I can't stand veggies... help!

grandlinegirl

Hi,

I was doing really well last year and lost 45 pounds, and then hit a snag with an injury in my ankle. I'm still suffering from it but I've gained 10 pounds back and I really want to try and get healthy again... My main problem is that I can't stand vegetables.

I've been like this my entire life. I have issues with food texture and I hate the crunchy texture of veggies. It makes me gag. The only way I can eat veggies is if I cook and hide them in something else or cook them really mushy and eat them with something else (example, eating carrots with bites of mashed potato to hide the taste). Carrots (cooked) are the only thing I've found I kind of like.

It isn't just the texture of veggies, it's also the taste. I am so jealous of people that love vegetables. It's been a struggle all my life.

If anyone has any suggestions or has experienced this, I'd love to hear from you.

TeaBea

Do you hate all crunchy things....or just crunchy veggies?

If you don't hate ALL crunchy things, then you can get over it in time.

Try steaming, roasting, stir frying, grilling.......also try fresh, frozen, canned. Add small amounts of veggies to soups, stews, casseroles.

Look up green smoothies.....put fruit, yogurt (or milk) and spinach (or kale)....blend everything and you can't taste the spinach.

You will find some veggies you like if you look hard enough. Will you crave veggies the same way you (well, me) crave chocolate? Of course not. Veggies are an acquired taste.

grandlinegirl

GrahamSS wrote: »

Hello,
Can you tell me the sort of food you really do like and I will come up with some suggestions that may work for you.

Graham

Honestly, I eat like crap right now. I'm addicted to pop and sweet things. I'm a huge snacker and eat way more than I should, so I was thinking if I could find some veggie things to snack on through the day I'd feel a lot better about myself.

I love soups and hash, burgers and potatoes. Everything I shouldn't be eating. =\

grandlinegirl

TeaBea wrote: »

Do you hate all crunchy things....or just crunchy veggies?

If you don't hate ALL crunchy things, then you can get over it in time.

Try steaming, roasting, stir frying, grilling.......also try fresh, frozen, canned. Add small amounts of veggies to soups, stews, casseroles.

Look up green smoothies.....put fruit, yogurt (or milk) and spinach (or kale)....blend everything and you can't taste the spinach.

You will find some veggies you like if you look hard enough. Will you crave veggies the same way you (well, me) crave chocolate? Of course not. Veggies are an acquired taste.

No, I don't hate all crunchy things. I've tried roasting, stir-frying and grilling and haven't been able to find anything I like. So far steaming is the best but I have to steam them until they're really soft... Does that take everything good out of them?

Smoothies are a good option. I'll have to start with them again. I'll see if I can find some good recipes.

TeaBea

Creamy soups are a good option. Broccoli & cauliflower blend well in soups. An immersion blender is very helpful.

You can actually mash cooked cauliflower in with mashed potatoes. Start with 1/4 cauliflower to potato....cauliflower is really mild in flavor.

Mashed rutabaga or parsnips. Parsnips have a flavor very similar to carrots.

Squash is good mashed (ok, technically a fruit).

amcook4

Try different preparations of vegetables. Growing up all veggies were boiled, then covered with butter & salt, they all tasted like the same mushy mess. Now I eat veggies all of the time, and I very rarely boil them, usually roasted, stir fried, grilled, put into soup, etc.

libbydoodle11

amcook4 wrote: »

Try different preparations of vegetables. Growing up all veggies were boiled, then covered with butter & salt, they all tasted like the same mushy mess. Now I eat veggies all of the time, and I very rarely boil them, usually roasted, stir fried, grilled, put into soup, etc.

Yes, keep trying different preparations of veggies. Have you tried roasted veggies with garlic and herbs?

TimothyFish

Potatoes are actually one of the healthiest things you can eat, as long as you don't put too much other stuff on them. They are a great source of potassium, which most people don't get enough of.

There are several types of fruit that aren't crunchy, so you might try getting your vegetables that way.

CogentLinkie

You said you like soups, what about curries? I love curried veggies.

As for Potatoes I get almost all my carbs from them, I eat a couple pounds a day. They go great for controlling hunger so I don't binge on anything else. This guy pretty much proved that potatoes aren't as bad as everyone says: http://20potatoesaday.com/ Like TimothyFish said, it depends on what you put on the,.

shattrdillusion

I say green smoothies like the above posters! if you add pineapple or banana, their flavors take over everything else, and adding some cinnamon will help too with taste!

libbydoodle11

http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/search-results.html?searchTerm=vegetable+soup&form=global&_charset_=UTF-8

ahamm002

Your food tastes can be changed, and many tastes really need to be acquired. Anyone can force themselves to get used to eating something if they do it long enough.

For example, raw broccoli is probably disgusting to you right now. But if you ate raw broccoli every day eventually you'd stop being disgusted by it, and eventually you'd just completely stop minding the taste. The same goes for just about anything else (even sea urchins). If you never eat veggies b/c you never liked them, then you'll never acquire a taste for them.

Uselessly_Irrelevant

I am a picky eater, and I hate trying new things. But I do anyway, because my diet was ridiculously restrictive. Example: I hated tomatoes, never ate them. In reality, I had never had a tomato - I had bits in food and that was it. So I bought a couple tomatoes and cooked it up several different ways. I tried it raw (which I like, with salt) I tried it pan fried with garlic (this is my favorite) and I also tried it just boiled in with my stew (not so good) - the things about tomatoes that bothered me before were the unknown scariness of newness, and that the insides look like boogers. It still bothers me, but now I know I like tomatoes and can add them to my meals. I would suggest doing something like that with vegetables. Go to the store and once a week pick a new vegetable. Try it a number of different ways, and try to keep an open mind about it. There will be certain things you will always hate, but you will start to come across things you can tolerate or even enjoy!

fannyfrost

You said you like soups - well make a veggie soup. You buy a low sodium broth and add frozen veggies and some pasta, bring to boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. The broth retains the good stuff from the veggies.

You can also hide veggies by chopping them and cooking them in things, like baked ziti. I didn't like sweet potatos, well I found that if cooked without adding butter or sugar I actually did like them. So sometimes it how you cook it.

FYI, Zucchini is better when cooked till soft, with onion and tomato is how I like. I don't like tomato unless they are cooked personally.

d6melanie

One way to introduce new veggies is through a mild soup, to mute the veg flavor even more chop up a potato and include it when you add the veg:

Really easy veggie soup:

• Dice 1 Onion & Saute in a Soup pot with a bit of Coconut or Olive oil until translucent
• Add a few cloves of minced garlic, stir til fragrant
• add Spices (Salt Pepper & Ginger is a good one) (Salt, Pepper & Thyme) (Salt, Pepper & Italian Herbs) (For your main spice just smell around until you find something you like, Curry, Cumin, Rosemary, etc...)
• Add chopped veg of your choosing: Cauliflower, asparagus, butternut squash, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, Zucchini, etc... stir to coat in spices and onions and garlic
• pour in 1 quart/litre of stock (veg, chicken, beef, I use chicken stock 99% of the time)
• bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 45-60 minutes
• blend until smooth (careful it's hot!) either with immersion blender or in a pitcher blender

LeannJeffers

Uselessly_Irrelevant wrote: »

I am a picky eater, and I hate trying new things. But I do anyway, because my diet was ridiculously restrictive. Example: I hated tomatoes, never ate them. In reality, I had never had a tomato - I had bits in food and that was it. So I bought a couple tomatoes and cooked it up several different ways. I tried it raw (which I like, with salt) I tried it pan fried with garlic (this is my favorite) and I also tried it just boiled in with my stew (not so good) - the things about tomatoes that bothered me before were the unknown scariness of newness, and that the insides look like boogers. It still bothers me, but now I know I like tomatoes and can add them to my meals. I would suggest doing something like that with vegetables. Go to the store and once a week pick a new vegetable. Try it a number of different ways, and try to keep an open mind about it. There will be certain things you will always hate, but you will start to come across things you can tolerate or even enjoy!

^^^ I think this is a great idea!! I'm not a huge fan of veggies either. I could totally leave them on the table and go hungry! I think it's because they don't have that fattening flavors like the foods I do like. I did find that my taste buds have changed and I will try new things from time to time.

kimny72

Uselessly_Irrelevant wrote: »

the things about tomatoes that bothered me before were the unknown scariness of newness, and that the insides look like boogers.

This made me spit out my coffee laughing Tomato boogers! My mom hates tomatoes for the same reason.

I really don't have any advice for you OP, I hated veggies growing up but I started eating them as an adult and kept experimenting with different kinds and different preps and now I eat them all the time and love them. But they all have different textures and flavors to me, I have never thought of "veggies" as one thing...

50sFit

WHY I JUICE...


That's why...

I know I should eat veggies, but I won't. I kept saying I'd choke down the minimum every day, and after a few days, nope!

SOLUTION: I juice a full spectrum of healthy veggies with apples, berries, grapes and just about any fruit you could name. I love fruit, so this is how I get my daily supply of loathsome veggies.

I juice the fruit and then mix in the veggies with a blender as I add back in some of the fruit pulp. This gives me a great mix of taste and fiber along with all the vitamins and minerals my body needs. My wife takes the remaining fruit pulp and bakes various things we feed the kids for breakfast. NO WASTE!

My goal is to drink a half gallon every day.
DONE!

amcook4

Another way that has helped me learn to like vegetables is that I signed up for a farm CSA share this year. Basically I bought a share of a local farm, and every two weeks I get a box of a wide variety of vegetables, many of which I had never had. Since I paid a decent amount of money for it, I would challenge myself to find ways to cook all of the things we got. Until this summer I had never had chard pasta or rutabaga hash, but I actually liked most of what we came up with, and now I have a wider range of veggies to chose from.

MSeel1984

Roast them.
My husband now loves asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage...and pretty much anything else I toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and roast at 400...de-lish.

sullus

So don't eat veggies. Eat what you do like. Take a vitamin and some fiber. No big deal.

onefortyone

I agree with the people who say to steam them and blend them. I add peas & carrots blended into meat-sauces for pasta. You can't taste or feel them at all. Cauliflower pureed into mashed potatoes. Soups and stews are a perfect way to hide veggies (my beef and potato stew tastes like beef, no matter how many veggies I put in).

I also had to spend some time sucking it up and getting over it. It turns out, there's hundreds of veggies and hundreds of ways to prepare them, so my 'I don't like veggies' excuse was just that - an excuse. The tomato sauce and jalapeno pepper on your pizza are veggies, so use them in something else! The pickle and lettuce on your burger are veggies, so try bigger salads with less meat/carbs. The garlic in garlic bread is a veggie. You already like a lot of veggies, even if you only eat junkfood!

jdhcm2006

I can eat corn (steamed) and potatoes without problem. I personally eat baked sweet potato fries almost everyday. Just with a little olive oil and seasoning (and sometimes a little ketchup). I also love baked potato wedges, again a little olive oil and seasoning (no ketchup required).

But in order to get green veggies in my diet, I have a green smoothie daily (3 cups spinach or kale or a mix of both, 1.5 cups of frozen fruit, a little juice or water, and a bit of honey to sweeten). It helps me meet my veggie and fruit goal and it makes enough to keep me full until my mid-afternoon snack.

Juicing is another good option.

And think about baking with veggies. Kale chips are so tasty. Also think about using zucchini to make breads and muffins. It's good stuff.

LokomotivMordor

I've had the same problem as OP. For as long as I can remember, I hated every vegetable except carrots. What I've tried to do is eat vegetables mixed in with other foods where the taste is masked, for example curries, stew or chilli. What really worked for me was chopping things like onions and tomatoes REALLY fine, that way I wouldn't bite into a big lump of crunchy onion or pepper and want to gag. I also mash peas and turnip into my potatoes. I've also tried eating new types of veg with an open mind and discovered I love certain ones, such as spinach. Now, while I don't like eating big lumps of vegetables, I miss the flavour they give a dish if I don't use them while cooking. Like others have said I've found is possible to slowly change your taste over time.

stealthq

Do you like meatballs, meatloaf, or similar? A good way to get veggies in is to cook until soft, mash them a bit and add to your ground meats.

bigsistruck

I disagree with the people saying you can make yourself like things. That's just not true. OP, the only veggie I can eat is cooked carrots when hidden in a stew. I honestly ate broccoli every day for a month, and I can tell you I hate it even more now than before I tried doing that. No amount of salt or anything can take that nasty vegetable taste away. I have tried and tried many times. The best I can do is eat meaty soups that have vegetables in them (except corn, because EWWW corn does not belong IN things). I also don't mind the cauliflower mashed potatoes, you should give them a try!

sydneydeb

I love veggies and can't imagine not eating them every day but I agree with what some have said, you can't force yourself to like them. I cannot stand avocado, makes me gag, revolting stuff. Experiment, try them roasted with a bit of olive oil or blended into soups, hide them in stuff if that is what works, if you absoutley can't do it then don't stress about it, get your goodness from other sources.

2BeHappy2

What about "hiding" them in lasagna or finely grind/puree and mix into your hamburger patties, do this with meatloaf too or mix it into your spaghetti sauce!
Just get creative

veggiesandkate

I used to be the same way until I completely re-vamped and cleaned up my diet. Now I love veggies! I mostly like them roasted with seasonings. I started slowly, trying one veggie at a time a couple of months after cleaning up my diet. I didn't love them all but I liked a lot more than I did before.

bulbadoof

If you hate crunchy textures, just overcook your vegetables - problem solved. Cauliflower and zucchini have very little flavor of their own, making them perfect to put whatever you want on them. I had a bowl of sauteed zucchini earlier with garlic and parmesan, and it was heaven for 75 calories.

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