30 Dishes From The Menu Of Picky Eaters Outside The US, According To People Online
Picky eating tends to be associated with eating a small variety and quantity of foods due to rejecting a substantial amount of foods based on such characteristics as texture, appearance, smell, or mixed ingredients.
The risks may include low nutrient and dietary fiber intakes, while protective factors, especially from parents, include the provision of fresh foods and modeling by, for example, eating the same meal as the child.
Selective taste is more common among young children, for whom most of the foods are new; however, adults can be picky eaters as well, and people shared common foods among picky eaters from different countries, answering one Redditor’s question: “What do picky eaters outside the US eat?”
Do you have something to add? Please, share your thoughts in the comments below.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
This answer will be different for every picky eater. But I can give you mine. And I grew up in Norway, not in the United States.
I grew up in Norway. I do not eat potatoes. I do not eat cooked vegetables. It's a texture thing for me, and that picky eating has stuck with me from when I started eating solid food until the present. Even as an adult, I cannot bring myself to eat mushy veggies or potatoes, no matter how awkward the social situation that results. (For context, I'm 47.)
In my case, I ate raw vegetables instead. No potatoes, and there were a few other vegetables I didn't like, even in raw form. Onions, for example, or brussel sprouts. But most raw vegetables were fine for me. So my mom would make me a salad, or even just a bowl of raw veggies. Even things like green beans and sliced rutabaga, cauliflower or broccoli; the kinds of veggies that are typically not eaten raw.
I guess you could say that as a toddler in Norway in the 1970s, I made my own "raw food" diet decades before it became trendy. And that's still how I eat vegetables to this day.
No potatoes? Seriously, no potatoes? But that's the best food on Earth!!!
I feel like in Germany a lot of picky eaters just eat plain noddles. Maybe with some butter.
In the UK the standard 'bland' kid's menu staples also include chicken nuggets and pizza.
Also fish fingers, sausage and mash, macaroni cheese, cheese sandwich.
We live in New Zealand and my kids does love those foods too, but her favourite is honestly just plain pasta with grated cheese (usually Colby, which we get here in 1kg blocks) and a side of cucumber and carrot. Definitely not the worst meal she could have, so I consider it a win :) her palate is generally pretty bland. Strangely though, she loves pork and chive dumplings/potstickers.
As a “picky” kid, I preferred raw veggies and such. Basically, you could turn me loose at the veggie and charcuterie table and I’d make a full meal of veggies, fruit, crackers, meats, etc. Turns out, I really just did not like canned veg, nor did I like how half the meats were cooked by my fam (under or over seasoned). I loved middle and high school, as a number of my teachers liked to introduce us to fruit that was harder to get where we lived, or we’d do “introduce us to your culture” days. Got to try a bigger variety than what my fam made.
I have a cousin in India who only eats eggs if the yolk is perfectly basted but not popped and it has to be close to centered. Aside from that, he eats chips, candy, no vegetables and white rice with really basic ground meat cooked with garlic/ginger, turmeric, green chili and no visible onions. If he gets a noticeable piece of onion he gets angry that the cook didn’t cut them smaller.
Another family friend only eats food if you give him ketchup with it. Like he will eat biryani with freaking ketchup. No ketchup? Not eating unless he is risking really offending someone. And that’s a grown adult btw. I babysat his kids when they were staying in the states.
BIRYANI WITH KETCHUP!?!? as a south indian...i..i have been traumatized /hj
I grew up a picky eater in Pakistan. I ate a lot of bread. Roti with butter and sugar, plain naan, plain white rice, chicken from our saalans but removed from the bones, just the gravy from our saalans. And this one isn't me personally, but I know a toddler who will eat an obscene amount of yogurt as her dietary staple
Another ridiculously lazy picture choice from BP. This is not a Pakistani bread like a roti or a naan.
My grandson doesn’t get fast or junk food. His favorite thing to eat is tofu. Plain raw tofu.
New Zealander here, picky eaters here eat fish and chips and peanut butter toast 😹
I'm not typically a fan of battered fish, but this picture is VERY appealing.
I’m from Albania (think the Mediterranean). I was a very picky eater as a kid. I only ate bread, olive oil and olives lol. To this day those are some of my favorite things to eat but I also eat other stuff lol
My best friend is American but when she was little she went to Poland with her grandparents that were born there…and hated all the food. The only thing she’d eat were pierogis so she existed on them for the entire visit.
I could live on pierogies for a long long time. There are so many delicious varieties!
We're south Indian and my sister was an extremely picky eater as a child. She would only eat rice with yogurt.
Im south indian too! i love rice with yogurt! its good plain, but you can also mix indian curries into it too! i love this and I usually eat this at the end of a meal when there is a small amount of rice left.
There’s processed food and junk outside of the US too, I know ramen noodles is a big one. Living conditions can also be a factor so they’ll have to eat whatever is being cooked at home.
This!!! I grew up thinking I hated a lot of things, just my parents never cooked anything with decent seasoning and zero spices. Also not great growing up in ireland hating potatoes!
Picky eaters in Denmark will often live on rye bread with liver paste/paté. Pasta is also a favorite.
Other kid favorites here are meatballs (frikadeller), boiled meatballs in curry sauce, spaghetti bolognese, pizza and lasagna.
Fried, battered fish with remoulade is popular too.
Whoa, that’s interesting. Here in the U.S. a majority of people won’t eat liver, even fairly good eaters. I love it, but it’s amazing to hear that is a picky eater food somewhere. That’s great!
I’d argue that chicken nuggets, fries or pizza are staples in many countries outside the US.
When I was a child (in France) the go to food for picky eaters would have been elbow pasta and ham (coquillettes jambon IFYKYK) or simple mash potatoes
I live in the US. Alaska to be specific. My kid is a picky eater. They used to be diagnosed with ARFID back when they were 4. They’re 12 now.
They hate macaroni and cheese, ketchup, most kinds of potato, pizza if it has too much sauce. They don’t like soup/stew but they will eat ramen or udon
*however*
They *love* mustard, they also eat seaweed, whole fried fish (especially the eyeballs), barbecue sauce, musubi, they recently started eating grilled cheese, they like salmon. They like clams, sushi, sashimi. I’m sure I’m forgetting things.
So while my kid is a picky eater, they are not a *basic* eater. Sometimes I wish I could open a box of Kraft.
The only vegetable they will touch is raw carrots and it takes like an hour to get them to chew them. (Edit to add they will eat edamame)
They can do grapes and maybe bananas.
When I was an kid in Denmark it was frikadella or fish fingers with remoulade and open faced liver pate sandwiches. Some of my other favorites were chocolate sandwiches and mackeral in tomato sandwiches with cucumber slices! Also just cucumber slices and soft boiled eggs in a dish with some salt on top.
I've been to about a dozen western countries outside the U.S. I try not to be an annoying American by asking a waiter to customize my dish too much. I sometimes find a supermarket the first day and pick up crackers and deli meat to bring back to the hotel. If I can't find a meal that I can eat at a restaurant, I can usually at least find an appetizer or a bowl of rice to eat so I can be social, knowing that I have food waiting for me back in my room.
My kid loves avocado, pasta, and cheese mostly.
Avocado pasta is a wonderful dish, made of avocado, pasta and cheese :D (Also basil, garlic and mild chili pepper, but... yeah)
Finnish food is very bland, so a ton of potatoes. Smashed potatoes especially are very good and neutral, hard to hate it.
I'm a Finn who hates most potato dishes; mash, fries, boiled "rubber potatoes"... It's a texture thing.
I had a friend in asia that would literally only eat rice with soy sauce. That was it.
Adriatic; bolognese, pasta pomodoro, wiener schnitzel (where I'm at). Those three are basically staples, but there's also I guess what's comparable to chicken nuggets would be the homemade version? Just breaded and fried chicken breast will do the trick for most picky eaters here. French fries as well.
My mother was feeding picky grandchildren, and invented "fairy dippers" breaded fried chicken tenders with ketchupped mayo
My ex: white rice with sour cream. White bread with butter and cheese. Cheese pizza
At least cheese. Some don't even eat cheese as adults. But hay, more for me!
Rice pilaf and köfte
Brazilian here. Was a picky eater. Spaghetti is the way to go.
My sister is a picky eater and one of the only meals she cooks for herself is pasta. Only puts passata and cheese on it. When we were kids, mum would make her have bolognaise on it. She made a lot of fuss about the onion mum tried to sneak into it. (It was both the texture and taste she couldn't take. Now we know she is actually intolerant of it, like me)
I lived in Korea for a bit (from the US), and a picky eater common food was rice with soy sauce (or plain). Sometimes tteokbokki, but it’s a bit spicy so if it was just the noodles without the sauce that would make more sense. They also have a kind of chicken nugget.
Sometimes I just crave a big bowl of steamed rice. No toppings, no sauce, just a bowl of rice.
They visit France and go to McDonalds.
In my youth I traveled Europe extensively as an American. We ate almost exclusively at Italian restaurants. My parents made it seem like it was because my youngest sibling was a picky eater, which he was. But the real reason was that my dad was unwilling to learn other languages or try new food. Spaghetti Bolognese is sgaghetti bolognese in all languages.
My friends with a hyper picky eater young adult took a cruise so their 18 year old could eat nuggets and cheese pizza for every meal.
I went on a bus tour of Europe in 1990. We had a break for lunch in Koln and the entire bus of Americans and Canadians went to a McDonalds. My brother and I found a rathskeller that served German food and our tour guide was already there. He said, "Somehow, you found the best food in town." The Jagerschnitzel was excellent.
in the philippines, picky eaters usually eat processed food.
hotdogs, chicken nuggets, fast food, etc
(as opposed to meat/fish and vegetable dishes often served with rice at mealtimes)
Australia. Nephew grew up on prawn chips & tomato sauce.
We (family) wonder how he fully formed!?!?
Those are two of my sister's staples too! Along with bread, mashed potato, garlic bread, chicken (without sauce or anything), schnitzel with lemon juice, pasta (with passata and cheese) and tuna and cucumber sushi.
My cousin is a fussy eater. He eats exclusively rice and brown beans. Occasionally chicken nuggets but we dont have them often. (Brazil)
Note: this post originally had 36 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Poll Question
Thanks! Check out the results:
Subscribe to Access
Exclusive Polls
By entering your email and clicking Subscribe, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Privacy Policy.
Thank you! You've successfully subscribed to newsletters!
My brother is super picky and also the walking embodiment of “white people spicy.” He has a weird assortment of ok food… frozen strawberries, raw blueberries and bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, salami, instant ramen, pizza, dum-dums (a kind of lollipop/sucker), Cheetos, and plain rice.
I’m a picky eater and my favourite picky foods are pasta (usually with store brought sauces but if not with homemade cheese sauce and butter or just ketchup), plain rice or rice with just 1 or 2 side dishes at most (I don’t like it when a lot of food items get mixed in what I eat), instant noodles, breads, cheese, nuts, and biscuits. I’m a vegetarian too but I eat only a few selected vegetables and I can’t stand raw veges except for carrots. I am currently severely underweight and so want to improve my diet but it’s not easy to try new options with today’s economy. People hate adult picky eaters but it’s not always easy to stop being one instantly. E.g.: forcefully eating something I don’t want to makes me sick.
Peanut butter was recommended to me by a vegan dietician once when I lost too much weight going vegan.
Load More Replies...
This is so great! I feel like sometimes here in America people think that picky eating is only an American scourge or something that only entitled kids go through. Nope. It's a worldwide phenomenon and just one of those things that happens! It's not the end of the world. ❤️
My brother is super picky and also the walking embodiment of “white people spicy.” He has a weird assortment of ok food… frozen strawberries, raw blueberries and bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, salami, instant ramen, pizza, dum-dums (a kind of lollipop/sucker), Cheetos, and plain rice.
I’m a picky eater and my favourite picky foods are pasta (usually with store brought sauces but if not with homemade cheese sauce and butter or just ketchup), plain rice or rice with just 1 or 2 side dishes at most (I don’t like it when a lot of food items get mixed in what I eat), instant noodles, breads, cheese, nuts, and biscuits. I’m a vegetarian too but I eat only a few selected vegetables and I can’t stand raw veges except for carrots. I am currently severely underweight and so want to improve my diet but it’s not easy to try new options with today’s economy. People hate adult picky eaters but it’s not always easy to stop being one instantly. E.g.: forcefully eating something I don’t want to makes me sick.
Peanut butter was recommended to me by a vegan dietician once when I lost too much weight going vegan.
Load More Replies... This is so great! I feel like sometimes here in America people think that picky eating is only an American scourge or something that only entitled kids go through. Nope. It's a worldwide phenomenon and just one of those things that happens! It's not the end of the world. ❤️
