I hate eating healthy....

I didn't read all the comments, so I'm not sure if this has been suggested...but Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry's wife) has a book called Deceptively Delicious, Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. Her black bean brownies are very good. Do you like salsa? There are many different types of salsa out there. They taste great over eggs.

Also, putting a little parm cheese on them makes them a bit tastier too.

Good luck. Just take it one meal at a time. Good habits beget good habits. You can do it.

I make veggie quiches (a kind of french pie) or I sautee my veggies with chicken stock and I mix them with lowfat cheeses.
have you tried the cauliflower pizza crust? it has plenty of cauliflower (I've also made it with broccoli), and you can add as many (and as little) veggies on top as you want. And you can barely taste the cauliflower. I love it!!!!

It's not necessary to have salads to get your veggies in your system. You can also try making smoothies, and cold soups (we have gazpacho in southern Spain, you should look for a recipe that suits your tastes, I strongly recommend it).

I used to hate veggies, but I very slowly got used to having them in many different ways and ended up loving many of them.

Do you have the recipe for the cauliflower pizza crust?

You don't have to eat just lettuce or salads to eat healthy. Season your vegetables, steam them.

This ^^ I rarely eat salads, or lettuce. But I rarely steam my vegetables either. I usually saute them in olive oil, or I toss them in olive oil and roast them.

Or put them in a casserole, stew, soup or stir fry. Or on a pizza.

... I've always been a super picky eater, I guess I was much more stubborn than my mother growing up because she finally gave up on forcing me to "try" things. I'm in the same boat with veggies, fruits and whole grains. I seriously can NOT eat them, I can not even bring myself to try. It is totally mental, I admit it. The sight, smell, anticipation of texture all just turn me off and I can't, I can't ... (my husband teases me that I'm like George's mother in Seinfeld who refuses to sleep in the bed after she finds out George got busy in it ... "I can't, I can't" ... but seriously, complete shut down).

People say "just try it" ... maybe I am clinical. My throat shuts down, I'll get emotional and break down and I just know I'll throw up if I put that thing in my mouth. I do realize it's irrational, but I've been this way for 40 years, I've made it this far and I just figure I'm too old to change.

You're not too old to change.

I have a friend like this - who basically lived on plain hamburgers with nothing on them and wouldn't eat fruit or veggies or anything, but he's been branching out. He finally ate a raspberry for the first time in his mid 30's and now he's eating a full range of berries and really likes them. He finally tried eating a few pinto beans.

I think the biggest hurdle for him was getting over the belief that there would be nothing else he likes. You haven't tried everything, so try to keep an open mind that while there may be more foods you hate, there are also very likely going to be more foods that you like and that will be exciting to have more variety in your diet.

Heck, give yourself permission to spit it out if you can't swallow it (probably better to do this at home, but what I'm saying is don't refuse to taste something because you're afraid you have to swallow it.) But also give yourself permission to like new things too, if that makes sense. You can't know that you hate all the foods you haven't tried, so give them a shot before making up your mind. And remember that the way they are cooked and seasoned will make them taste completely different. If you hate raw carrots - cooked carrots are a whole different thing, for example, and carrot soup is too.

Also, veggies like carrots, beets, bell peppers and Vidalia onions are actually quite sweet. One of my favorites is a beet and goat cheese salad on top of greens. You can also use hummus as a dip for most of these veggies and that adds some good fats. The trick is to stop writing off an entire food group and to start actively experimenting with things until you find those that you like. And yes, there is something to continuing to try something until you acquire a taste for it.

I agree with this too. There was actually an article in the news a few months back on cilantro, and why people either love or hate the taste. The conclusion basically was that people who taste cilantro in food when they are young generally like it because they grow up thinking of it as a "food" taste. If you don't try it until later, there is a component in the taste that is very subtle, but it can remind you of being vaguely similar to soap if your brain hasn't already differentiated it and labeled it as food. So some people really hate it, think it tastes like soap and refuse to ever taste it again.

BUT - they've also shown that you will acquire a taste for it if you keep trying. They also determined that fresh, whole cilantro leaves are the most offensive for people who are sensitive. But if you grind it up like pesto - that most people, even those who are sensitive to the taste, don't taste it the same way and it tastes fine. And then by eating it the milder way - ground into pesto, after eating that multiple times, their brains start identifying the flavor properly as food and suddenly they can eat regular fresh cilantro and it tastes good to them.

It's fascinating how that works. But it also kind of proves the theory that if you don't like a food one way, try it another way and see. It may be completely different, and you also may just end up developing a taste for it over time if you try enough preparations.

How do you guys do it?? I really dislike eating vegetables.... ek! There has got to be a way to eat them and they don't taste horribly awful?? I need some sort of motivation! My friend is a personal trainer, went to college and everything for it! And she wants me to eat salads.... I cant seem to choke it down!! How do I make it taste better than just tasting the lettuce... without smothering it in ranch One more thing... are there any runners out there? How do you train yourself to be a long distance runner??

I've known my husband for 15 years and in that time he has NEVER eaten a salad. He hasn't keeled over yet lol. I'm also not a fan of veggies so I eat them sparingly But there's a few that I do like so I just focus on eating those and finding new ways to prepare them, so it doesn't get boring. One of my favorites are bell peppers-I've been eating them in salads and in egg scrambles. But, I recently discovered how awesome they are cooked and stuffed with sausage So now that's a weekly staple for me. Just experiment with the ones you like and don't worry about the ones you don't like!

Also, veggies like carrots, beets, bell peppers and Vidalia onions are actually quite sweet. One of my favorites is a beet and goat cheese salad on top of greens. You can also use hummus as a dip for most of these veggies and that adds some good fats. The trick is to stop writing off an entire food group and to start actively experimenting with things until you find those that you like. And yes, there is something to continuing to try something until you acquire a taste for it.

I agree with this too. There was actually an article in the news a few months back on cilantro, and why people either love or hate the taste. The conclusion basically was that people who taste cilantro in food when they are young generally like it because they grow up thinking of it as a "food" taste. If you don't try it until later, there is a component in the taste that is very subtle, but it can remind you of being vaguely similar to soap if your brain hasn't already differentiated it and labeled it as food. So some people really hate it, think it tastes like soap and refuse to ever taste it again.

BUT - they've also shown that you will acquire a taste for it if you keep trying. They also determined that fresh, whole cilantro leaves are the most offensive for people who are sensitive. But if you grind it up like pesto - that most people, even those who are sensitive to the taste, don't taste it the same way and it tastes fine. And then by eating it the milder way - ground into pesto, after eating that multiple times, their brains start identifying the flavor properly as food and suddenly they can eat regular fresh cilantro and it tastes good to them.

It's fascinating how that works. But it also kind of proves the theory that if you don't like a food one way, try it another way and see. It may be completely different, and you also may just end up developing a taste for it over time if you try enough preparations.

That's so wierd but its exactly what happened of me. HATED it the first time I tried it, it did taste like soap ( had put some chopped cilantro on top of a dish) but ended up eating it in something else a few times and it grew on me. Now I love it, even chopped on top of something.

I think a lot of the key liking vegetables is reducing the amount of sugar, salt and other additives in your food to the point where you can actually TASTE what food actually is. Seriously, a lot of food is crazy loaded with salt, sugar, fat etc to the point where it drowns out the real taste of food. I'd think about reducing sugar and salt way down for awhile. I found that when I cut out most added sugars, regular foods tasted sweeter and less bitter. You begin to taste more subtle flavors. I used to load up my tea, coffee etc with sugar, now I drink it almost black with maybe just a smidge of milk. The sweetest thing I eat on a regular basis is fruit and it tastes very sweet to me now. And like others have said, cooking veggies properly is key. My mom used to love to boil veggies - yuck! I steam them or eat them raw. I am not a fan of most cooked veggies.

I have to admit to being genuinely baffled when I read the "vegetables are all bitter!" thing.

Uh... no they aren't. Certainly, *some* are. If someone says that dandelion greens or mustard greens are bitter, then, yeah. They are. And if you don't like bitter, those won't be your thing. But ALL veggies are not bitter. That's tossing a lot of things --some of wildly different origins, many belonging to entirely different varieties, genuses, and species -- under a classification that they simply do not share. (For instance, tomatoes aren't even vegetables.)

As has been said ad nauseum in the thread, try a variety things cooked in a variety of ways. Some you may like. Others you may not like.

I'd also scale back on the drama. You may not like a veggie, but it should be drama free (and-- unless you actually are allergic-- gag reflex free. Someone may not like a certain vegetable, but if someone is gagging over it, they're just psyching themselves out. Commercially sold vegetables consumed by a lot of the population are not toxic. Unless there's some sort of actual allergy, they shouldn't cause someone to puke, even if they do dislike the flavor or texture.

If you dislike the flavor and/or texture, stop eating it. But it doesn't require melodramatic reactions. Like or hate them, vegetables are inoffensive inanimate objects. They don't respond or change based on how violent a person's response to them may be. So there's no need to make a huge deal out of tasting one.

You don't like one? Stop eating it!
You find one to be inoffensive, maybe you accostom yourself to eating that one more.
And if you like one, for goodness sakes, eat it.