My friend can mess up the healthiest dishes!

I can relate to everything you are saying. When I make a salad, I want it to be full of fresh fruit and especially pineapple. When I make green beans, all I need is a dash of Mrs. Dash. If people would eat fresh and wholesome foods, their taste buds would change. Yes, at first it will take some getting use to, but fresh green beans are soooo good! I haven't eaten pork in almost three years, and I've been vegan for a little over a year. My Mom wants all kinds of bacon grease and fried foods, and I just want something wholesome and fresh.

I don`t think why it should bother you so much if she does not put more salt, butter or canned fruit in the dishes you are eating. Different people have different taste buds. And while it is true that we can "teach" our taste bugs, we have to want to do it first. How would you feel if she said the you have this "terrible" habit of not eating meat (the best protein, so they say) or that your salads are tasteless because they lack the needed salt? When I cook, specially now that I`m older and so are myy friends, I cook with little salt, but put some on the table if anyone wants some.

Adding butter to bread doesn't bother me, but putting ketchup on anything other than fry's chips hamburger or hot dogs really gets my goat. I'm a great cook and don't appreciated it. Adding salt before tasting is just as rude. It is like saying that you under salted the food. I always taste my food fist. Rarely does anything need more salt. Never bacon grease. yuck.

No, I don't have such friends. If she's really your friend, she will eat the food you cook and be appreciative of the good food and good company. If she insists upon meddling with your cooking in your home... Well, one can only hope that she has some other qualities that make her a worthy friend, since she is being very rude about the food. A hostess has the duty to try to serve things that are reasonable. For instance, you don't cook green beans in lard, serve them to a vegetarian, and insist that they are "meatless" and, therefore, fit to eat. You don't staple bacon to a turkey and plop it before Jewish or Muslim guests. However, there is no responsibility to "junk up" healthy cooking; it is offensive that a guest would try to insist upon such a thing!

hi macdingolinger, did you taste whatever that she cooked? or did you eat the food after whatever unhealthy ingredients she put into your healthy dishes? maybe you should just eat your own food and stay away from eating all those food that she had messed up.

Actually, the bread is worse for you than the butter. It's carbs that are the problems. Carbohydrates are the obesity makers. Whole wheat, or other low carb breads are the best alternative, but butter is just fine. I know it's popular to say no to butter, but there's nothing wrong with it. Think about it like this. Which is fat, a cow that eats grain, or a mountain lion that eats meat? Meat is good for you. You'll stay thin and fit. Grain, especially high carb grains, and worse processed sugars, that's bad. Be like the trim fit mountain lion, not like the fat grass eating cow.

Well what I have learned over the course of time is that what is healthy and good to one person might not be what another person is wanting and looking for, and maybe not even consider Good food to them. I know many times since tastes differ, it should be important when enjoying a meal together learning to compromise some. But the extra SALT is not good for anyone, and so is adding the Bacon grease even though it is good.

My grandmother! My mom's mom is a wonderful cook, but she'll kill you with diabetes if you live with her long. And that always made my mom to be conscious to cook healthy when she had her own family. But I remember when my grandparents would come to see us and my mom would be fixing dinner. My grandma would exclaim how healthy everything looked and then proceed to butter everything under the sun, and add bacon to anything that looked like it would be better once mixed in. We were like, uh, you know it ceases to be healthy when you do that....

Honestly, I don't know of anyone that ruins all of the healthy food options that we have available. However, my children don't tend to prefer the healthy dishes that I serve, they would just as soon have something presented to them as a choice that is a convenience food that has come from a can. Now on the salt deal, I have to admit that I do use salt on many of my foods. However, I recently learned that this is actually something that is good to do as it is possible to get physically ill because you don't have enough salt in your diet. My sister-in-law was off of work for almost a month because she was inexplicably passing out. After a battery of medical tests, the conclusion was that she simply was not ingesting enough salt in her diet. Besides that, if salt really was terrible for us, why would they use 5% NaCl in fluids that patients are given in hospitals.

I have a principle, which is like... I'm going to tell anyone how to live unless it's really putting someone's life in imminent danger. I have friends with junker taste than mine (but I have to tell you I'm not a healthy food freak, and I can enjoy a pack of crisps like anyone else :D), but it's not going to make them that much unhealthy or sick. I'm gonna tell them if I see their health deteriorating, but otherwise I don't feel the right to tell anyone what to do with the food, unless they are messing up the one I'm preparing for myself or for the two of us, not only theirs.

it's like 2 steps forward and 1 step backward. we have a local dish called tinola which is chicken with vegetables in clear soup. it is flavored with salt, ginger and whole black pepper, plus green papaya and leaves of the chili plant (dahon ng sili). we have substituted chayote/sayote and pechay (a green and white vegetable called bokchoy, chinese cabbage, etc). if i happen to be the cook, i forgo the first phase which is to saute the chicken in garlic, onion, ginger in cooking oil and just boil it. my mother also like steaming some food instead of boiling or frying them.

Hi macdingolinger, i like your healthy dish! I am sure your friend is at lost to miss your healthy food. Some people have different taste buds. They prefer something more tastier. They don't like healthy food, because healthy food aren't tasty. They like it with more salt, more sugar, more sauce, instead of just plain or fresh food. You don't have to get upset with them. It takes time for them to change, and they need to be educated why eating healthily is important. If she really messes up your healthy dishes, then get her a bowl and split her portion for her. She can do anything she wants with her portion, but others remain eating their healthy dishes. So, it doesn't upset everyone's portion.

I'd like to coin a phrase here like the one similar to the 'another man's trash is another man's treasure'...'another man's healthy food is another man's junk food'. Do you think that would apply in this situation? Everyone has different tastes in food and perhaps your friend just doesn't realize you have such different tastes. It may be normal for her to salt food, butter bread, and add different seasonings to foods because of the way she was raised. Is your friend obese or unhealthy? If so, perhaps a scrap book of your tasty recipe alternatives would make her a nice present.

No because we don't share our tastes and food. Eat what you eat and I eat what I want to eat. She can taste my food and if she wants to put on something more it is her choice, it is her plate. That's quite odd to mess with someone's preparation. She can take her share if she wants and do a lot of things of whatever to it. It is rude for me.

Thanks a ton for sharing this discussion. Well i can understand your situation and i know your mood must be getting turned off after seeing her activities before having food. I think she is a bit excited before having food and hence she is adding every thing at one go. I think u should tell her to taste the food before and after the addition and tell her which one she likes the most. I m sure she will choose the former one and would realize her mistakes. What say?

Sounds like my sister... but she ruins all foods by putting crazy spice son them. I hate to have a steak with all her spices on it.

ya many of my frens ll give tips abt the heathy food..n the taste ll be too good if we prepare....

Sometimes it's nice to eat unhealthy and go for the taste. I don't want to make my friends feel bad about enjoying delicious food. However, it's only really a problem if we're cooking together a lot (so it is affecting too much of my diet) OR if I feel concerned for my friend's health and he/she refuses to try healthier options now and then.