Anyone else hate grilled fish with bones in it?

Needing to remove bones kinda puts me off wanting to even bother eating said food item. At that point I may as well get something else that doesn't require additional prep before I can dig in

If I'm gonna pay for the food already then why would I want to have to do more work just to eat it?

Fully agree with you.

best thing i did for autism food related things (as well as empathy) was go vegan

all the processed foods always have the exact same texture and taste. There will never be a bone in my vegan fish. No weird bits in a vegan burger. And my vegan bacon is always spot on perfect.

plus it’s a lot less gross and you don’t have to worry about cross contamination

That sound like more a question about the level of processing the food than a vegan vs. meat based issue.

Granted, fish bones is a special kind of bother but you can have the same sensory experiences with vegan food as well. Expecting seedless grapes, but suddenly the cook used grapes with seeds. Expecting boiled out asparagus, but getting crunchy and some that were probably harvested a little to late. Suddenly getting a little bi of hazelnut shell in your salad.

I agree than going vegan might have some benefits regarding autistic sensory issues, but most of "exact same texture and taste" is more a question of hyperprocessing the food.
I’d love to switch at least some of my meat to the vegan versions but I have a problem with the texture of the ones I’ve tried. Think the ones available here remind me of the overly processed chicken nuggets
- Try an Impossible Burger if you can find it. I've had good vegan nuggets too, I think the brand was either Impossible or Beyond.

The culinary culture in my place doesn't demand fish to be deboned. Hence, we eat fish with the head intact and eat the head as well. So, I don't have a hatred for fish bones; it's part of the culinary experience.

Edit: grammar

For many, it's the texture simply existing, regardless of culture. You're mostly just describing what I'd expect a neurotypical approach to be.
- Once I had no choice but to eat whatever I could get my hands on other than chicken and pasta, hunger will override everything. Now I went from extremely picky to not picky at all. I'm ready for the apocalypse. I can eat my neighbors if need be.
- Fish bone could be annoying, but I don’t hate them that much that I will stop eating the fish if I found a single fish bone. That’s just wasting food for me.
  
  What? A fish bone stuck in my throat? I’ll proceed with eating a spoon of rice and swallow it without chewing it first. A common tips that parent pass it to their children in my place.

It's easier to eat mackerel flipped over, skin side down. That way the bones are visible from the top and are easier to remove. Your best bet is removing as many bones as you can before you start eating, then be careful.

Some places remove bones from grilled mackerel for youz but not always.

I will have to try that, if I am comfortable enough trying to eat it again. I basically left it half eaten, because I couldn't bring myself to continue eating it.

Well it's delicious, healthy, and one of the least environmentally destructive fish to eat, so give it a go.

~~How is that a value-add response? Like, hey, just ignore your autism for a little bit because someone stranger on the Internet else likes the taste of the fish and thinks you should just try again.~~

Edit: ends up it's an out of place response and in a different context it's a lot less problematic.
- Note their response and compare it to yours. Yes, you're the problem.
- I meant to reply to OPs response to me saying they were unsure about trying it again. It's just encouragement and it wasn't (meant to be) unprompted.

I prefer all meat off the bone. It’s weird that people like it. Especially fish with bones since you can choke on them.

I'm okay with big bones, so long as it's slow cooked to the edible bits just fall right off.

It takes some skill but there are ways to easily filet the fish. You also always need to eat it with the front teeth in case you missed one. I like to eat food that takes some work, it feels natural.

Bought a 1kg bag of frozen fish a few months ago. First fillet I ate had a few random missed bones in it and after that I just couldn’t bring myself to eat the rest of the packet.

Mackerel is a very bony fish with very thin bones. Even if you know how to remove bones well in some fish, it's going to be very challenging for mackerel. My advice is to go for bigger fish with big bones like cod, seabass, salmon, large sea bream, tuna. Watch some videos online on how to prepare the cooked fish to remove bones. You might still get one or two, but with practice and a good eye you'll be able to avoid bones altogether.

If you want to be ABSOLUTELY sure, you can use your hands to separate the fillets and take the meat apart to feel for any bones that might be left. I do this when feeding fish to my kids to make sure there's absolutely zero bones. Obviously not possible every time, but if you can do it, it's very helpful.

Me too! I don't like to eat anything that's still trying to kill me even after they're dead. hehe

I've lived in Portugal, and they usually serve the whole fish, but some Portuguese people have the skill to remove the spine intact. They also cut chicken in a way that the filet sometimes ends with bones. It can be very frustrating.

I also dislike some fruits because of the seeds. Anything I can't confidently bite into, I guess.

I just 'fish' (pun intended) them from my mouth, kinda fun to do even

Yes, I used to. Don't eat it any more though.

I can’t eat anything with bones 😔 I get what you mean

eating things that have bones in them being surprised theres bones in your food.

Vegan and even vegetarian food is so much less disgusting. There are no gooey fat clumps, no connective tissue, bones, joints, fucking eyeballs. Its just plants (and milk/eggs - maybe a little disgusting at times)

I am happy you enjoy your meal plan, but don't yuck my yum
That's the best part. Fat, brains, tendon, organs, skin... the parts qw instinctively seek out because of their high nutrients content.
- fat? hell yeah
  brains? gonna reserve that for tanning thanks
  tendons? also going to reserve that, for sewing
  organs? yeah sure make haggis and it works fine
  skin? not on mammals, on mammals that's better as leather or rawhide
But vegetables and fruits are so inconsistent. You never know what the texture is going to be until you bite into them. Every blueberry or apple has the potential to be mushy, or sour, or unpleasant in any number of other ways. Consistency is solely the domain of grain.

Yeah.

I can't eat sardines due to sensory issues. If I'm aware I can manage mackerel, removing most bones on my plate and handle those I miss (I won't enjoy this extra work, though). But if I suddenly get a mouthful with many bones, it will ruin my meal as well.

Permanently Deleted

I love it. The crunchy gristle is the best part!

So in my country there's this weird little childrens song that ends with the main character dying because he choked to death on a fish bone (don't ask, I don't know either). With my autistic ass taking taking everything so literal and seriously, I've had a huge fear of choking on fish bones ever since I was a kid. Luckily I've been a vegetarian for 14 years so it hasn't been a problem for a long time, but I used to hate eating fish with bones still in it, yeah.

I grew up in a fishing town and having to eat fish all the time, there is a technique to removing fish bones. I know there's some guides on YouTube I've recommended people before. It's a skill you can learn, if it's worth it to you.

If you don't want to deal with all that, your best option is to order a piece of a large fish, so it's actually been thoroughly deboned when it was being butchered. Or if you're cooking it yourself, learn how to debone fish before cooking it.

I'm so picky about fish I don't eat it much anymore (plus it feels more expensive everywhere in comparison to my hometown) and I hate sitting down to eat it only to realize I need to touch the bones, whether it's in my mouth or on the fish. When I eat fish with bones in it I start off deboning it well, then wash my hands if needed and sit down to eat it after. If I run into bones I missed I gotta wash my hands again if I touch it. I avoid eating small fish in restaurants bc this process is a hassle to do outside of home. I prefer the flavour of most small fish but it's easier to stick to big fish like salmon in public imo.

Not autistic, still hate fish with bones. Would you willingly jam needles in a steak?

The fact you have autism and are even eating fish is quite frankly amazing.

But yeah, the little bones are a nightmare.

I'd rather eat an omelette with egg shells all over. Not much different

I don’t eat a lot of whole fish, but the red mullet I had recently was a pain at first until I found the right way to pull the meat away from the spine so that it slid neatly off the bones.

That looks like the biggest pain in the butt to eat. I like whole fried fish, but usually only red snapper. It's a lot easier to eat than that mess of bones.

@cogitoprinciple

I hate it for the same reason I hate most foods with seeds in them. I want to know what I'm biting into and when it's going to be crunchy or not and not an uneven texture.

One of my many many food rules is that meat can't remind me that it was part of an animal. If it does, then I just can't eat it.

So, no bones, no skin, nothing in the same shape as an animal. Turkey dinosaurs are fine.

The smell of grilled fish makes me vomit. I haven't eaten meat in 30 years. I don't know how anyone with sensory sensitivities could eat an animal.

It just depends on the types of sensory sensitivities you have. I for example vomit at the smell of banana. Remember: while we often share traits, we never share all of them.