The Picky Eater and the Grocery Store

I have a confession to make. My husband and I are notoriously bad grocery shoppers. Horribly, notoriously, bad grocery shoppers. To the point where I'm not entirely sure how long it actually has been since we last went to an actual grocery store because it seems to be THE chore we avoid the most.

The thing about effective grocery shopping is it involves planning. Planning being that tedious thing that ADHD type folks generally tend to avoid doing... It probably wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for a few details...

I'm a miserable cook myself and Matt does about 90% of the cooking... meaning, I don't have a lot of knowledge or interest in food.. which makes even the most generalized of meal planning difficult because I find it to be about as enthralling as watching paint dry... Logic would say, since he cooks and finds that sort of thing interesting, why doesn't he plan the meals?

Weeeeeell... The problem with that is I'm an adult picky eater. My husband is not. Whenever we've tried to meal plan where I'm not the one picking out the recipes for the week, I tend to veto every single idea he brings forth, thus he gets frustrated and doesn't want to do it.

So.. we're stuck. I don't want to make the grocery list because I don't cook and don't know what we need. He doesn't want to make the grocery list because anything he wants to make I won't eat.

This means we tend to eat out more than we eat at home because he can eat the things he likes without having to concede to my taste buds like he would at home, and I get to eat what I want.

It also means "grocery shopping" tends to be picking up odds and ends that happen to be in the Target grocery section (which is minimal, since it isn't a Super Target).

It's just a horribly frusterating situation on a lot of levels though... I've been trying to do some research on the picky eating front... I guess there's something called Selective Eating Disorder, It's not something that's in the DSM-IV or ICD-10 (though might fall under the heading of EDNOS - Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) and seems to be something that's been more recognized in the UK (most of the few resources and information I've been able to find are UK based). At any rate, apparently I'm not alone... and apparently my situation could be a lot worse, many of the people I've read about have much narrower tastes than I do and are much more phobic about trying new things than I am... but that doesn't change the fact that there are lots of perfectly normal things that most people like that I can't even muster up the courage to try a tiny bite of.

I have the biggest problems with fruit and vegetables.

With fruit... I like apples, but don't like apple juice or apple cider. With citrus fruit, I generally like the juice but can't stomach the fruit itself. I don't like any kind of berry or cherry, grapes I will eat.. but only if I'm very very very desperate. All of these fruits I can eat candy versions of (like hard candy or things like Skittles), though I tend to like the candy versions of citrus fruits and apple the best. Berries, cherry, and grape are just tolerable. Fruits that I absolutely cannot deal with in ANY form are pears, bananas and watermelon. Just the smell of any of these will trigger a gag reflex.

With vegetables, for the longest time all I could eat was celery and green peppers raw. I've managed to expand that out to lettuce, onions, spinach, and carrots. I can tolerate cauliflower and radishes (the little red ones). Cooked or steamed, none of these things are appealing and I fear they will trigger a gag reflex if I try to eat them. I avoid any cooked veg side dish like plague. I've learned to like lentils in soup... but the jury is still out on beans. Afraid to try those as well. Tomatoes (yes, I know those are technically a fruit.. but the world treats them like veg) I cannot eat alone. I can eat them in a seasoned context... like salsa or spaghetti sauce. Sometimes I can sneak in other cooked veggies like peas or cooked onions in something that has tomato sauce.

Unfortunately though, the tends to be a lot of anxiety around all this... I've looked at ways to try to eat healthier, only to be reduced to tears and extremely discouraged because that tends to involve more veggies... and dishes that involve cooked veg... which to my tastes, is very very scary. Now, I realize that I don't have to like everything, but the fact that I'm so picky does discourage me...