Learning to like raw veggies?

Actually, the only raw veggies I eat are salad greens and cucumbers, tomatoes on sandwiches, and whatever is in those delicious fresh Thai spring rolls. I prefer my veggies steamed or roasted, as a rule.

I got my kids to eat vegetables with dips. Their favorite is Greek yogurt mixed with Hidden Valley ranch dip mix.

They only like raw veggies and hate cooked. Same for my husband, pretty much.

Sunnybrooke99 wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

khaleesikhaleesi wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

Snap peas are by far my favorite raw veggie.

.......

A bit of a stretch - but I grew up eating green jello with an assortment of chopped veggies. Celery, cabbage and shredded carrot. Orange jello with shredded carrot & crushed pineapple.

(More) convenient cooked veggies? I bring fresh green beans to work and steam them 3.5 minutes in a ZipLock Zip-N steam or Glad-Simply Cooking bag.....rinse and reuse.

wat?

Jell-O with vegetables? Carrots and pineapple??? Are we not going to talk about this?

THIS WAS TOTALLY A THING BACK IN THE DAY! I think especially in the 50's-70's: Parents made their kids all kinds of things in jello.

So true!

@aeloine you can find old time recipes for Jello aspic (tomato juice & lemon jello)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/17-horrifyingly-disgusting-retro-gelatin-recipes?utm_term=.ygMnrqdmd#.kvDv72bjb

"Cucumber, celery, and lime Jello; one of these things is not like the other."

THIS IS HILARIOUS.

I've seen the old timey "recipes" on gag sites but I didn't think anyone actually ATE the stuff LMAO

Just for laughs, I actually made a jello that had mayo, cucumber, pineapple, and lime jello.. it was actually amazing and now I crave it.

Mayo and jello

dsboohead wrote: »

Sunnybrooke99 wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

French_Peasant wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

khaleesikhaleesi wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

Snap peas are by far my favorite raw veggie.

.......

A bit of a stretch - but I grew up eating green jello with an assortment of chopped veggies. Celery, cabbage and shredded carrot. Orange jello with shredded carrot & crushed pineapple.

(More) convenient cooked veggies? I bring fresh green beans to work and steam them 3.5 minutes in a ZipLock Zip-N steam or Glad-Simply Cooking bag.....rinse and reuse.

wat?

Jell-O with vegetables? Carrots and pineapple??? Are we not going to talk about this?

THIS WAS TOTALLY A THING BACK IN THE DAY! I think especially in the 50's-70's: Parents made their kids all kinds of things in jello.

So true!

@aeloine you can find old time recipes for Jello aspic (tomato juice & lemon jello)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/briangalindo/17-horrifyingly-disgusting-retro-gelatin-recipes?utm_term=.ygMnrqdmd#.kvDv72bjb

"Cucumber, celery, and lime Jello; one of these things is not like the other."

THIS IS HILARIOUS.

I've seen the old timey "recipes" on gag sites but I didn't think anyone actually ATE the stuff LMAO

Just for laughs, I actually made a jello that had mayo, cucumber, pineapple, and lime jello.. it was actually amazing and now I crave it.

Mayo and jello

Oh, I know. I literally picked it bc it looked like one of the weirdest in the book (other than encased tuna salads and such). I was shocked that it was good.

For the original OP question (although the jello discussion is hilarious!) -
If you want to train yourself to like veggies, I'd say first thing to do is figure out why you don't already.

Is it the taste? The texture? Something else? If it is ANYTHING other than 'I never really eat it raw so I am not used to the taste and texture,' then you are likely going to fail 'training' yourself to like them, IMHO. Because the fact is...you like veggies. You just don't like them raw. And there is nothing WRONG with that. It's a preference, not a sin, you know?

And sometimes, that is not just something we can make go away with more exposure. I dislike almost all veggies, and most fruit. Always have, had to eat them anyway, ate a ton of them, STILL dislike them. I have tried them seven ways from Sunday, and it doesn't matter; still bad. However, I have found ways to make sure I EAT them, anyway.

And mostly, I did what I mentioned above: looked at why I hated them, and then, I found ways to alter what I didn't like. Like, if it's the taste, having dipping sauces may help. if it's the texture, making tinier pieces or slices, or pounding them flat, or mixing them with other things that help mask the texture may help.

And I would also consider the possibility that there may be a reason you don't like raw veggies that goes beyond simply 'not liking.'

I've met a number of people now who found out they have OAS (oral allergy syndrome) where they have a small reaction on oral contact with many raw veggies or fruits, but that cooking denatures the proteins enough so that they can eat them just fine. Many of these folks grew up just thinking didn't like raw veggies, and found out that it was more than that when they started eating raw veggies more and weren't feeling so great.

I've also met a few who don't seem to digest raw veggies real well, and so they would have these really low level stomach aches they never really even registered consciously, that would put them off the raw veggies. But they'd try to 'get healthy' and add a bunch of veggies in, and then start REALLY not feeling great, and finally figured it out.

I just mention these for if you do start eating more raw veggies and something is weird as a result, you know?

maryannprt wrote: »

aeloine wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

Snap peas are by far my favorite raw veggie.

.......

A bit of a stretch - but I grew up eating green jello with an assortment of chopped veggies. Celery, cabbage and shredded carrot. Orange jello with shredded carrot & crushed pineapple.

(More) convenient cooked veggies? I bring fresh green beans to work and steam them 3.5 minutes in a ZipLock Zip-N steam or Glad-Simply Cooking bag.....rinse and reuse.

wat?

Jell-O with vegetables? Carrots and pineapple??? Are we not going to talk about this?

Honey, we don't want to talk about it. Those of us who lived it are still trying to forget.

I wouldn't say that, personally. I was alive for the heyday (b. 1955). Weird, but not always disgusting.

I kind of think lemon and lime Jello of that era may have been a little less sweet (or maybe just less strongly flavored). I'm not totally sure, because I haven't tasted it lately . . . I've been vegetarian since 1974, and Jello isn't.

People around here still make foods (salads? dunno what to call them!) that mix things like cottage cheese, fruit, cool whip, and Jello - not a molded thing like the old ones, but soft. Does nowhere else have these? I obviously don't eat them (knowingly!) but others seem to like them. (As an aside, I don't even consider Cool Whip a food. Yuck!)

Back on topic: OP, maybe start with lightly cooked (steamed or blanched) veggies, and work your way toward raw. Or try things you've never had before, so don't have preconceptions about - I dunno, maybe celeriac, jicama, hakurei turnips, . . . ? These days, you can go to a big produce market, see something you've never had, look it up on your phone to see how to eat it, and buy it. What's the worst that can happen? It's a fun, cheap adventure!

dip, its all about the dip.

Savory vegetable aspics (essentially, veggies in homemade gelatin cooked from animal parts) was a fancy thing long before Jello was invented. Of course, the Jello people looked for ways to encourage people to buy and eat more Jello, so they ran recipes on packages and in ads for updated aspics using fruits and sweet-friendly vegetables (and fruits),since the Jello flavors were all on the sweet side. They fell out of fashion partly as they became associated with past decades and older generations, and partly because people started shaming each other for food shortcuts that relied on packaged convenience foods (only to start eating way more carry-out than the generations that used the convenience food shortcuts alongside a home-cooked protein, a home-cooked starch, and probably at least one other home-cooked veggie). A lot of the recipes were made with mayonnaise or mayo-esque "salad dressing," or marshmallows, I suspect because they were the product of Kraft recipe developers or Kraft recipe contests that required you to use at least three Kraft products.

Try blanching your veggies then eating them chilled. They'll be neither too soft nor too hard, but chilled like raw veggies would be. I've done this with carrots, cauliflower, broccoli and green beans.