Half Plate of Veggies!? Say What?

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  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad? I'm tempted to add them to my shopping list this week just to see what everyone is talking about. The only frozen veggies we had as a kid were these peas and carrot mixes, and I literally mean "only". No other frozen veggies were available in shops because I vividly remember asking mom why they had vegetables in the same freezer as frozen dough products, but fresh vegetables and fresh baked items were separate, and she replied it would not make sense to buy a whole freezer for a few bags of peas and carrots. Not sure if we had canned back then or not, but I have seen canned green beans lately while shopping. I'm going to buy a can this week and try them. Frozen meals? now that is something I wish to try. I have been on the hunt and have never seen them sold anywhere.

    Canned carrots are just nasty. Canned green beans aren't very good....still a step up from carrots. The only canned peas I had growing up were Green Giant LeSueur (tiny peas) not horrible. Canned beets are actually decent.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    I have a vivid memory when I was about six, refusing to eat my peas. Olive green from the can, boiled long enough to sterilize, and shrunken to little shrivelled things. It was a standoff and I think I won.

    I had similar memories but I tended to eat the peas. We had a meat, potato and a non-starchy vegetable every meal but my mother was a horrible cook TBH. I could cook far better than her and so I did whenever I could when I got old enough. Apparently, beef doesn't have to resemble shoe leather and poultry doesn't have to be drier than Sahara sands nor do the vegetables have to be boiled into a tasteless mush -- who knew!

  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad? I'm tempted to add them to my shopping list this week just to see what everyone is talking about. The only frozen veggies we had as a kid were these peas and carrot mixes, and I literally mean "only". No other frozen veggies were available in shops because I vividly remember asking mom why they had vegetables in the same freezer as frozen dough products, but fresh vegetables and fresh baked items were separate, and she replied it would not make sense to buy a whole freezer for a few bags of peas and carrots. Not sure if we had canned back then or not, but I have seen canned green beans lately while shopping. I'm going to buy a can this week and try them. Frozen meals? now that is something I wish to try. I have been on the hunt and have never seen them sold anywhere.

    If I eat canned vegetables, other than cream corn, I'll just eat them cold without heating because cooking just doesn't do them any favours.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
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    For me it was the same as for lemurcat. 1968 til I moved out in 1987 for college.
  • geneticsteacher
    geneticsteacher Posts: 623 Member
    edited September 2016
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    Canned vegetables we like and use - green beans, carrots, beets, corn, beans of all kinds, mushrooms. No sugar added to any of these (I have never seen sugar added to any canned vegetable except pickled beets). Vegetables that are much better frozen in our opinion - asparagus, spinach, collard and other greens, peas, broccoli, cauliflower.

    Local and fresh in season are the best. I buy very little supposedly "fresh" vegetables if they are not in season.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited September 2016
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad?

    I thought they were, especially the green beans, which was my least favorite vegetable growing up and is one of my favorites now. Haven't had them since the '80s, though (other than canned tomatoes), so they may have improved. ;-)

    I much prefer frozen if fresh isn't available.
  • blueeyetea
    blueeyetea Posts: 44 Member
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    I grew up not eating vegetables because I didn't like them. I did eat potatoes, and the odd piece of cucumber or carrot, but even with that, my parents cooked meats and potatoes, with a side of whatever vegetable was available at that time of year. I grew up at a time when the only fresh vegetables that could be bought in winter were carrots, celery, turnips, cabbages, and iceberg lettuce. Anything else came in cans. I never saw a bag of frozen vegetables in the house back then, so can't tell if they were available. Summers were better because we had a farmers market nearby and we could buy seasonal fruit.

    I only started expanding my vegetable repertoire when I got my first apartment at 21 and being introduced to healthier meals by my roommate, an avid runner and budding nutritionist.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    edited September 2016
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad?

    I thought they were, especially the green beans, which was my least favorite vegetable growing up and is one of my favorites now. Haven't had them since the '80s, though (other than canned tomatoes), so they may have improved. ;-)

    I much prefer frozen if fresh isn't available.

    Not really a reply to lemur cat, but to amused monkey, and to myself.

    Canned green beans are nasty. So is canned asparagus. Canned mushrooms are mush. We use canned corn for some things like throwing it in a stir fry, or something. We also use canned tomatoes, canned black beans or pinto beans (not veg, I know, but neither is tomatoes).

    All of that said, I have a weird love, and I mean LOVE of canned lima beans and a love for canned le sueur baby peas.
    Canned lima beans are comfort food. There, I said it. ha.
    :smiley:

    And hubs likes canned beets in his salads.
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad? I'm tempted to add them to my shopping list this week just to see what everyone is talking about. The only frozen veggies we had as a kid were these peas and carrot mixes, and I literally mean "only". No other frozen veggies were available in shops because I vividly remember asking mom why they had vegetables in the same freezer as frozen dough products, but fresh vegetables and fresh baked items were separate, and she replied it would not make sense to buy a whole freezer for a few bags of peas and carrots. Not sure if we had canned back then or not, but I have seen canned green beans lately while shopping. I'm going to buy a can this week and try them. Frozen meals? now that is something I wish to try. I have been on the hunt and have never seen them sold anywhere.

    Canned vegetables would've been way more popular when I was growing up than frozen vegetables. My wife grew up in a different culture so knew more about frozen, and does not like canned. The last time we had some excess frozen veg, we gave a package to my mother but she hardly knew what to do with it. Many weeks later when all of ours was gone, we took it back from her and enjoyed every bit of it ourselves.

    While the frozen veg market is growing here, it is still a fact that the higher class supermarkets sell lots of it, and the discount stores sell hardly none. This is due to the income level and completely different types of customer shopping at each location. Home grown or other market fresh vegetables are also preferred rather than frozen.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Machka9 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Now I'm actually curious now about canned veggies. Never tried them, except for canned sweet corn. Are they that bad? I'm tempted to add them to my shopping list this week just to see what everyone is talking about. The only frozen veggies we had as a kid were these peas and carrot mixes, and I literally mean "only". No other frozen veggies were available in shops because I vividly remember asking mom why they had vegetables in the same freezer as frozen dough products, but fresh vegetables and fresh baked items were separate, and she replied it would not make sense to buy a whole freezer for a few bags of peas and carrots. Not sure if we had canned back then or not, but I have seen canned green beans lately while shopping. I'm going to buy a can this week and try them. Frozen meals? now that is something I wish to try. I have been on the hunt and have never seen them sold anywhere.

    Where do you live? No frozen meals? They're in just about every grocery store here and in Canada.

    As for canned veggies ... to me, they taste tinny and weirdly sweet and sour. As though someone dumped a pile of sugar in during the canning process and then went "oops" and poured in some vinegar to try offset the sweetness. And then they pick up the taste of the can a bit.

    The only canned veggies I like are beans of the kidney, chickpea, black, etc. sort which I will use in slow cooker meals.



    I don't live in the US or canada. We have a mostly home cooking culture sometimes with extended families living together or close to each other so there is always someone who can cook, so I guess frozen meals just didn't sell well. We do have canned beans and I buy them often because they are convenient, but I haven't seen actual "vegetables" other than green beans (or maybe wasn't paying attention). What else gets canned? I might buy them and throw them away if I don't like them or have little use for them (like I did with marmite), but I get very curious about any foodstuff I haven't tried. I tried kale and brussel sprouts for the first time last summer and I loved both.

    There are all kinds of vegetables canned. Spinach, carrots, peas, corn, green beans, yams, mixed vegetables, tomatoes, beets, asparagus for example.
    Canned vegetables can have added salt or sugar. They are often mushier in texture. They don't have as much flavor as fresh or frozen. I think corn and tomatoes are the least terrible canned. I buy and use canned tomatoes still but nothing else really. I think the worst is canned mixed vegetables. The flavors combine so they taste like nothing natural with a hint of metallic.

    If you lived in a climate where it got cold and snowy for months you would probably have eaten more frozen or canned vegetables and fruits during that time period at least.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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  • oolou
    oolou Posts: 765 Member
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    When I was young we would nearly always have some vegetables or legume with the main meal, but it would take up about a quarter to a third of the plate, along with fries or mashed potato or boiled potatoes. Really the amount of meat or poultry was too much now I think back. Nowadays, I have trouble getting my chicken on the plate because of all the veggies. I tend to have a mix of runner beans, brocolli and carrots. I have to say that I don't find them yummy but I eat them because reasons.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    I'm in my 40's and a proper meal was meat, vegetables and bread/starch. The meat and vegetables were the nutritious part of the meal you had to eat and the bread or starch was the filler. It was considered enough to eat meat and some vegetables - there was no push to eat enormous quantities of vegetables and to limit or avoid meat like there is today.

    I like vegetables and eat a lot of them but I don't think the current half-your-plate-more-is-better recommendations today are evidence based.
  • RachelElser
    RachelElser Posts: 1,049 Member
    edited September 2016
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    omg, my dad cooked for us until I was a teen and every night it was Meat, Potato, Beans/Corn (canned). That's what his mom fed him. I started cooking as a young teen just to have something different and those skills have served me well. I have about 40 lbs to lose because I worked night shift, ate crap, and ate to much crap.
    However, I do very much appreciate the fact that if we tried something and hated it (looking at you Brussels sprouts) my parents didn't force us to eat it. Both of their parents did that to them and they remember how much they hated it.
  • beginforthelasttime16
    beginforthelasttime16 Posts: 533 Member
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    It really depended on our finances... My mom would sway between being meat heavy or starch heavy with some colorful veggies on the side. She always put a lot of emphasis on having varying colors in a meal

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