Nora Hembree was overjoyed when her meat-loving boyfriend finally agreed to share a vegetarian meal with her. That's why she was shocked when she opened her door and saw James Battle holding two huge ribeyes ready for the grill. What was meant to be a quiet dinner at home morphed into the biggest fight this couple of nearly three years has ever weathered. 'I understood that she wanted me to experience a vegan meal, and that's great because I was all for it,' says Battle, 32. 'I just wanted my steak on the side.' 'I felt like he wasn't accepting the change I had made to go vegan,' says Hembree, 22. 'I worked really hard on this meal. It really hurt my feelings.' Food fights can cause heartburn for couples even though they don't at first register high up on the 'trouble meter.' Tension is expected with different worship practices, spending habits or parenting styles. But squabbles over what someone else eats, when they eat it, and how they eat it can leave emotional scars that tear couples apart over the long haul. 'It is a huge issue that few people ever want to talk about because we tend to feel extremely judged when it comes to the way we eat,' says Ryan Clauson, a dating coach and author of 'The Nine Rules of Attraction.' 'They say you should never bring up taboo subjects like politics or religion at a dinner party. I say, don't ever talk about food. Just bring it up, and everyone will get real quiet.' Apparently, opposites don't attract when it comes to food, Clauson said. As the blood from his rare steak started running into Hembree's risotto dish, the irony hit Battle about the same time as Hembree's sour look. 'She was disgusted. She was mad. And I knew we were going to have to talk about it,' says Battle. Whether it's a sudden 'health-food kick' or the fact that your spouse has been a messy eater since your first date, sooner or later something that may have started out as just a 5 percent difference will grow into a chasm, Clauson said. When you meet someone you click with on other levels, no one is really worried about food in the beginning, he said. 'A month down the road you realize that food is important because we connect over food,' he added. Food isn't just nourishment. It's also what you believe in or how you were raised, Clauson said. He has had clients whose marriages started out great the first two years, cooking together and enjoying their time. Then one partner decides to 'get healthy,' while the other doesn't. Suddenly, they begin to eat together less because one starts to feel judged. Their connection dwindles. 'I tell my clients that they need to be aware of their food differences in the beginning,' Clauson says. 'I'm not saying they both have to eat the same exact food, but the support has to be there for them to eat what they are going to eat.' Hembree and Battle started their relationship with similar eating habits and were both runners. They cooked together -- he grilled the meat, and she fixed the salad and side. About two years ago, Battle's eating changed when he started training in a CrossFit gym and adopted a 'paleolithic diet,' eating only foods that ancient hunters and gatherers would eat, meaning no processed foods, no sugar and no refined carbs. Battle needs to consume lots of protein to get the benefits of his intense strength-training and conditioning program. Battle's ability to eat an entire pork loin and 700 calories worth of almonds 'was weird to me,' Hembree says. Plus, it was a major damper on her sweet tooth. But she tried a few of his paleo recipes as her olive branch. Tension built again over the summer, when Hembree spent a month away from home training to become a yoga instructor and came back a full-fledged, eco-conscious vegan. 'I can't argue with her that my carbon footprint is much bigger than hers because more energy is used to create meat than to grow corn,' says Battle. 'And yeah, I realize that the animal I'm eating probably didn't have a very happy life. But I'm kind of skinny and tall. I'm willing to pay that price to have my steak.' Food politics aside, his partner is concerned about his health. 'I'm really worried about his heart because even skinny people can have serious heart issues from eating a lot of red meat,' says Hembree. Sometimes a fight over food is only a symptom of some other underlying problem that hasn't been communicated, experts say. Questions about being valued, accepted and feeling like you have a say in what happens in the relationship often pop up in arguments about eating dinner at the table at 6 versus plopping down in front of the TV with a Lean Cuisine at 9. That's when a couples counselor can point out that it's really not about food and that partners may be doing something destructive in their method of communication that could be making the other react defensively. Psychotherapist Joyce Morley-Ball has counseled couples who punish their partners by not speaking to them for days when one refused to eat what the other cooked. 'If you have communication and compromise, there will be no reason to try to change the other person,' said Morley-Ball, author of 'The 30 Day Relationship Makeover,' whose site doctorjoyce.com coaches couples on how to have better relationships. 'Both can have their way and really enjoy food. Food shouldn't be a burden, but something that people can delight in and have fun with.' The Bonanno family in Denver practices the ultimate dance of compromise with zest and style. Jacqueline and Frank Bonanno own Mizuna, Luca, Bones and Osteria Marco restaurants. But she's a vegan of 25 years, and he's Denver's bona fide 'pork king.' Going out to eat hasn't been a problem for this couple because Jacqueline tweaked her diet to include fish so that she's more flexible. Meanwhile, when Frank cooks, he always prepares a pasta as a side dish, as well as a piece of salmon or halibut for his wife and a pork tenderloin or some other meat for himself and their boys. In the wake of suggestions from his wife and vegetarian diners, Frank added nonmeat dishes to his menus. And thanks to their chef-dad, their children, ages 6 and 8, have become more adventurous eaters who revel in lobster and rabbit. 'Food is like your finances when you're dating,' says Jacqueline. 'Couples have widely different spending habits, but both of us love to dine and we have a very adventurous nature, so it works.' What common ground do Battle and Hembree share? A desire to eat natural food and stay physically active (even if they can't agree on what is an appropriate form of working out). And eating together, usually with large family dinners several times a week -- and it helps that Battle's mom is a marriage counselor. 'Usually afterward, we can laugh about it because we know we are both sensitive about it,' says Hembree. 'I just wish we could learn to laugh about it in the heat of the moment.' 'You have to weigh the cost benefits,' says Battle. 'She likes to cook, so I like to keep her happy.' 