Day 19: Whole 30 for an EXTREMELY picky eater...it's rough

[Vanadium]

Like the title says...I'm an extremely picky eater for three reasons:
1) I'm very taste-picky (bacon is #1 on the most disgusting foods on that planet; chocolate is probably #2)
2) I'm even more texture-picky and won't eat something that tastes decent if the texture is terrible (I like tomato sauce, but I can't stand the texture of an actual tomato and will pick out chunks of tomato in sauce/salsa. The same is true for toasted bread)
3) Most of my teeth are cracked/broken from a past abusive relationship and I've never been able to afford dentures (33 years old and my dream is a full set of dentures...yay me)

Also, I'm a very bad cook - I never learned how to properly cook, and being that I've set fire to more than one kitchen, I'm a bit of a laughing stock to my family. Anywho, I decided to try Whole 30 because a friend of mine wanted to go through their second W30 with a partner. So here I am at Day 19 and I feel...nothing. When I say nothing, it's not that I don't feel any changes physically, but everything I'm eating now just tastes terrible. No lack of energy/gaining of energy/tiger blood/etc. The only thing I have noticed is that I've gone from being hungry all the time to never feeling hungry.

I've tried to add W30-compliant foods to my plan, and I've gotten to the point that I'm force-eating a lot of meals because the taste is disgusting. During this process, I've found that I dislike the following foods/drinks:

Foods: Avocado, any kind of potato (texture), spinach, kale, rhubarb, fish, shellfish, almonds, cashews, cucumber, squash, parsinips, olives, mushrooms, mayo
Drinks: Sparkling water, black coffee, unsweetened black tea, water that isn't SmartWater (I've tried putting fruit slices in water, but it doesn't taste much different to me), kombucha

Basically, my W30 has become scrambled or hardboiled eggs (if they're hardboiled I pick the yellow part out...I don't like the texture, nor do I like eggs cooked any other way), almond butter (can't stand it, but I need to eat something), ground beef in a lettuce wrap, a mixture of carrots and broccoli with enough garlic to wake the dead, black tea (don't like it either, but I can't have Dt. Dew in the morning, so...), and water. I've been avoiding fruits because I love fruit - I know if I have a banana I'll blink that that one will become 10.

At this point, I'm 19 days in and there's no point in quitting now. But now that the thought of eating alone makes me not want to eat, I figured it was time to ask for help. Has any other extremely picky eaters felt like this?

[ShannonM816]

I'm not a terribly picky eater, but I know we've had others on the forum, although it sounds like perhaps not to the extent that you're experiencing. My first question would be, do you feel like this is negatively affecting your life outside of Whole30, and if so, have you talked to any doctors about it? I don't know what kinds of treatment are out there, but i know that many people on the autism spectrum or with other issues also have food/texture issues that go hand in hand with that, so I would imagine there are probably therapists who work with these people to help expand their food choices. (I'm not saying you're on the spectrum, or that there's anything wrong with you -- if you normally go through your life happily despite these food issues, and it's just during Whole30 that it's bothering you, you may have no desire to try to fix it, and that's fine.)

I can say that how you cook vegetables can totally change their texture, so if it's mostly a texture thing, you may be able to find ways to make some of them more palatable. I personally am not a fan of cooked spinach, but have found that, in an effort to eat more veggies in the morning, if I put a handful of baby spinach with my raw eggs in a blender with whatever seasonings I'd normally use on scrambled eggs, and blend it, and cook it like scrambled eggs, I don't notice the spinach, aside from the fact that my eggs are now green. I don't taste it, I don't get weird slimy cooked leaves, they're just green scrambled eggs.

Roasted vegetables have a different texture than steamed, raw has a different texture than either, quickly sauteed things like zucchini or yellow squash can warm them up but not make them too mushy. There are recipes for making your own veggie chips in the oven out of all kinds of vegetables, if you prefer things crunchy. How have you tried cooking your vegetables? 

Does it help at all to cover things in a tasty dressing or sauce? Like, even if you're not fond of a particular vegetable, is it easier to eat if you drown it in ranch dressing? There are lots of options for sauces that might help, if that's the case.