Different Flavas and Tastes
Hi guys! How are you?? Looks like ya’ll want some gourmet cookies, eh? Just to let me know, you’re killing me with the amazing cookie ideas. I’ve been wiping drool from my face all day 😉 Keep those entries coming!
So as ya know, the Pilot and I have different tastes when it comes to food. We have the exact same sense of humor (it’s scary, really), wear the same style clothes (Express clothes with Sevens jeans), and use the same crazy phrases (“rock my face off”, etc). Since I was so happy to find the love of my life and we already have so much in common, I bet you can imagine how he eats is of the least concern to me. Usually we’re too busy having fun to care about what each other is eating anyway 🙂
That being said, it takes a little bit of planning to accommodate both of our foodie preferences. He loves meat, I don’t. I like interesting ingredients (spirulina, goji berries, mung bean pasta) that he’s a little afraid of. I’m all about whole-grain, and he prefers white flour for certain things (especially pancakes). He also needs about 5x the calories I do to maintain his weight! Men are entirely different animals, let me tell ya 😉
Even though I provide a lot of examples on how I’ll change our meals each night, I thought it would be fun to go through an entire day of typical eats for both of us and how we make it work 🙂
Casual breakfast:
Breakfast cookie, oats or smoothie for me: Cereal in a to-go container with milk for him, unless I make him an egg and cheese sandwich
Leisurely breakfast:
Perfect protein pancakes for me: Old fashioned pancakes with eggs and ham/bacon for him:
Prep: for these I’ll have two bowls and make the batter for each at the same time. He’ll cook his, I’ll cook mine and make the eggs.
Lunch:
Lunch is do-your-own-thang in our casa. I’ll usually pack up a lunch or leftovers for the Pilot and make whatever I’m feeling for me 🙂
I’ll usually have a Gina creation– salad beast, smoothie, leftovers, pizza, quesadilla, omelet, sweet potato thing, or sandwich with a salad/veg or leftovers
The Pilot will have a meat sandwich and a PB&J sandwich along with snacks (Annie’s bunnies, fruit, cheese and crackers, cookies)
or he’ll pick up Thai mobile or a sandwich from the commiscary
Casual dinner:
Kale salad, grilled veg and mushrooms with goat cheese for me: Kale salad, alfredo noodles and chicken for the pilot:
I’ll marinade the chicken and veg, he’s the grillmaster and will make the veggies on the grill, grill his chicken on a separate rack (is that what it’s called? haha) and I’ll make the pasta and salads
Leisurely dinner:
Shrimp tamales with Sophie’s Chopped Salad
Chips and Goat Cheese Queso
Snacks:
You guys know about the snacks I love (Larabars, fruit and nut butter, toast, smoothies, veg and hummus, etc etc),
but the Pilot will snack on cereal galore, poptarts and Hog Corn at the squadron
Hog corn: popcorn popped with oil, sea salt and jalapenos. So spicy, so amazing… if I worked at the squadron, I’d probably eat it all day 😉
So as you can see, our eats are very different but it’s not too hard to balance our eating styles and plan our meals out. Usually I’ll plan to make something we both like for dinner, and Tom-ify it by adding meat and cheese to his. We both love seafood, veggies, egg dishes and brown rice/quinoa based dishes, so it’s really not too bad.
I’m also lucky because if it tastes good, he’ll eat it. He’s not too picky 😉
Does your family have different eating styles? How do you plan things out?? Do you or your hubby/significant other/room mate/cat have special nutritional preferences?
Well I’m off to shake my booty at dance 🙂
Have a lovely night and I’ll see you in the morning!
xoxo,
Gina
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So presh!!!! You two are the cutest couple eva:)
Great post Gina! Jason and I eat mostly the same things — although he eats much MORE food than me. I’ll have one serving and Jason will have 3 🙂
I make almost all the food (plus I do the grocery shopping) so he is happy there is any food on the table.
Funny about The Pilot and poptarts — Jason has 2-3 boxes of poptarts at work for “snacks”. Ew.
I love this!! The pilot sounds just like my boy- if it’s good, he’ll eat it, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to give up his meat and Pop Tarts!!
My husband & I tend to eat the same things for dinners but have very different preferences for lunches and breakfasts. His is all bland stuff.
Gina, I love this! I was thinking about you the other day and how wonderfully you plan everything out. It’s something I want to do when my boyfriend and I move in together down the road.
I’m a vegan and he is…well, not. Haha. But we totally make it work! I’m in school and he graduated last year so we like to go out to eat together. Luckily, we love the same vegan-friendly restaurants (hello INDIAN FOOD!). We love to make homemade pizzas and have his and hers toppings. He loves every vegan meal we’ve made too…which is totally a blessing!
Because I can’t eat gluten,dairy,and eggs my southern bred hubby and I eae COMPLETELY different!
The one thing we both LOVE though-VEGGIE SHISHKABOBS 🙂
I love the side by side comparisons! My husband is definately a meat and potatoes (& lots of butter!) midwestern boy. I like your idea of making what you want and adding cheese or meat to husband-ify it, I’m going to try that!
my fiance & I have different styles of eating (I’m a healthier eater, and he likes SALT, extra condiments, etc.). I think you said it perfectly that when you have so many other things in common, eating isn’t a huge deal.
I’ve been able to convert him to whole wheat everythaaang 😉 and he loves some of my “healthy” desserts. Plus I’m always up for a challenge to make his favorite meals a bit healthier. He always tells me that he’ll eat whatever, as long as it tastes good.
I love the pictures of you and your hubby!
If it’s not microwaveable or pre-packaged my hubby doesn’t eat it!! He’ll try anything I make, but he doesn’t necessarily like it or want me to make it again! 🙂
I didn’t know his name was Tom! He was always “the pilot” to me….sounds right though. My significant other is a celiac….which can sometimes be a pain, although I would never tell him that 🙂
My husband and I have very different eating styles. He eats pretty similar to the pilot. He loves meat and spicy foods. I have introduced him to a lot of new (for him) veggies since we’ve been married though. (His mom didn’t really serve them when he was growing up so, of course, he didn’t choose to eat them as an adult) I don’t eat much meat or white flour and I’m trying to cut back on the dairy. Your blog has been great for making suggestions and tips about what to make so that I’m not making two completely different meals. Thank yoU!
My hubby and I eat mostly the same things, but he eats SO much more meat. I don’t really like meat except for the occasional filet, etc. So I tend to make lighter meals for me and more meatier meals for him. 🙂
You two are so freaking adorable. 🙂 And the eats seem to be the same for y’all as it is between me and Michael. Egg whit omelet for me, Velveeta mac n cheese for him 😛
the most impressive thing is that you have no judgment about what he eats – not only do you accommodate his preferences but you really don’t seem to preach to him overtly – i’m sure over time he’ll change simply by seeing how yummy your food is (which is the best way to show someone the benefits of your way)- but i think it’s so unusual for you to give him his own space on such a personal thing. eating is so much more personal than liking a certain kind of movie or book -i’m really amazed. since i’ve given up meat, it’s been really hard not to give a little speech about it everytime i see my husband & boys eat bacon, burgers etc.
it hasn’t earned me (or my beliefs) any good will …..
My husband and I are similar to you guys. He prefers meat, dairy, and cereal, but he’s also health conscious and eats a green salad salad every day. Sometimes he’s afraid of the things I eat (e.g., green smoothies, raw tofu). One problem we have stems from our cultural differences. I come from an Asian plant-based, low-carb, lactose-intolerant 🙂 background; he comes from a Midwestern bread- and dairy-heavy background. So, sometimes we have completely different meals. Chipotle is a nice win-win for us though. 😉 Another problem we have is conflicting schedules. I work full-time at a corporate job, and he’s a busy grad student – unfortunately, this means we don’t get to eat together a lot.
My boyfriend sticks to protein, veggies and fruit – usually a veggie & egg scramble for a weekend breakfast, a giant salad with tuna or salmon for lunch, and whatever I make for dinner 🙂 He will usually joke around with me if I come home from work and want a bowl of cereal, saying “are there vegetables in that cereal?” Like your hubby, he is not adventurous when it comes to stuff like green smoothies, chia seeds and other ‘weird’ ingredients.
I am prone to convenience eating and tend to be a bit carb-heavy. As in I sometimes don’t get enough protein. Trying to fix that! In the meantime, I love eating tons and tons of fruits, veggies, nutrition bars, yogurt, etc. – stuff that I can eat quickly while stuck at my desk or in the car.
I think I’ve wrote in before on this topic. My bf is a strict vegan for animal-loving reasons (for 15 years!) but not health reasons (it’s just a bonus) whereas I’m a flexitarian – pescatarian aka fake vegetarian for the health reasons and the animal reasons.
Surprisingly, I eat way more veggies and fruits than my vegan bf! He thinks I’m a really healthy eater and I think he’s got a good moral thing going on. But he’s also a lot like ur guy, he loves white tortillas, white flour, anything with bbq sauce, and doesn’t worry as much about local or organic ingredients as I do. We have learned to mesh our tastes but I definitely eat a completely different lunch and breakfast than him and I modify our dinners to fit our individual needs.
We both have a lot of luck at Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern restaurants over the typical “all American” type cuisine places.
I look at is an adventure to explore our tastes although there was a time period where I felt guilty for not being a vegan….but my BF loves for me to eat cheese and all the goodies he cannot:)
P.S. I love all the cool foods and ingredients marketed heavily towards vegans whereas my BF just sticks to regular fruits and veggie! He makes fun of me for buying my fancy vegan “cheeses” and raw deserts:)
Great that you have found a way to accommodate each other! I am lucky, my husband feels it is a privilege to get a home cooked meal so he will inhale anything put in front of him.
He eats meat but brings it home from his flights and “adds” it to his meals occasionally. I’ve been eating mostly raw for the last few months, and he’s chomping away right next to me, he thinks most of it is really good. So I’m lucky, he is surprisingly easy going, and he never even ate vegetarian until he met me. Interestingly, he has no intention of vegging-out but he says he doesn’t miss it in our everyday meals.
Lucky me;) Kira
I love this post!! It gave me a lot of good ideas! I am a vegetarian and my man is a meat-eater. Luckily, he enjoys many of my vegetarian meals and he will often just eat meat at lunch (ordered out during work) and then eat veggie meals at home! Our son is a vegetarian as well, so he’s kind of outnumbered in our house. 😉
My boyfriend is on the high protein diet because he’s starting to lift weights again. He wont eat anything unless it has protein. I’m more of a vegetable fan. 🙂
Haha, I only laugh because our lives are so similar it’s scary. My hubby’s tastes are just about the exact opposite as mine but we somehow manage to make it work. I guess the stomach does not judge. 😉
I’m kinda the same as you. The hubs LOVES meat, and if he could get away with JUST eating a steak for dinner, he would. He is great b/c he eats all my g-free creations even though they might taste like crap. Usually, I just make what I would like for dinner, then add some meat to it for him. Or I don’t add any meat, and he has to deal. He is pretty laid back. 😉
you two are cute…
Jason and I are the same way… the similarities in almost EVERY WAY are scary… yet he shakes his head vehemently and laughs when asked if he is vegan / veg ? 🙂
I am able to get him to like many of my concoctions… tonight I made bean burgers with vegan basil aioli, and he liked it… AND he said “this aioli would be GREAT on a burger!” 🙂 *sigh*…
wouldn’t change a thing, though. I’ve found my other half.
Lol, love the photos!
What Zach has in the kitchen: chocolate covered pretzels, Lucky charms, white english muffins, chips and salsa, cookie dough ice cream…etc
What Shanna has in the kitchen: salad fixin’, oatmeal, pumpkin, pumpkin butter, NuGo Dark bars, fat free cottage cheese, all-natural PB…etc
My boyfriend likes eating healthy, he just doesn’t always know how. He thinks a lot of meals and ingredients are weird, but is open to trying them! I’ve also made us similar meals but added meat for him. Gotta send him some flax and yeast so he can make is power shakes again too!
This was great! My boyfriend is a former football player, 6’4″ 230lbs. Aka he’s huge and required a ton more to keep him full. I do almost the same things as you ie meat for him, snacks in his lunches, and I make him supplement with protein shakes. It works out most of the time, until I start eating his ice cream stash 🙂 do you have any suggestions on how to make his meals bigger or keep him full? He’s always starving!
i just usually make the whole recipe for whatever i’m making- he’ll eat the whole thing!
snacks are also a good idea- i always have brown rice, chicken, larabars and cereal ready for him if he gets snacky, or he’ll make a smoothie or egg
nate and i definitely have different loves in food, but for the most part he just wants to eat good food…and i do too 🙂 so we just go with what sounds good 🙂
I love this. It’s always so interesting to compare men and women’s eating habits! We are different creatures with different needs!
Great topic! This is such a battle for everyone trying to live a healthy lifestyle. Especially, if there is a weight loss goal in the future. My family thinks I am ridiculous and thinks I worry too much, so does my boyfriend. Most of the time I ignore, but other times i dont put up the fight and other times I either eat whats in front of me or I dont eat(at family sunday dinners). I am a full time student with two jobs and an internship (grad in dec yeahh!!) so to say the least, I not where I want to be…all of the time.
You and the pilot are a lot like Shane and me. He’s a big meat eater, but will pretty much eat anything that tastes good! I’d say 3 out of the 4 nights I cook, I’ll change up his dish to accommodate, and then one night he’ll just eat vegetarian 🙂
This post was wonderfully reassuring! I’m moving in with my boyfriend at the end of the month — I’m on a healthy eating kick (that I’m hoping will stick!) and he could live on french fries, steak and candy corn. It’s great to see that you can have two different eating styles in one household and (a la Tim Gunn) MAKE IT WORK! Thanks for the post!
Hi Gina!!
I started following your blog a couple weeks ago & I swear it’s uncanny how your blog seems to coincide with my own life:)
I’m so happy you blogged about how you and the pilot make it work even though you have different tastes. Since going vegan a little over a month ago, I have been clashing big-time with my normally easy-going, understanding, and supportive boyfriend. He is the love of my life & supports me in everything I do, but he is having trouble with my recent lifestyle choices and even said I was “acting insane” the other day when we went grocery shopping.
When I first moved in with him, my previous eating style changed a lot to meet his style & I realized that it just wasn’t working for me. Since going vegan, I still cook a lot of the dishes I used to with some modifications & I make his meat on the side. I think it might just take him a bit to get used to & to realize it’s not just “a phase” that I’m going through:)
My boyfriend Tejas is a vegetarian, I’m sorta vegetarian…I don’t eat meat that much anymore and I love funky ingredients too (chia seeds, agave nectar, spelt soba noodles) and i experiment with everything!! Tejas is a simple vegetarian…loves his cheese pizza, tacos with beans, gardenburger. If I add something “weird” to it…which for me weird is delicious, he won’t eat it. His response “I can taste it in my mind.” LOL. But we cook a lot together, he’s indian so i’ve been making lots of vegetarian indian meals.
We have similar tastes, though he can handle more salt than I can. I also have a high metabolism, so I get hungry more often than he does, and so I have to snack more.
If there was a contest for favorite blog couple, my vote would be for you and the pilot. I love what ya’lls quirky/fun personalities and especially love the way he seems to support you in your endeavors.
Yep…2010 Blog Queen and King!
awww, thank you!! <3
loved this post!
1) you and the pilot are one of the hottest couples around. 2) i don’t have a hubby but some day i imagine i will and love seeing how you couples with different taste buds can work. 3) your meals are the best!
thanks girl!
I have the exact same issue with my husband! He thinks a meal isn’t a meal unless it is made up of 3/4 meat! Unfortunately, my husband is not as open to trying new veggies as yours. I dream of the day he will eat a kale salad! When it comes to dinner, our meals are always similar but differnt. Fajitas for him involve grilled chicken covered in cheese in white tortillas while my tortillas will be filled with a veggie meat substitute in wheat tortillas. I’m glad to know I’m not alone out there!!
Is this in response to that less-than-friendly comment you got last week? I feel like you ALWAYS do a good job showing how you make your two different eating styles work without compromising each of your personal happiness which is a huge inspiration to me. You were the one who gave me the idea to just cook two version of meals using different proteins. So easy, but I’d never thought of it. Anyway, I hope that you aren’t trying to “defend” yourself because that commenter was WAY off but perhaps this will be helpful for newer readers!
Anyway, my family eats pretty well but my in-laws diets are a disaster and that can be difficult. They do try to accommodate me but just don’t quite get it. Luckily I only have to deal with it like once a year. My husband and I usually eat the same dinner and all other meals are on our own, which works well. He can eat “junk” earlier in the day and then we eat a clean dinner together.
Woah, long comment. Sorry! 🙂
nope i was planning to write the post anyway! the comment was just in response to when i mentioned i was going to write it
so i wrote it anyway, the same way i would have had i not gotten a not-so-nice comment
well that’s great timing! 🙂
I’m so lucky to have a guy that is focused on the science, and over the last four years he’d drastically changed his eating b/c of being introduced to the science of what is healthy 🙂 he dated a veghead before me, but never changed his eating. i think education can go a long, long way. my guy used to love steak, eat candy bars almost every day, and had an unhealthy love for ice cream. now he loves green smoothies, sweet potato fries, kale chips and kale salads.
so remember education may just win your man over 😉 at least if he’s health conscious
Loved reading this post! When I’m home from school, my mom and I have to whip up two similiar but different meals for dinner to accommodate my dad. He doesn’t like anything “too healthy” as he puts it! If we are making baked acorn squash stuffed with ground turkey, for example, we just need to have tortillas or something else he can put the meat in. It’s not too difficult to modify the dinners to what he likes, it just takes some extra planning 🙂
Great post, Gina!
Scott was a meat and potatoes guy who was 50 lbs overweight with high blood pressure.
That was 10 yrs ago.
After being together for almost 12 years, married 10, he’s dropped all the excess weight, doesnt have to take blood pressure meds, and is Mr Healthy. I am a GF high raw vegan so that’s how I cook for him and Skylar. When he’s out, he eats whatever he wants. But if he wants to get his tummy full when at home, he’s learned to come around.
Not saying I dont make him baked potatoes and soups and the occassional TJ’s turkey meatballs that I nuke…which I would never eat…but he likes it and I love him and so I do what HE would love a couple times a week. Rest of the week, he’s on MY plan 🙂
Our child…she’s totally on my plan. Start em young 🙂
A friend of mine asked me if I would cook for my significant other similarly to the way I cook for myself, and I said I wouldn’t if he didn’t want to eat that way. I totally agree with the way you and the pilot eat together. 🙂 Your relationship seems really healthy and balanced.
I’m fortunate because my boyfriend eats just about like I do – although, he does enjoy a bit more meat than I prefer! But, I like to think that if we ate differently, I would embrace our differences as you and the pilot do. Y’all are so freaking CUTE! 🙂
Wow, Best Wife Ever! My husband and I eat pretty much the same. Even though I gave up meat about a month ago, he’s liked eating vegetarian dinners so far (which is lucky for me, cuz I’m a lazybum and probably would have given up if he didn’t).
Love it 🙂 I posted an almost identical post a little while ago:
http://eatdancelive.blogspot.com/2010/07/his-hers.html
Great minds think alike 🙂
To what degree are eggs a part of your diet? In the past you featured them a lot more on the blog…have you eliminated them?
The manfriend and I are a little different in our tastes, but not too much. He will eat almost anything and I prefer a much lighter dinner and stay away from red meat. That being said, he’s pretty good about trying whatever I scheme up because hey, I’m doing the cookin! I also do little things to beef up his meals if I need to. Say we’re having a chicken salad for dinner, then I add more chicken, extra cheese, nuts and beans to the top of his compared to my portion.
As far as breakfast goes, it’s pretty hilarious. He eats any kind of sugar cereal and I eat overnight oats or kashi type cereal w/ banana, chia seeds, almond butter and blueberries/raspberries mixed in. When I do make him pancakes on the weekend, he prefers them plain with lots of fake syrup. I like mine with bananas inside and pure maple syrup. Mmm…
Wait, the Pilot’s name is Tom? haha It’s so strange to see you write his real name on the blog!