Are you one of those people who is content to eat the same thing day after day?

I’ve known 3 people, who stood out, as people who are not only content, but seem to thrive on eating the same food day after day after day. The first guy I knew from a former job many years ago. This guy would only eat spaghetti. He ate spaghetti every single day for lunch. People would offer him stuff all the time and he always refused. We would have potluck lunches and he would never try anything. He wasn’t anti social, nor did he have a germ problem with touching other people’s food, he simply didn’t seem to have a sophisticated palate and he said on several occasions that food was merely sustenance for him and nothing more. Spaghetti is cheap, so I figured that is why he chose that particular dish to eat day in and day out.

The second fellow was also a former co-worker. This guy was, and still is, super friendly and social and enjoys social gatherings and parties and such, but he still did and does eat peanut butter (no jelly) sandwiches for lunch every day. Oddly enough, he actually grows a lot of stuff in his yard, but I’ve never seen him eat any of it. Maybe his wife eats it, but he tends to give it away to friends and neighbors. He enjoys growing stuff, but has no particular interest in eating his bounty.

The third person, just over the last 2 weeks, ate nuked baked potatoes 8 out of 10 days. When I commented on it, asking her if she was bored of the potatoes yet, she said, “No, I didn’t eat them every day. I didn’t eat one on Friday or Saturday, so I’m excited to eat one right now.” This woman was a bit different from the other two fellows, in that she seemed to actually relish the idea of eating the same thing over and over again, and was quite anxious about the fact that she went two days without eating a baked potato.

I am guilty of eating bean and cheese burritos multiple times in a week, but even I can’t eat them from the same establishment each time. I frequent a whole host of Mexican restaurants within a 50 mile radius. The beans are different, the cheese is different, and the salsas are different.

In general, I try to eat something different every day. Even if I have leftovers, I will likely skip a day in between. I also have the desire and ability to plan meals pretty well, so I don’t have to simply grab the first thing I see in the fridge. I think some people eat the same thing every day because they can’t fathom the idea of planning out what they might eat during a week or a month, so eating spaghetti or peanut butter sandwiches is easy because they already know exactly what they are going to eat. There is no planning involved (except figuring out if you have spaghetti or peanut butter in your house) thus no anxiety.

The potato woman seemed to have a bit more of a “situation” going on with her. She did mention that she got the potatoes for cheap, so it seemed like a good idea to eat them every single day. She makes decent money, so I can’t really believe that she is on a strict budget. Also, I know she can cook rather well, because when she isn’t eating baked potatoes, she occasionally brings in nifty things like homemade curry, and pasta dishes. I do know that she is a vegetarian and her husband is not, and he won’t eat anything that she cooks, so maybe there’s a little anxiety/tension with regards to food and meal planning. Nuked potatoes are safe. On a side note, several of my co-workers have mentioned that this woman has the look in her eye of a trapped animal. I never noticed that. She seemed perfectly normal to me, but then I only see her at lunch time, so who knows, but I’m straying away from the subject at hand.

Which of you prefers to eat the same meal day after day, and which of you prefer to mix it up? When you do mix it up, do you like to go crazy with all sorts of random stuff, or do you have one of those 7 days, 7 dishes kind of setups. Tuesday night is pork chop night, Friday night is pizza night, Thursday night is spaghetti night etc. Even though that type of plan has different foods, it’s still limited to 7 foods. That would drive me straight into the mad house.

What say you?