A few days ago, we went to an event preceded by a catered meal. The food was pretty bad: lumpy overcooked rice, soggy vegetables floating in a sea of oil, and a pan of pale chicken wings and drumsticks .  Even the dessert was inedible. Stale tasteless cookies. And of course the worse problem was that they ran out of chicken and the cookies before everyone had gone through the serving line.

My husband and I didn’t eat after a few bites convinced us that this was one meal we would have to force down. When we  returned home much  later, ate a much delayed dinner of cereal and milk. “ I am glad we waited to eat “, said my husband. “ I think if I had eaten that catered meal, I would be suffering from indigestion by now.”

It occurred to me that although it does not happen often, most of us have been in a situation where we are confronted with food that we don’t want to eat ; either because it is not well prepared , we don’t like its taste or appearance. If the meal  is incompatible with our dietary or medical needs or does not conform to our religious or philosophical beliefs about food we won’t eat it and when possible ask for something else.  But in the other situations such as the catered meal, most people ate everything despite the substandard nature of the food. When airlines were serving meals, people used to complain about the mediocre ( possibly an understatement) quality of the food while cleaning their food trays. I had a relative who when asked whether he liked the meal he had just finished at a restaurant  said that he was disappointed in the way it tasted and by the way, the portion  was too small.

 One carry over from being willing to eat whatever is in front of us, regardless of how good it tastes is that we also may eat whatever is in front of us regardless of how healthy it is. Consider for example someone who has to watch his cholesterol, or salt intake. Foods eaten at home or brought to work can be chosen to meet his dietary requirements. But if the meal is consumed at a restaurant,  someone’s house, a wedding, he probably will not question the salt or cholesterol content of what he is eating. Nor is it likely that he will avoid eating certain foods that probably will be too high in salt ( like soup) or cholesterol ( beef) for his diet.

It is hard to be ‘picky’ about what you are eating when you are eating in public . I have a friend with a severe gluten allergy and another who must avoid all lactose. Eating with them becomes an exercise in interrogating the waitstaff and even the chef, calling ahead of time when the meal is catered or telling a hostess about dietary restrictions when the menu for a dinner party is being planned. These two people do this because they have no choice. Eating the wrong foods means being very sick.

Being on a diet or trying to maintain one’s weight brings similar problems  and in some ways is even more difficult because the dieter really does not want to bring attention to himself and his diet in the middle of a business meal or dinner party. So it may be easier to eat and drink whatever is served rather proclaim an inability to consume what is on  your plate.

The solution to this depends on two things: your own comfort level in figuring out what is in the food you are being served and your willingness to wait until later to eat your fill.  If it turns out that the foods available are incompatible with what you should be eating and there are no other choices, than the only way around the problem is to eat very little and then, as we did, dine later on. If you think that the meal say at a wedding will not suit your dietary needs, eat before hand so you will not be hungry. A friend of mine does this when she is invited to someone’s home for dinner since she is the one with lactose intolerance and does not want the host to prepare a special meal. Or if you are comfortable with asserting your dietary needs then do so. An academic colleague who was a frequent after dinner speaker but who had genetically high cholesterol always called ahead to order a special meal. “ I refuse to talk on an empty stomach but I also refuse to shorten my life because the caterer is serving beef,” he once told me.

And in the worse case situation, if the food is really bad, you can at least be relieved if the portions are truly small.

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