help I don't eat fruit or veggies.

you're kidding, right?

There are various green powders, v8, and other juices, but you need to work on adjusting your palate. You are too old to still be gagging on fruits and veggies! Getting used to them, and even loving them will not only help with your weight loss journey since they are rich in fiber, but help prevent cancer, heart disease, and many other ailments.

Not sure where you live, but it's a fantastic summer for fruit. The nectarines, watermelon, plums, and bananas are particularly good. Veggies are even easier because you can season them right. Try mixing them into your favorite meat dishes so they can absorb the flavor. Substitute kale and spinach for lettuce in salads (you do eat salads, right?). You could even throw some in the blender and make a green smoothies to gulp down.

I agree with cutmd--while there are a lot of supplements out there, they can't replace all the good stuff in fruit and veggies, most importantly the fiber which acts to supress hunger (I highly doubt *any* fruit/veggie supplement would give you the amount of fiber you would normally find in the amount of fresh food that would provide equal amounts of vitamins). Also, these supplements would need to be processed to reduce them to powder/pill form, so even if they're organic you're still not getting the best quality nutrition. And, they're expensive, probably more so than fresh fruit and veg. You could try starting with inconspicuous ones that have neutral flavours like cauliflower and season it however you want. I saw a recipe once for "Apple Pie Carrots", which is essentially carrots which were steamed, then tossed in butter (you could use something else if butter is too many calories/too much fat) and a cinnamon/nutmeg blend, so they don't really taste like carrots but they're pretty decent nutritionally (and, since they're steamed they retain a lot of their original vitamins, and the fat from the butter helps you absorb the vitamin A from them).

when i was working and needed my veggies but couldn't take a break , this helped me.... i'd get some sort of juice, any kind you like, cook-up my veggies real soft, and then blender it together. drinking my veggies was easier than eating them. same a v8 and such but more "homemade" style.

Good luck

Just try and eat them. I used to never eat a lot of fruits and veggies and now I eat a lot of them. Honestly it takes about 15-16 tries of eating something to develop a taste for it. I buy tons of fresh veggies from Trader Joes and eat them at every meal!

look up healthy recipes for children, alot of children have the same problems as you, so many have created ways of sneaking veggies into their childrens diets. try adding pureed veggies into soups,sauces, and burgers. you'll never taste the difference.

on a side note, i LOVE veggies, try going to a farmers market and trying new things

There are many different ways to eat fruits and vegetables. Try stir fried vegetables.... there are a variety of sauces that you can use to maybe make things more palatable to you.

Baked apple with just a sprinkle of cinnamon...

Make a small fruit smoothie by blending fruit together (I wouldn't use juice though, just blend fruits).

Try things like zucchini shredded and added to a salad... makes it a lot better.

Try blanched broccoli and cauliflower on your salad. Boil water, put in the vegetables for 2 mins, then dump the veggies into a colander.. then pour cold water on the veggies to stop them from continuing to cook.

Try adding a little parmesan cheese to your vegetables.

Try adding "spike" to vegetables. Google "spike" it's a seasoning.

Dear Doomed,

If you do not eat fruits or vegetables, you may be doomed to a life of over-weight and poor health. I am wondering, without any fruits and vegetables, what are you filling your day with? That is probably the problem. If you have trained your tongue and brain to love sugary or fatty foods, then the pleasure center of your brain will fight back and tell you that healthy food does not taste as good. Without the junk food to compare to, fruits and vegetables will begin to taste good. Use fresh fruits rather than canned. Frozen fruit is flash frozen right after picking and is healthy and easy to use in cereals, salads, smoothies. You can get bags of frozen bing cherries, blueberries, peaches and even pineapple at Walmart or grocery stores. Try steaming your veggies slightly (or blanching in boiling water for 1 minute) to make them easier to eat and then enjoy them with some light ranch dressing. I bet that if you told yourself you had to eat 4 servings per day of fruit or vegetables for 1 month, at the end your would like them better and be eating less junk food. Remember - you are what you eat! God Luck!

Fighting the Bulge,

Well done for asking for help -- you must be serious about this if you're willing to open up about your fruit/veg problem.

There's been a lot of good advice, and I just wanted to give you a couple of examples from my life about problems trying new foods. Before that, though, please please keep in mind that your tastes DO change as you get older -- I can see that you're 26. I remember trying various foods when I was in my late 20's that I just *hated* as a teenager, only to realize that they weren't so bad. And don't tell my mother, but part of it was that I didn't like certain foods the way she cooked them, but I liked other peoples' recipes. lol

We have a rule at our house called the 'one bite rule'. No-one has to eat everything on their plate (I don't think that's a good habit, anyway, for people who struggle with their weight!) but you do have to have one bite, even if it's something you don't like. My step-daughter, in particular, has changed from a child who would only eat potatoes and chicken to a teen who eats a huge variety of food. We still get the 'I don't like that' comments regularly, but she still ends up eating the food so I just ignore the complaints.

The other thing I want to mention is how I learned to like olives. I've always hated olives, and avoided anything that contained olives. But as I've gotten older, I've seen some good recipes with olives that I wanted to try, if only I could eat the olives. So I decided to 'train' my palate to tolerate them. Another poster mentioned that it takes 15 or so attempts at a new food to be able to like it. I had read that years ago (hence the one-bit-rule in our house) so thought I'd use it on myself. Any time I was at a restaurant that had olives on the table, I'd eat one. And do you know what? It took a few years (as I didn't have them very often) but now I'm ok with olives. I'm not saying I love them, but I wouldn't avoid eating something just because it contained olives. I really do like black olives with feta, but it's so high in fat I can't really eat them often.

I hope you have some time to reflect on all the comments that have been posted, and come up with a way that you can change your eating habits and eat more healthily. If you start out with supplements while just taking tastes of things or having fruit/veg smoothies, that's ok and way better than just avoiding them altogether. Just work toward making the changes, and be open about new veggie tastes (or the tastes of the same old veggies cooked/seasoned differently!) and in a couple of years you'll be eating a wide range of food.

HTH

I'm 55 and still cannot swallow cooked cabbage or spinach. I've tried and tried but I gag. The best way I've found to eat it is in coleslaw but I use plain yogurt and a little horeradish sauce mixed in instead of the mayo.

I can't eat strong oily fish either and it's a bit cruel to more or less say grow up.

The other problem is the cost. My food bill has escalated with the healthy eating. Not easy when on a tight shoestring.

Do you like stuff like tomato sauce (I think it's marinara sauce in the US) and pasta? My aunt used to hide veg in spaghetti and meatballs for my cousin, who was the fussiest eater! In fact, the only thing he would eat for 6 months was speaghetti with meatballs and spag bol!

You basically just sautee onions and carrots 9and anything else - maybe broccoli, red peppers, more tomatoes) in a little oil, then puree it and add to pasta sauce. You'll not really taste the difference, but you won't see the veg so it might help!

She also used to add pureed cooked carrots and onions to the meatballs.

This is a real problem for people nowadays. Many people were not fed fruit and veg from an early age, so as they grow older, they become very picky about what they eat. Unfortunately this trend can be passed on from generation to generation. I'm not sure what the answer is, but good luck in your quest.

AnnieeR has a good response. It does take time to reprogram your tastes. Don't give up. Fruits & veg can be a life saver!