In a partnership where one wants to eat junk food and the other doesn't, who should win?

Simple, in my family whoever does the cooking sets the menu.

I try to accommodate the tastes of the rest of the family when I cook, but I have the final say.
Same with my sister.

Healthy food wins. No discussion. A family is not a democracy, it is a dictatorship.

Is this another argument against marrying when you are too young? He needs to grow up.
Keep the junk food in your bedroom. Or give it to him in his lunch, if he takes it to work. I like the idea of a rule that he not eat it in front of the kids.
I’m glad this isn’t you @nikipedia

The wife should win, because healthy habits are learned by example.

Here’s how it breaks down in our family:

My husband would eat crap if it were in the home. I will not, nor will I buy it.

As soon as we had a child, we set food rules: Veggies/fruits first, no snacking between meals, healthy food first, then a healthy dessert.

If the husband still wants crap, then like the kids he can wait for Halloween, Easter baskets or what have you to have a splurge. Otherwise he should eat like a young bachelor while he’s at work, not in front of his kids.

The person cooking gets to call the tune. I ran into this with my ex wife. She could not boil water, so I became (willingly) the family cook. And then she bitched that she wanted more fried food and gravy.
Note, ex wife.

This is an excellent question. I’m actually the junk foodie in my home, but the boyfriend gets the final say since he cooks. Some nights if he’s feeling like he wants to be bad, he’ll ask me to cook, which (as he very well knows) ends up to be cheesy mac with hot dogs and bacon bits. If it weren’t for him, I’d be the size of a house by my early thirties.

Would any of your answers be different if the person doing the cooking only made junk food, and the other partner wanted the whole family to be eating more healthily (healthfully?)

I don’t care who’s cooking it. I wouldn’t allow the junk to enter the home.

Raising children requires maturity. Liking junk food is one thing. Serving it in front of your kids is another.

This should have been discussed before the marriage. Honestly and without reservation. Along with other deal breakers like the number of children desired, how they’re going to be raised, and other long term goals.
This is also in response to another thread about marriage. People jump into marriage based on feelings which haven’t had time to ripen and mature, with unrealistic expectations based on the media and not reality.
To resolve this issue it will take a willingness to have resolution oon the part of both parties. This is a different desired outcome than “being right”, which is the general position of both parties.

^ This this this

Junk food has its place, I would not ban it completely from my house, but it would be a once a month treat at most.

Once there are kids in the house then junk food shouldn’t be allowed in anymore. You can slack with your own health but once you have kids then you have a responsibility to be better, to push for your best. That’s why I don’t have kids, Jack In The Box Jalepeno Poppers are too good.~

Why not an agreement the junk foodee eats it away from the house and keeps quiet about it? Also, a designated day every few weeks, all the family together for a junk food day or night to keep the kids from catching on?

I am trying to teach my kids that there are foods you may eat periodically because they taste great but are nutritionally deficient like: chips, cookies, pies, ice cream etc.

I do most of the cooking so I try to balance between uber healthy and comfort food. I’ve always said that whoever is cooking gets to be the one who decides what everyone is going to eat. My kids combat this by learning how to cook things like macaroni and cheese and cooking every now and then.

I think the family diet should be a conversation that is continuously happening.

I have friends, though, who feed their families nothing but vegetables, quinoa, buckwheat etc. Their kids end up absolutely gorging on “junk food” when ever they encounter it. I’m not sure that banning all junk food is the answer. I think we need to teach our kids balance.

If the two can’t agree, they should cook for themselves. If I cook a meal and my husband doesn’t want to eat it, he should go and make something for himself and vice versa. Thankfully in my home, we talk about what we plan to eat and are pretty much on the same page. I don’t feel one person has the right to insist another follows our diet preferences, but we equally shouldn’t have to prepare food for them if there is no agreement.

I will say the health food wins most of the time but maybe one day of the week have a day where its ok for the not as healthy food wins but try to change it a bit and add some healthy things to it.

I find how I cook food and finding the ways to bring out the natural sweetness of the vegetables makes even my neice and nephews like veggies they otherwise refuse to eat and wonder how I can make them taste so good. My toddlers eat just about any type of food and so when they want something like a boxed mac and cheese once in a while I will give in and make it. What I was taught growing up if you have everything in moderation it’s ok.

The one who wants to eat junk should do it when he is out of the house—not in front of the children.

Both. Each of you eat what you wish.

If you make junk food (ie the good stuff) completely off limits, they become the forbidden fruit so to speak and ever more desirable. I think life is about balance in all things. So some junk food should be allowed but the majority should be real food, food that will actually rot if you let it sit out.

I think it’s obvious who should win as well as who does win—the latter being the person with the strongest will to power regarding the issue. To me, it’s pretty cut and dried.

Junk food wins. Yes you can eat healthy, and then die anyways from other causes. You have to do more than eat ‘healthy’ (whatever that really means), you also have to stay physically active too.

My husband and I both enjoy our share of “junk food”. That being said, we believe it’s best to teach our children about moderation, rather than just banning junk food from the house completely.

Come up with some sort of compromise, like junk food once a week as a treat after exercising for an hour.

I think each adult should eat what they want but they must decide on how to address the matter with the kids together and stick to it.