the rest of the family hated. If we went to a restuarant and I didn't like what my parents ordered, no one said anything.
Most of the battles over food seem to revolve vegatables as in Bush Joking that he still hated Broccoli or Nancy Reagan saying Patti Davis never wanted to eat her peas. Since I can tolerate almost any vegtable - and like most of them - that was never a problem.
I once went to a small school where the food was cooked at a central location and shipped to the various schools in styrofoam food trays - sorta like a TV dinner. That's the only time I had time eating school lunch. To me everything tasted like Styrofoam, especially the green beans. No one else had a problem. Fortunately, we moved.
"I loathe and despise this vegetable -- especially its terrible texture."
Okra?
I liked Brussel sprouts as a Kid, especially with milk or butter. My wife dislikes them. I also like Broccoli. Fresh peas are great, but on the whole I dsilike them. I cant' imagine someone having to eat mushy, overcooked peas. Yuck.
Kale, however, is loathsome.
I was a big stocky girl who would eat anything that was served, and ask for seconds.
My sister was a pallid, thread-limbed child with sunken eyes who refused most food, and would be forced to literally sit for hours at the table ('you'll sit there until you finish your plate!'), weeping into her mashed potatoes.
Now I weigh 112 and Katie is over 200.
Geez,lots of you folks lived privileged lives. At our rural SW MO subsistence farm, you did not eat unless you grew it, shot it, or caught it out of the river or pond. No one ever, ever refused to eat what was on the table.
I echo some here in that growing up, and I did it to my kids when young, we had a rule that we had to try everything. We did not have to like it and if we didn't like it we didn't have to eat it. OTOH, if we didn't eat it, there was no substitute. So if we didn't like a casserole or a stew, we might go hungry.
Sometimes we tried to force our kids to eat something. Never worked. My daughter, about 8 at the time, once refused to eat some vegetable and we would not let her leave the table. She sat there and sat there and we finally went to bed. She was still there when I woke up at 3AM to take a leak and I finally relented.
In the Navy, the rule was "take all you want eat all you take". In boot camp I saw people forced to eat when they tried to throw something away. In the Marines, I have heard, if you didn't eat everything, you got to stand in front of the rest of your company and eat off the tray (A compartmented tray like a heavy duty TV Dinner) with no utensils.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
My father taped up pictures of starving (Biafran?) kids above our kitchen table, and would point to them if anyone didn't finish his food. My brother the comedian would always mumble, "send it to them."
I don't remember any of the more extreme measures Althouse listed as being applied. The "no desert for you" threat may have been made, but once desert was on the table in our big family things were so chaotic that I can't imagine it was ever enforced.
Gotta be okra. I'll eat anything in this world. Except okra. Unless it's well hidden in gumbo.
As I got older, my pallet broadened and I started to eat enjoy foods that I avoided as a kid. But there are at least two exceptions, Brussels sprouts and squash. Ugh.
I had to drink a glass of milk at dinner when I was a kid. I didn't dislike milk, I'd have it every morning with my cereal. I just hated drinking it when I didn't feel like it. For some reason, both my parents thought that it was worth yelling at me when I didn't abide. Can't remember if loss of dessert or privileges were involved, but it was distressing having both my parents yell at me when I was elementary school age.
I remember being very impressed last year when my 4 year old granddaughter told me that some food we were serving her was "disgusting"
I had no idea that the word was in her vocabulary.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
I clicked "physically forced" but only because none of the options fit. I was forced to remain at the table until I ate something. Soon you learn to just eat it as it is likely always better before it gets cold.
Okra is an excellent vegetable. But only in a soup such as gumbo, or rolled in cornmeal and then pan-fried.
Also, I was told their were starving children in China. I grew up to learn that they were starving because of socialism and government violence, so I never really got how me eating something was going to help people who believe in socialism.
In first grade we had the "Clean Plate Club." All our names were on a blackboard on the side wall of the room, and each student got a check when we cleaned our plates. The last I remember is being second in the class in most clean plates and periodically being given approval by the teacher for it. I now realize the subversive and inhumane nature of the teacher's emotional manipulation of me, and her role in turning me into the approval seeking monster I have become.
Not a childhood example and this never affected my choice to eat something, but I have been to several Chinese food buffets where they would charge you extra if you didn't clean your plate.
My parents had the philosophy that a hungry child will eat what is put on the dinner table.
This, by the way, is the same way I deal with our finicky cat.
Okra properly prepared is yummy!
For me, back when so many vegetables came in cans and not frozen, it was Del Monte brand creamed corn.
I thought it looked and tasted like vomit.
I shudder even now thinking of it.
As for okra, I thought of it when I saw the monster in "Alien", all with that stringy slime around his mouth.
Okra?
Whenever I run into a food that is manifestly horrible I'm reminded that people sometimes faced the prospect of eat it or starve.
Lucky for me, the only foods I don't like are nuts that are IN things, and coconut. It's a texture thing. I like coconut milk, and I love smooth peanut butter. Thus, my parents never had to force me to eat anything on my plate at dinner time.
My brothers and I ate what we were given, and liked it. (I made the second part up.)
My only strong aversions were to unfried okra and brussels sprouts. None of the other typical yuckfoods bothered me that much, and now I love the leafy greens that I used to tolerate.
The admonition about starving Chinese or Indian kids got mangled at my friends hands, and to this day "Kids are starving right now in China, and you wont eat your father!" is a catchphrase among us.
My brothers and I ate what we were given, and liked it. (I made the second part up.)
My only strong aversions were to unfried okra and brussels sprouts. None of the other typical yuckfoods bothered me that much, and now I love the leafy greens that I used to tolerate.
The admonition about starving Chinese or Indian kids got mangled at my friends hands, and to this day "Kids are starving right now in China, and you wont eat your father!" is a catchphrase among us.
My mom loved those livers and onions so...
None of her three kids did, though.
Why she put herself through those galactic disturbances,
We will never know.
My brothers and I ate what we were given, and liked it. (I made the second part up.)
My only strong aversions were to unfried okra and brussels sprouts. None of the other typical yuckfoods bothered me that much, and now I love the leafy greens that I used to tolerate.
The admonition about starving Chinese or Indian kids got mangled at my friends hands, and to this day "Kids are starving right now in China, and you wont eat your father!" is a catchphrase among us.
Not okra! Lima Beans. So pasty. So waxy.
I'll concede these were a frozen vegetable, and Mom just boiled them. (Gross)
Blogger Howard said...
Mom forced me to eat brussel sprouts once. This was in the sixties when they tasted like hydrogen sulfide. I did what I was told, then willed myself to vomit onto my plate. Was never forced to eat anything after that.
The Brussels sprouts thing is genetic. I love them and my wife hates them. The taste is in your genes.
When my oldest (now in his 30s) was maybe 8 or 9, he and I got into a showdown over green beans. In one of my not-better parenting moments, I told him he was going to eat one right then and there. He put it into his mouth, gagged on it, and puked on his plate.
Showed me. We can laugh about it today.
WHY didn't I think of throwing up??? It would have saved me so much misery!
Mmmmm...Creamed corn.
Loved it.
ho,ho, Green Giant.
I'm sure my childhood experience is familiar to most. There was a largely unspoken rule that the meal served was to be eaten and no other options would be forthcoming. My mom was a better than average cook and meal planner, and that made compliance easier but there wasn't much choice in the matter.
I do remember one of the few instances of actually being required to eat something I balked at. I was a young teenager at a relative's house and confronted biscuits and sausage gravy for the first time. The biscuits looked fine but I was none to sure about the lumpy white liquid with unidentifiable gray bits floating it, and tried to politely pass on that half of the dish. I got called out gently by my mother, and did eat at least a little bit of the mix.
I was the oldest of seven children, spaced closely in age. Until I was about 15 years old, we all had to sit together around the dinner table and eat what was served to us.
My Mom loved to eat and serve overcooked green peas, a food that revolted me.
I was supposed to eat all the food on my plate. If I sat at the table long enough without eating the peas, however, my Mom eventually would excuse me from the table.
As an adult, I am overweight, and I think it's a bad practice to make children eat everything that is served on their plate.
Obama ate a dog.
My mom actively disliked the rule you had to finish what was on your plate. Dad, however, liked to say, “you’ll eat it or you’ll wear it”, which we still quote to this day. I look back and realize my mom took our tastes into account. My sister was finicky. I wasn’t, but when we had fish, I always got salmon…everyone else had some firm white fish (halibut?) but my mom knew I’d only eat salmon. We were never forced to eat liver and onions on the rare times she made it for dad. She always made something else for us.
My husband was forced to eat pizza at camp…the counselor literally shoved it into his mouth. He threw up, and didn’t eat pizza until he was well into adulthood.
My mother remains the finest cook I know, so no general problems with eating most anything she made. Hekka and sauerbraten were acquired tastes, but I love both now.
"Something happened to me that Althouse has failed to think of."
I was coerced with positive reinforcement. Something wasn't threaten to be taken from me, but something positive was offered to me if I ate it.
Thumbs up for okra. You just need to get used to the texture. Maybe it can only be cooked properly in the South. Like grits.
Newman on broccoli...
"VILE WEED!"
I annoyed the crap of my mother because, although I was a picky eater, I liked the stranger things. Spaghetti sauce was an argument, but I wanted seconds with liver.
I asked once what Harvard Beets were. My grandmother said she would make them for me if I ate something else I found disgusting. (Don't remember what that was). I made it through my part of the bargain (still didn't like it) but was mightily disappointed by the Harvard beets. I preferred my beets plainly cooked or even diced and raw.
Once you can throw up at will, the world's your oyster.
Not so much threats as a reminding of consequences of my choosing.
Not eating, would mean no desert, and, I ate zero, until the next meal. So not really punishment, just a hard reality check.
There is a family story, that I don't know if I remember, or have heard it so often I think I remember.
I was over at a neighbors helping shell ear corn. Noon diner was always provided, but they didn't have kids and the food was good, but scant. When offered coconut cream pie I took a piece and cleaned my plate. Despite hating coconut. But I was still hungry.
My mom was surprised when the neighbor told her how I had woofed down the pie, and all but licked the plate clean.
The Brussels sprouts thing is genetic. I love them and my wife hates them. The taste is in your genes
I believe a gene was found that determines how cilantro tastes. For a minority it has a soapy taste. They're the ones who tend to not like it.
I think Brussel sprouts a good example of any food being delicious if cooked properly. Boiled at length as part of a regular school meal menu it made me nauseous. Now I frequently order it roasted from restaurant menus.
Yes, in Catholic school I refused to eat split pea soup. I was forced to eat it and then was taken to the boys’ bathroom where I threw it up. I guess the boys bathroom was closer than the girls, so the nun took me there. I don’t think I was traumatized, but I still remember the incident. However, today I love split pea soup.
At home, I was a picky eater and a very skinny kid. I had to drink “tonic”, yuk for vitamins. And I remember sitting at the dinner table after everyone left with my mother cutting my food and feeding me. I came from an Italian household and food is very important and Mom wanted us to eat and be healthy. But, we were never ‘forced” to eat anything.
Then in my teens, I developed a liking for the delicious Italian food my Mom prepared. Including eels, chocolate pudding that with pine nuts and pig’s blood (a speciality only for St. Joseph’s Day). And so many other “delicacies” that I would now eat with gusto. Kids like simple food and I don’t think they develop a sophisticated taste until adolescence. I never forced my daughter to eat anything, Her favorite foods were Chef Boyardee Spaghettios and Kraft Mac and Cheese.
Eating is never a problem for me now. Unfortunately!
?as child of the starving world? I akse
is this first world problem? or just upper class problem? or moms as bad cooks?
Never have tried pea soup.
Interestingly, I love split pea soup. While on a Boy Scout camp out in the late 1950s I sampled some — the scoutmaster had rounded up some surplus K-rations and he was eating his K-ration split pea with ham soup with gusto. It looked terrible, it between the ham and the salt it did, indeed, taste great. I asked if he had another can and that was my dinner.
Let’s acknowledge there are class distinctions embodied in these questions. I was raised in a large, poor family, and we were expected to eat what was put on our plates and be thankful for it. My cousin’s family was small and well-to-do, and he was treated like a little prince at dinner time. Invariably he rejected what was served, and then his mother would commence a series of prostrations attempting to gain his approval for some replacement food she could make especially for him that would suit his mood that day. I would watch this spectacle with disgust and contempt, both for my cousin and for his mother. If you’re wondering why I ran my own house as a communist dictatorship, it’s because I witnessed personally the horrors of Little Prince Monarchy.
In grammar school, 5th or 6th grade, I worked in the scullery in exchange for a daily hot lunch. I got to eat first before the other kids. The Principal would come in to check the food before the other kids came for lunch. I hated peas, a favorite school vegetable. If she saw them on my plate she would come over and mix them into my mashed potatoes (another favorite school vegetable), tell me to eat them all, and stand there until I finished. Don't know why I was so scared of that kindly older, white haired woman. My dad was Chief of Police.
I was the only picky eater in my farm family where we raised nearly all of our own food. I was forced to eat lima beans, black-eyed peas, and lamb whenever they were served. Lots of ketchup helped. I still detest all three of those things.
In grammar school, 5th or 6th grade, I worked in the scullery in exchange for a daily hot lunch. I got to eat first before the other kids. The Principal would come in to check the food before the other kids came for lunch. I hated peas, a favorite school vegetable. If she saw them on my plate she would come over and mix them into my mashed potatoes (another favorite school vegetable), tell me to eat them all, and stand there until I finished. Don't know why I was so scared of that kindly older, white haired woman. My dad was Chief of Police.
Once you can throw up at will, the world's your oyster.
I was the kid who always cleaned his plate while my sisters hid their food in napkins and a commercial AC unit we had in the dining room(!). However, there was one food that made me vomit every time - Brisket with horseradish sauce. It was a special occasion meal that everyone else loved. I was allowed to pass on the sauce because I ate everything else I was served.
I do say just one bite of a new food with my son. Sometimes he will just spit it out. If he's asking for decent food, that's enough. If he's asking for chocolate he has to eat more and he generally then goes. But that's not really even trying to get him to eat not, but rather not letting him live off chocolate.
Parents should consider a child may be drinking too many calories. My son was around 2 (can't remember exactly at this moment) my husband was worried he wasn't eating enough. I figured it was fine as long as he told us when he was hungry. But when we got rid of his sippy cups and didn't want to drink milk out other cups (he still would drink water), he started eating alot more solid food. I still can't get him to drink milk, not even chocolate milk, but he does eat cheese.
What's really frustrating is when he asks for something or gets excited for food he loves and then won't eat it. I think when little kids see or hear mentioned or offered a food they like they can get excited without realizing they're not actually hungry yet.
In 2nd grade a student teacher supervising our lunch table told me I should eat my vegetables. When I said no, she said I could not have desert (chocolate cake) until I ate my vegetables. When I still refused, and rather impertinently declared that I didn't care because I didn't like chocolate cake, she declared that NO ONE at the table could have desert until I ate my vegetables.
Many years later at a reunion I gave Sherry my piece of chocolate cake- we BOTH remembered the day she missed out on her favorite desert because I would not yield and eat my vegetables.
I was never really forced-forced to eat something because I was usually always hungry for anything.
Except beets. Mom 'forced' me to eat them. Couldn't stand 'em. She wouldn't listen. Eat them.
So one time I hurled them all over my plate.
She got the message.
Does drinking the prep solution for a colonoscopy count?
I had to laugh at this. I was raised in a family of 7 children. No one ever had to be persuaded to eat, someone else might get the good stuff. My dad called it "hog psychology" because we had a finicky cousin whose mom always worried about his picky eating. When he was at our house he ate everything, just like the other kids did.
My Dad's philosophy about food for us kids was "learning through trying." It is one he didn't always follow himself; e.g., he loathed the very idea of yogurt -- until he became a complete convert and ate it for breakfast every day.
I remember being bullied into eating food I didn't like or want. But these were mostly dining-out occasions. There was a restaurant called (IIRC) The Stone Inn, somewhere in Rockland County, NY I think, and among the dishes was mushrooms marinated in something. Dad told me to eat it, and I retched, and upchucked the morsel into a cheese sauce dish. And Dad fetched it out and told me to eat it. "Marinated mushrooms covered in cheese" was thereafter a byword between my sister and myself for things you really, really do not want to eat.
But my worst travails weren't about food as such. My Dad was then driving me from Schenectady to Manhattan every Saturday for Juilliard. Once I got carsick, or something, and threw up in the car. After that I had to take a Dramamine before we set out. I loathed Dramamine; it had the worst taste I have ever known in a drug, and though the pills were small, they were impossible to swallow. So before every ride to Juilliard, I was at the kitchen table, waiting for one of my attempts to swallow the Dramamine to work. It took as long as 45 minutes, helped along by chocolate milk.
I do think that there is a large distinction between being fussy about eating specific foods when you are hungry and not wanting to eat at all because you aren’t hungry and being forced to anyway.
It doesn’t make sense to me to eat because it’s “time” to eat. It’s at that point that you will only want foods that tempt you because of their flavor. If a child isn’t hungry at the correct time, wrap up their plate and warm it later when they are hungry. It was healthier for my son to have sliced carrots, a diced tomato, and a glass of milk (things I always kept in the fridge) later in the evening than the mashed potatoes my husband ate at dinner.
We were poor. Mother put dinner on the table. Dad was tired from a long day at work. We didn't fuss. We ate what was in front of us. It was delicious. Then, all five of us children went to our rooms for one hour quiet (or reading time) before lights out, then we went to bed. The end.
Yeah, I was required to eat vegetables I didn’t like as a child. I still dislike them, btw, and don’t eat them.
Back in the 80, a group of convicted IRA terrorist bombers stage a hunger strike in HM Prison Maze. Several staved themselves to death. Prison authorities tried to force-feed them using nasal tubes and intravenous hydration, but the strikers pulled out the tubes. By the time they were comatose and therefore unable to resist the force-feedings fatal damage had already been done to many of them.
Being shamed into not wasting free food purchased by taxpayers is not being force-fed, it's being educated into a decent appreciation of what some taxpayers regard as coercion. Try withholding your taxes on the grounds that your money is being wasted.
I am 60 years old now, and yet I will never forgive my long-dead grandmother for forcing me to eat a sunny-side-up egg when I was three or four. I was literally gagging on every bite but she said I could not leave the table until it was gone. I was unable to eat eggs in any form for about twelve years, when I worked at a restaurant and I thought omelets didn't look so bad. But to this day I cannot eat eggs that are undercooked (no slime!) or not scrambled. I still gag when I see a person eating "fried" eggs (like over easy) with the yolks still runny.
I am 60 years old now, and yet I will never forgive my long-dead grandmother for forcing me to eat a sunny-side-up egg when I was three or four. I was literally gagging on every bite but she said I could not leave the table until it was gone. I was unable to eat eggs in any form for about twelve years, when I worked at a restaurant and I thought omelets didn't look so bad. But to this day I cannot eat eggs that are undercooked (no slime!) or not scrambled. I still gag when I see a person eating "fried" eggs (like over easy) with the yolks still runny.
I have two weird food stories to tell. I am a retired chemistry professor. One of my department jobs was to host the visiting seminar speakers and take them go lunch. Usually this was a pleasant experience but..... (In the following you must remember that these were PhD professors visiting to tell about their research.)
One speaker, a jew from New Jersey was taken to a local restaurant where shrimp were on the menu. Of course shrimp are not kosher, and he had never tried them, but he was away from home and so he did try them, and got very sick. He must have been allergic. Maybe its was god telling him he had stepped out of line. The other was a southern boy from the Mississippi delta. (If you are from the south, you know what that means.) He had never tasted Italian food except for one time when he tried a can of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee. I took him to an Italian restaurant where he ordered spaghetti and meatballs. Its was a disaster! He couldn't take it. It was much too exotic for him. Chacun a son gout.
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