Some lunch ideas & vegetables

Are there any vegetables that you do like? What about them do you like? The way they are prepared or their natural flavor? Then think about the same thing for everything you do like. What goes through your mind when you gag them up? Is it just really gross or do you not like the flavor? Not all veggies taste the same. If you think about the answers to these questions you might be able to help yourself.

Try desensitizing yourself a little bit at a time to a vegetable. Buy one green bell pepper, or a carrot, or tomato - whatever seems least revolting. Cut it up into tiny pieces. Dish a tbsp of it out on to your plate with some other healthy snack foods you like. Eat one tiny piece at a time, and then reward yourself with a cracker after each bite you take. If you do this, and do this a lot, you'll probably overcome the grossness. This may sound like a lot of work, but your body will thank you in the end!

My son won't touch any vegetable except for French fries, green olives, and black olives. He has an eating disorder called Extreme Picky Eating/Selective Eating Disorder that makes him fear most foods and comes with a heightened scene of taste & smell. The old adage of "Oh, just dip a carrot into Ranch sauce and you'll love it" is to him dipping a stick into body waste matter. Hub won't touch most veggies either, so I understand where you're coming regarding vegetables. :flowerforyou:

Something I like to eat for lunch or dinner that really fills me up for a long time is a container of Siggi Icelandic style yogurt (organic, low in sugar, high in protein,) 1 cup of defrosted frozen mixed berries, 1/3 cup (the serving size) of A&P's Food Emporium Trading Company - Granola (Apples, Blueberries, Almonds, Pecans, & 4 Seeds. (I'm sure any granola would work.)

Not sure if you eat yogurt or granola, but thought I'd put it out there. My diary is open to friends, but I only just started this week and have been having failed-on-taste pita veggie sandwiches, so those wouldn't help you much. You could dry different breads, like a higher fiber one if that's possible for you. (My son lives on the local brand of potato bread.)

Sorry if this wasn't much help. Just know you're not alone in the won't touch vegetables because they make you gag.

As far as lunch, lunch meat sandwiches are good, don't require any cooking and they're tasty. You should try to find at least one or two vegetables that you can eat. Carrots, peas, and corn are good for people who don't usually like vegetables. If you don't eat a lot of veggies, you should definitely take a multivitamin to fill the gaps in your nutrient intake.

I love veggies, so it is hard to understand for me. so no suggestions for that but yes eat fruit. lots of it. and different kinds. widen your pallet. for lunch sandwiches are not bad. eat a whole grain bread though. also try a yogurt, or boiled egg with it. Try tuna to mix it up a little instead of lunch meat. a handful of nuts is also good.

My son won't touch any vegetable except for French fries, green olives, and black olives. He has an eating disorder called Extreme Picky Eating/Selective Eating Disorder that makes him fear most foods and comes with a heightened scene of taste & smell. The old adage of "Oh, just dip a carrot into Ranch sauce and you'll love it" is to him dipping a stick into body waste matter. Hub won't touch most veggies either, so I understand where you're coming regarding vegetables. :flowerforyou:

I actually thought you were kidding about your son's eating but I think you're really serious. How old is he? What does he actually eat?

Nope, not kidding. He (now 15) was diagnosed at age 11, far later than most of the kids the Children's Feeding Disorder clinic usually sees. While there are a few major causes for it, in my son's case it was him having reflux from ages 0-5 that went undiagnosed even though the pediatrician at the feeding disorder clinic said from his history it was a very clear case and his dr should have picked up on it. By age 5 his brain was wired to fear any food that wasn't safe - foods that wouldn't cause him to throw up.

Safe foods for him are carbohydrates and milk. French fries and milk are his only "will eat any brand and from any restaurant" foods, though he'll now eat bacon from IHOP and not just Oscar Meyer that we buy in bulk from Sam's Club and fry up for him. He'll only eat Dominoes pizza - extra large, extra cheese, extra pepperoni, extra sausage, and light sauce (so there aren't any "sauce volcanoes.") Want to make a kid happy? Have his endocrinologist tell him to keep eating this pizza as often as possible because it's the healthiest thing he'd started eating and got him to grow again.

Oh, yeah, forgot that part. He'd stopped growing properly for nearly two years. (Again, dr didn't catch it until it got to be nearly too late.) Now we watch his fat, protein, calorie, etc intake. All those foods health experts tell kids they shouldn't eat or they'll become obese? My kid needs them - bread (only Meyer's regular and hot dog buns,) full fat beef hot dogs (Ball Park brand only,) Margarita brand pepperoni sold in 5 lb bags at Sam's Club (oh, how he loves his pepperoni!,) McDonald's and Wendy's chicken nuggets and fries (only these brands for the nuggets,) my homemade pancakes, my home roasted turkey (he knows how to cook it too and mostly eats the skin,) and gallons of organic, free-range, whole milk. The only organic thing he'll really eat aside from free-range eggs that go into his pancakes and Jiffy corn muffin mix. Speaking of which, his birthday cake is corn muffins because he won't eat baked cake, only a little of my homemade chocolate cake batter. He'll eat a few sweets like Italian Ice (never, ever ice cream) and Nerds. He also loves certain brands of tortilla chips and potato chips. Oh, and of the 2 cold (never, ever eaten with milk) cereals that'll eat like there's no tomorrow, especially when growth spurting. (And hallelujah that he does have growth spurts. ) He takes vitamins to make up for what his diet lacks.

He's made far greater progress in trying new foods than was predicted. By new and good progress, I mean goals that would seem small to others but are HUGE to him, like eating bacon at one restaurant and not just at home. He tried a tiny taste of a store bought brand of Italian ice. Brands, not new versions of things are his big accomplishments, not switching from chicken nuggets to roasted chicken breast, though we're working on it when he has to have business dinners in his chosen profession. Getting to that goal is a whole, long process called food chaining.

There are online support groups for people with EPE/SED. You would not believe the amount of crap folks with the disorder get, especially in the work place because they just can not eat what everyone else is having at that business meeting or coworkers will make fun of them for only eating fries at lunch. Hell, before my kid was diagnosed, his psK teacher used to taunt him in front of the whole class for refusing to eat ice cream and cookies. :mad:

Well meaning, but so unhelpful advice like "Just dip this into this" and "try this with this sauce," don't work, especially when all of those things are on the "can't even fathom eating" list. What really pisses a person (or their parents) with EPE/SED off is, "How do you know you won't like it unless you try it?" My son has the perfect response, "How do you know you won't like this stick if I dip it poo?"

Sorry to the OP for going off topic. As you can tell, I'm a huge advocate for my son and will education anyone on EPE/SED and his other rare condition, trichotillomania, if given the chance. :drinker: Every time K's been in the hospital for his asthma, we have to educate the staff. A friend of mine just got her EMT licence and her professors hadn't heard of SED either. (Her son has it too.)

It's fine! Don't apologize I didn't know that kind of disorder existed! When my brother was little he was malnourished because he wouldn't eat ANYTHING. He's almost 21 and I've never seen him eat a vegetable or fruit unless it's in something he's eating. All he eats is meat and bread and cheese and fat. But he's autistic and he rocks back and forth and moves constantly so maybe it works better for him now. But that sounds really scary! How do you deal with that kind of disorder! How is he now?

It was scary at first when we realized how few calories and protein he was getting. Hub and I always ate low fat crackers (another food he likes,) hot dogs, etc., so that's what he got too. We had a flurry of activity when he got diagnosed, and thank all the gods and lesser deities that the endrocrinologist shared hospital office space with a dietican because together they hunted down a place that could test him further which led to his diagnoses. The dietician's forms asking the parent to list what their kid ate in a week's time got mixed in with the endocrinologist's. Luckily, I'm the type of person that can't just pick A or B on a form and so broke down what he ate by calories, fat, and protein, then did my own research on what a kid his age should be taking in. He was taking in a 10th of what he should be. That's what got the endo moving, and cheers to him! :drinker:

Anyway, all of those Pedialyte and calorie booster drinks were a huge failure. The kid could smell the chemicals and gagged on the taste. (Turns out a lot of people hate them.) We were told about Scanical calorie booster powder from a friend who's daughter had a similar feeding disorder. It's odorless, tasteless, and full of calories. I was able to sneak that into his pancakes when other things like almond flour didn't work. We switched all of his foods to full fat and it took awhile for him to accept them. (Fat free hot dogs have a completely different taste and texture than full fat ones.)

He's doing great now. He's 5'6' with size 13 feet and currently growth spurting. Meaning he's eating all the time. We joke that it'd be easier to have a convey belt that feeds him directly from a trough. LOL! This week he went through 2 loaves of bread, 2+ gallons of whole milk, a ton of pepperoni and bacon, and 1/3 of a box of Kix to which he added sugar. All of that and he's your typical, thin-as-as-a-rail 15 yr old. :happy: He's getting pizza on Sunday now that the 2 pounds of bacon went down his bottomless pit.

You should see my shopping cart - all organic, low-sodium, vegetarian stuff for me, hub's preferred foods which include meat, and son's full fat foods with bags of chips just for him. (Which I always think people are judging me for and thinking are mine as I'm the overweight one.)

I think ranch on your salad or dipping carrots in it will be fine since you don't eat many vegetables. The nutrients for the veggies are far more important than having a little bit of ranch. If you like carrots, have you tried dipping them in hummus? It's healthier than ranch and may make you feel better about dipping them in something. Cucumbers are also good dipped in it.