Success! Found a Lettuce.

gramarye

A few times since I started back in January 2013, I'd started threads about being picky and finicky about vegetables. One of the things that had always plagued me was salads -- I wanted to make them work but have always found lettuce to have a weird texture and an odd "green" flavor that doesn't sit with me. So, I thought I'd post an update and say: aha! I finally found a lettuce I like, and am learning my way around eating salads.

Someone (and I wish I could remember who) recommended trying living lettuce, and months later I finally did. It's great! Like, I don't love it, but the texture is nice and the flavor is mild, and it mixes well. And my favorite thing is now my lunches are so low calorie that keeping within goal is so much easier. I had both chips and ice cream yesterday.

Next, I'll need to learn how to jazz them up a bit, but I have basic standbys (one of apples, carrots, and lettuce; one of chicken, feta cheese, and lettuce) that are getting me through lunches at work. I'm still finicky and picky about vegetables, but not nearly as much as I was two and a half years ago when I started.

crystalewhite

I love the hydroponic lettuce too! Have you tried the bags of sweet butter lettuce? Those are pretty mild as well.

gramarye

Hmmm, I had not! I'll have to see if I can find some at the nearby grocery store. Thanks!

amandadunwoody

That's awesome! My whole life, I disliked most fresh vegetables. However, I have discovered that trying foods repeatedly has helped me to learn that I love many foods that I did not eat, even could not eat!
I have tried many times over the years to eat fresh tomato. I've listened all my life to people talk romantically about savoring the juicy red fruit and I've marveled at how something so well loved and so lovely could be, to me, so vile. Well a couple years ago I tried a bright red cherry tomato, warm from the sun, right off the vine in our garden. It was as if I had never really tasted a tomato. It was the best thing ever! I ate them everyday after that all summer. Everytime before I gagged. What changed? Not the tomatoes. It was me. I can't explain it other than that I'm 35 and maybe it's something to do with getting older. But I'm so glad I kept trying. Just about the only things left from my looong list of foods I do not like are raw onions and raw mushrooms.

melimomTARDIS

that butter lettuce is bomb. I also like iceberg quite a bit.

Need2Exerc1se

After eating this lettuce for a while you may find you like others better. A good deal of taste is learned behavior. It's great that you kept searching until you found something you liked. Many people don't do that.

jgnatca

I think sometimes taste of the foods we love are really the memory of the best time we ever had it. For instance, a warm cocoa with marshmallows on a cold winter's day. The experience is imprinted so that even a bad cup of chocolate takes us back to that great day.

I got mightily sick of salads myself when they are a little old, spend too much time in the fridge, lack flavour, etc. But fresh buttercrunch lettuce from the garden, washed and crisped, is hard to beat. This lettuce now transports me to warm summer days, rich in the fruits of harvest.

crystalewhite

jgnatca wrote: »

I think sometimes taste of the foods we love are really the memory of the best time we ever had it. For instance, a warm cocoa with marshmallows on a cold winter's day. The experience is imprinted so that even a bad cup of chocolate takes us back to that great day.

I got mightily sick of salads myself when they are a little old, spend too much time in the fridge, lack flavour, etc. But fresh buttercrunch lettuce from the garden, washed and crisped, is hard to beat. This lettuce now transports me to warm summer days, rich in the fruits of harvest.

So true! I used to go pick beans out of my grandparents' gardens and to this day I like them raw instead of mushy and cooked.

Lizzy622

Kudos for trying new things and not giving up. Life gets boring if we don't change and experiment.

Kalikel

I give greens everything I have and can tolerate more of them than I once did. My problem is that they are so bitter...to me, anyway.

I will have to try living lettuce, if I find it. Thanks for the tip.

gramarye

jgnatca wrote: »

I think sometimes taste of the foods we love are really the memory of the best time we ever had it. For instance, a warm cocoa with marshmallows on a cold winter's day. The experience is imprinted so that even a bad cup of chocolate takes us back to that great day.

I got mightily sick of salads myself when they are a little old, spend too much time in the fridge, lack flavour, etc. But fresh buttercrunch lettuce from the garden, washed and crisped, is hard to beat. This lettuce now transports me to warm summer days, rich in the fruits of harvest.

That's a really lovely sentiment, and I suspect very true.