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I am SICK and TIRED of trying to make my husband like my new way of cooking! I went to ALL THIS TROUBLE of making vegan potato pancakes this morning, and they turned out nice. Shredded potatoes, a little tofu, some onion, seasonings to make it taste egg-y (mustard, a little curry, salt & pepper) a little corn starch and flour for binders, and water. I didn't to serve dry pan fried hash browns again, you know?

He took one bite and SPIT THEM OUT! They were made of Yukon Gold potatoes instead of the normal russets, is all. He also hates homemade mashed potatoes, and prefers boxed, because they have no lumps. He hates homemade cake, prefers boxed, because it's lighter, etc.

I see why my 70 year old mother refuses to cook for my father anymore. He gets only TV dinners. When someone ONLY complains about your food, it gets old really fast. You know, my husband used to complain about my cooking when we were newlyweds. I used to be in to health food, vegetarianism, etc. I cooked this totally vegan Indian feast once, chana dal, curried cauliflower & potatoes, papadums, chutney, basmati rice, even gulab jamun for dessert (deep fried milk balls in rose syrup.) I spent all day, probably 12 hours total. After eating, he complained that he was hungry, where was the main dish?

If it doesn't have a face, he won't eat it! He won't stop eating tuna fish, even though I've told him time and again about the mercury it contains. He can sit down and, I kid you not, have six tuna fish sandwiches! I've seen him eat 12 blueberry muffins ALONG WITH DINNER. He'll go to Red Robin and have a burger, fries, and a shake, still be hungry, order a SECOND entire meal, then stop on the way home and get candy bars. He's NORMAL WEIGHT too! I'm seeing red, I must stop, my heart is palpitating,

He is normal weight eating his diet. You are overweight eating your diet.
I've got to say it, it would seem you, not him, are having all the problems with food, your anger, and your relationship.
Since you two are still married after all this time, it would seem he is happy as a clam with the situation just as it is. Why should he change?
The bottom line is that you are in charge of your own health, physical and emotional. Your husband is unlikely to change. Accept that for now, and in the future enjoy any tiny changes he may make after seeing your progress via McDougalling.
Good luck

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

I heard Dr. McDougall say all you can do is give them the info. Your husband's a grown man and can make his own choices. Just make sure he's got good life insurance.

Don't compromise your healthy eating to make him happy. Don't defend it either. That can get old really quickly.

Everyone has to come to this on their own. Doesn't mean you can't nudge him along. About 6 years ago, my hubby drank milk like it was going out of style. He knew how I felt about cow's milk but he wanted it, so I got it for him. However, I started leaving articles laying around the house (preferably in the bathroom where I know he'll read...ha ha ha) about the horrors of cow's milk...but I never said a word to him. One day, out of the blue, he tells me I can stop buying cow's milk. WOW!! It worked. Now, if I could just get him off hot dogs...I know, gross. Anyway, my hubby and I are very different also. If he doesnt' like what I fix, I tell him to fix his own dinner. I think I'm going to stop buying his 'junk' too, tell him if he wants it he can go to the grocery store.

You can't force people to change if they see no reason to do so.
If your husband is healthy looking, and feeling good, then there's no way on earth that he'd want to change to a healthy diet. He's thinking: "I don't need to. "

You need to recognize that not everyone is the same. Not everyone will get cancer from smoking (look at George Burns). Not everyone gets fat from eating fat. And I hope your husband never gets sick from the things he eats. But if he does, he has you to help him.

In the mean time, you need to help yourself. Focus on what you need to eat, not on what he is eating. You are special, with special needs and thus you need your special (BETTER) food. Cook for yourself, and he can take care of himself. You need to have him become aware that you are the sick one, that YOU need to eat this way for your health and that this food is your medicine. He doesn't have to eat it, nor will you force him to.
(No more nagging!)

If you both work, then he shouldn't expect you to cook just for him.
At my house, during the week, I cook for me, my husband and adult daughter cook for themselves. I cook food for them on weekends that are not McDougall approved but don't contain meat.

On Thanksgiving, I will cook all the foods that they demand, but I won't eat any of it because I will have my own food (that I love!). They always look at my plate and think I must be suffering (but I'm not) or they start to feel guilty. I love the food I eat, and I love what it does for me, and I don't say anything about it. I don't have to please anyone anymore with what I eat or cook, only myself.

My husband understands that, he no longer expects me to eat like him, and he loves me all the more for how much I've improved for the better (to his benefit!). My husband loves to brag about me and wear me on his arm like "eye candy". Not bad for someone whose husband once called her a "beached whale." That was when I was at 200 lbs. Today I weigh 121.
And, unlike many of our friends, I'm not slowing down, I'm doing more and having more energy to do it.

You guys are all so right. I just got back from vacation in Hawaii and my husband was taking notice of the couples who were there and what they were eating at the breakfast buffet every morning. He did notice that I looked better shape than most of the women there (I have been working out to look good in bathing suit!) and my cholesterol did go down. My DH won't change the way he eats, but he is noticing a change in me and I hope that someday he will change! But I don't want to nag, because he has to come to his changing of eating on his own! He is getting his cholesterol checked soon and I hope it will be a wake up call to him. He also needs to lose some weight. All we can do is to be healthy and hope that family members will take note.

Sounds like you are into a power struggle about food, and that is not going to help you at all. In my personal experience, the more you try to push people toward healthy eating the more they rebel. You want to life a healthy lifestyle and be respected for your food choices. If you want that, you have to have as much respect for his ability to make different choices. You can make an effort to make tasty food that is nutritious, but do it for yourself as well. Then you won't feel the martyr.
He may genuinely not like the food. If that is so, the fact you put a lot of effort into it is not going to change his tastebuds. Is there any way he could convince you to like a food that you just don't care for? What should happen, however, is that he can be respectful of your effort and caring to accomodate him, without having to like the food itself.

When the kids and I went vegan, I did some soul searching about what I was prepared to do to accomodate my husband, who I knew would be completely resistant to the idea. I decided to tell him gently of my choices, that I wouldn't cook meat, but if he cared to add it to his meal he could prepare it himself. I did a lot of work to mean this too, not to be manipulating him by guilt. I was fully prepared that he would find my meals less than complete, order meat when we went out. Lucky for me I was able to find quite a few meals that were vegetarian but not too different from the foods we ate before, so he was less threatened. (I'll be honest, though, that there were quite a few meal experiments that didn't go over so well, but we laughed at it together.)He basically found he was satisfied with the meals we ate, and he effortless lost about 30 pounds in 6 months. He hasn't eaten meat since, but by HIS choice. If I had pushed him, I know he would have never stuck to it and we would have been into power struggles.

I have a family member who is alcoholic and went to Alanon in the past. I learned a great deal about codependency and how we try to manipulate the alcoholic into changing, and how it doesn't work. I found these same skills to be very helpful about setting boundaries about my own responsibility regarding my husband's eating. Perhaps this is a resource you might consider so you don't feel so helpless. Good luck.

Im there with ya hun!

My dh wont ....absolutely refuses...to listen to any of the DR McDougall videos or any other vegan teachings...and I basically told him when I was starting this diet that:" If you want meat..you can buy it, cook it, and clean up after it(meaning wash the nasty pan). He hasn't once baught meat except for lunchmeat! In fact, I have not purchased any meat since last September (except for one package of bacon) and guess what....There is still some in the freezer. Fact is, he is too lazy to look for it. LOL! I also hide drinks that I want to keep for me, in the fruit bin of the fridge...he never opens it either!

Now, I havent put a stop to him eating out at lunch time and he orders anything he wants with me there as well...but this has worked for us.

I am blessed that my dh appreciates most of my home made cooking. I detest dry mashed potatoes ...always have even as a kid!

All I can tell you is tell him to cook for himself..or buy him frozen meals and teach him to use the microwave.

Dont expect him to change quickly. You have to sneak those things onto his plate.

I like to serve my dh's plate because if he selects..he skips the veggies and goes bulk on the starches...

He still complains that the taco's need ground meat...but I just ignore him. LOL!

Dont get discouraged hun. Many of us have been there too....many still are. did you know it took my 12 year old son almost 2 months of no cold cereal before he would even try the rice mild his brother loves!

My dh wont drink any milk other than organic cow milk...but for some reason he never buys it...so we dont have any in the house! He admitted that the regular stuff makes him really sick. He has a pennicilin allergy...I assume that all those drugs...some must be a relative of Pennicilin...

In a while, you dh will mellow out...hopefully. I hope he does.

If I could only convert my dh....life would be VERY good!

Donna

It would be wonderful if everyone would eat McDougall style. However, it won't happen. I prepare my food and I prepare by DH's food. I eat mine and he eats his. Maybe, one of these days he will want to eat some of my yummy McDougall foods. I am very fortunate, my whole family supports my diet. They are all aware that my health is so much better than it was 20 months ago. I guess their health will have to get really bad before they will change their diets (As a matter of fact, that is what happened to me).

If you didn't eat that way when he met you, then, as much as you care and know it would be best for him, you can't really expect him to go into that with you. For the sake of a happy marriage, ya'll have to come to some sort of truce with that...figure out a reasonable arrangement of how you can still enjoy meals together without one person having to cook their brains out to manage it...it'll take cooperation and maybe some compromise here and there. Once you get that accomplished, you can gradually start to educate/nudge him in sneaky little ways, just offering tidbits of pertinent information when the opportunity is just right (usually this is when someone we know has some serious health issue going on--although I am 100% AGAINST blaming the victim, I still try to recall any research or stuff I've read indicating diet might be an important factor, and relay that suggestion to groundhubby). This is how we've done it...groundhubby has agreed at various times to commit to McDougalling, but has usually backed off from it later, but each time, he is more conscientious of his eating than before, and more supportive of my choice in eating.

These days he has a pan of his own and cooks some shrimp or wild salmon to put in the stir frys I make for his own plate...or sometimes he'll have some seafood while at work or once in a while even something worse (full-blown pizza )...but he tells me everything he eats all the time, and comes home bragging whenever he has managed to refuse something at work, etc.

I wasn't vegan when he married me...so I can't really expect him to take the same paths I choose at this point...however, it's nice when we at least agree to help each other stay on the same page and mutually respect each other decisions.

At least you'll outlive him.


fiddler3

Hi,

The one thing I've done that has not been mentioned above is I have used the Mc Dougall foods that I eat as a main course as a side dish for the family. That way I as least get them to try the food. Some things they like but most they do not. My second son and our Shnowser(sp?) like more of the food than anyone else does
.
I can't expect my husband to eat this way because he does not like any vegetables. He doesn't complain about what I eat nor make fun of it. His health would have to be so bad that he would be willing to learn to like the new tastes and textures. He is a very fussy eater and since he very overweight and already has type II diabetes (he is only 41) I think this will happen at some point. It hurts me to see him eat poorly. It is not just the meat and eggs but the 3 tbsp of butter he uses and the 5 beef sticks he eats at a time. I'm mean because I tell him the beef sticks will give him colon cancer. He doesn't believe me.

This has to be very hard for you because I think we sometimes put more into cooking than just the work. There is a certain amount of pride and self esteem that goes with a meal. If the food is ridiculed it can hurt beyond logic. If you can handle making him his own food it may be better for you as well.

Shari

Well, I feel better now after reading the Vegan Lunch Box website. The author mentioned her husband being an omnivore, boycotting healthy meals and eating potato chips instead, being sulky when faced with steamed vegetables, etc.

Now, this lady really has it going on - she just published her first vegan cookbook, etc. If SHE can't get her husband to like her cooking, I may as well not worry about it. I'll try to please my daughter instead, and maybe my husband will come around in time. If not, he has some serious third party arbitration with Marie Callendar coming up,

"If not, he has some serious third party arbitration with Marie Callendar coming up"

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Glad you're feeling more positive! It's a big boat we're all in but I hope your husband comes around a little, I can imagine his comments and reactions seeming a little, um, rude, to say the least. Not to mention hurtful.

I'm just thinking though that, as you probably already know, people have so many emotions/thoughts attached to food. It becomes really personal and not just as simple as being just about food items so maybe it's the same with your husband? Especially what you said about his mother refusing to cook for him because of how you described it.

Eh, just an idea anyway. Good luck! I think you're doing good, by the way, getting into it an experimenting with recipies