What do you do if someone HATES vegetables?!

Just because you hate toothpaste doesn't mean you don't brush your teeth. Just because you don't like soap doesn't mean you don't bathe.

Every morning millions of people who don't like going to work, do so to earn a check to satisfy their responsibilities.

What does not liking vegitables have to do with eating them. I don't like most of them. I eat them because my body needs them.

"I don't like them." is acceptable from a 3 year old. Much past that, it's time to grow the hell up.

I actually thing trelm makes a really good point. I TOTALLY accept "I hate avacados" (which are fruits, anyway, no?), but "I hate all veggies," is a completely different statement from that.

So actually, I made another suggestion above... But I also agree with telling her to suck it up a little bit.

I actually thing trelm makes a really good point. I TOTALLY accept "I hate avacados" (which are fruits, anyway, no?), but "I hate all veggies," is a completely different statement from that.

So actually, I made another suggestion above... But I also agree with telling her to suck it up a little bit.

But she didn't say she hates them all. She only likes a few. So you start with those and encourage her to try new ones or try things prepared in different ways. But saying she "must" eat them no matter what she thinks of them isn't going to work.

I've always LOVED veggies and am very adventurous with trying foods, so it is hard for me to even fathom how I need to approach this with her.

There is probably a physiological reason for that. Some people can taste chemicals in food that other people can't, in much the same way that color vision is variable - i.e. color blindness and (theoretically) tetrachromats. Have you ever done a PTC or PROP taste testing? It's these little sheets of paper impregnated with a chemical that some people can't taste it at all, some think it is bland or only mildly bitter, and some people think it is terribly bitter or even nauseating. There is a genetic basis for this particular difference in tasting ability, and people who taste these chemicals strongly are called supertasters. Research has shown that people with this genetic variant are much less likely to eat vegetables regularly, and unfortunately, are also much more likely to get colon cancer, probably as a result of poor fiber intake. There are also a variety of other food types that supertasters tend to avoid, but there is enough variability that I think there are probably a lot of other genes involved. Long story short: some vegetables may taste much more bitter or otherwise disgusting to her than they do to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster
http://www.springerlink.com/content/9h425217p82g2g73/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/mn4132184g0w42p7/

Part of me is tempted just to tell her to buck it up and decide how serious she is about being healthy and make a choice to branch out...and start gradually working in more veggies. Or should I just work with what she likes (which is high in starchy carbs) and only focus on overall calorie intake and exercise?

If weight loss is the only goal, then calorie intake restriction and exercise will suffice. There is no inherent need to eat vegetables at all to lose weight. I lost 22 lbs recently with relative ease and I practically never ate vegetables outside of some occasional carrots and a limited selection of beans. Vegetables do help to lose weight though, because they are filling and generally low calories, but it is by no means required. It is however difficult to get all of your micronutrients every day without vegetables, and like I mentioned above, fiber intake will probably suffer. To compensate I religiously take multivitamins, try to make up the difference at least somewhat with fruits, carrots, and V8, and eat a lot of other high fiber foods.

Is it possible to change her tastes? Perhaps. I don't deny that some food aversions are psychological in nature. But hers may not be. In my case, there are many vegetables (among other foods) that cause me to gag and vomit. I have tried over and over again to gradually acclimate myself to some of them, cooking them differently, garnishing them with different things, psyching myself up for 20 minutes before and convincing myself that it will taste great, and it still happens. I can eat some of these foods that ordinarily evoke this reaction when their taste and texture are destroyed by being cooked in a strongly flavored soup with some more palatable things, but that's the only way I've found that works, and it doesn't work for everything. My mother desperately tried the "sneaking them in" thing with me and it rarely worked. I can still remember when she tried the cauliflower mashed potato thing....disaster. I kind of hated her a little for trying that.

The best piece of advice I can give you is that trying to make her feel ashamed about not having the willpower to eat the things you want her to eat is counterproductive. Try to put yourself in her shoes: what if someone told you to drink a quart of motor oil, and if you can't stomach it, it's just because you're weak and you'll never be healthy? Just try a little motor oil at a time and build up to the full quart. It sounds silly, doesn't it? That's how it felt for me being told to eat some foods. My family gave me so much $#!7 about food when I was growing up, telling me how ungrateful I was, and that I just didn't know what was good. At times I refused to even try things just to spite them for how bad they made me feel. I was probably 13 or 14 by the time they all finally got the message that I would not budge, and finally stopped trying to make me eat things that make me feel sick. From then on they were content to just ridicule me every other meal, and they continue to do so to this day at family gatherings, though thankfully much less frequently. Please do not do that to this girl. It accomplished nothing in me. I still eat roughly the same things despite years of emotional turmoil and embarrassment, and any progress I have made in trying new things has happened only when I have been away from that kind of inane criticism. If you want to help her, then find out what she likes first, and then build slowly from there, introducing new foods rarely and not demeaning her if she can't tolerate them. You can also find healthier variants of the foods she likes that are lower calories and better nutritionally (lower carbs in her case, perhaps lower sodium and higher protein as well). Check out a book like "Eat This Not That."

I don't eat any veggies and hardly any fruit.

I just watch my calories, take my supplements, exercise often. You don't HAVE to eat veggies to lose weight. I'm sure that idea of "Just grow up and eat them" puts many people off even trying.

The minute you start adding in things you don't like, the more likely is you will give up on it.

Hide them in food, cook for her then when she decides she likes it, show her the ingredients. There was a lot of vegetables that I don’t like but when I started cooking them different ways I found I liked more of them as time went on.

If you want to help her, then find out what she likes first, and then build slowly from there, introducing new foods rarely and not demeaning her if she can't tolerate them. You can also find healthier variants of the foods she likes that are lower calories and better nutritionally (lower carbs in her case, perhaps lower sodium and higher protein as well). Check out a book like "Eat This Not That."

Your entire post was excellent. You said everything much more eloquently and articulately than I could.

is that probable in more vegetables than I realize? I remember testing the strips in college chem and bio classes, but those were presented specifically as the chemical present in Brussels sprouts (which I believe most people dislike because they haven't tried them roasted or sautéed, just boiled way too far, but I digress), not something in all or most veggies. Broccoli might also have something of that nature, I may have read? What I'm asking is if that's possibly a factor in disliking almost an entire food group, rather than 1-2 options from that food group.

PTC and PROP are two related chemicals, one is a thiourea and the other a thioamide. PTC is not found in any foods at all, but still has been found to correlate to taste preferences, which should indicate to you that our taste buds are not necessarily specific to one chemical or even one class of chemicals to evoke a similar taste response. Even though PTC and PROP are bitter, ability to taste them strongly is also associated with avoidance of excessively fatty, sour, and even sweet foods in some cases. People who can taste PTC and PROP generally will have more taste buds on their tongue as well, and that might explain that. As one taste researcher put it, being a supertaster is like living in a world of neon lights where everyone else sees pastels.

As for why this would extend to most vegetables instead of just a few, actually many vascular plants which we eat as vegetables contain varying amounts of a large class of chemical called alkaloids which are somewhat similar to PTC and PROP. And interestingly, in most cases they are used in a defensive capacity, in other words, to discourage other creatures from eating the plant, and they are almost universally bitter tasting. Different plants have different amounts and different kinds, which may explain some of the variation in taste preferences.

The point is that people's tastes may be radically different for real, physical reasons, and not just because of personal preference or whim or stubbornness or attention seeking as some would have us believe. Think about this: 25% of the population taste *nothing* when they put a PROP strip in their mouth, and 25% taste an utterly vile bitterness that almost makes them sick. That's not preference, that's a difference in tasting ability, and to a person who like the OP who just can't understand how anybody could not love vegetables, this should make a lot of sense. She likely can't taste the very intense, disgusting bitterness that people like me can.

I envy her for that, personally. It is a major pain in the @$$ to be so restricted in my food choices as I am, and I'm not gladly anticipating an increased risk of colon cancer.

This really helped put things into perspective for me. thanks for sharing.

is that probable in more vegetables than I realize? I remember testing the strips in college chem and bio classes, but those were presented specifically as the chemical present in Brussels sprouts (which I believe most people dislike because they haven't tried them roasted or sautéed, just boiled way too far, but I digress), not something in all or most veggies. Broccoli might also have something of that nature, I may have read? What I'm asking is if that's possibly a factor in disliking almost an entire food group, rather than 1-2 options from that food group.

PTC and PROP are two related chemicals, one is a thiourea and the other a thioamide. PTC is not found in any foods at all, but still has been found to correlate to taste preferences, which should indicate to you that our taste buds are not necessarily specific to one chemical or even one class of chemicals to evoke a similar taste response. Even though PTC and PROP are bitter, ability to taste them strongly is also associated with avoidance of excessively fatty, sour, and even sweet foods in some cases. People who can taste PTC and PROP generally will have more taste buds on their tongue as well, and that might explain that. As one taste researcher put it, being a supertaster is like living in a world of neon lights where everyone else sees pastels.

As for why this would extend to most vegetables instead of just a few, actually many vascular plants which we eat as vegetables contain varying amounts of a large class of chemical called alkaloids which are somewhat similar to PTC and PROP. And interestingly, in most cases they are used in a defensive capacity, in other words, to discourage other creatures from eating the plant, and they are almost universally bitter tasting. Different plants have different amounts and different kinds, which may explain some of the variation in taste preferences.

The point is that people's tastes may be radically different for real, physical reasons, and not just because of personal preference or whim or stubbornness or attention seeking as some would have us believe. Think about this: 25% of the population taste *nothing* when they put a PROP strip in their mouth, and 25% taste an utterly vile bitterness that almost makes them sick. That's not preference, that's a difference in tasting ability, and to a person who like the OP who just can't understand how anybody could not love vegetables, this should make a lot of sense. She likely can't taste the very intense, disgusting bitterness that people like me can.

I envy her for that, personally. It is a major pain in the @$$ to be so restricted in my food choices as I am, and I'm not gladly anticipating an increased risk of colon cancer.

Thank you for putting that together! Very interesting.

With that in mind, OP, I'd do some curiousity-satisfying non-scientific studies on her. LOL I'd be dying to know if she was in this group (honestly, I know a ton of people who were only raised with canned vegetables, or not exposed to many at all, and now "don't like vegetables", and I would be thinking that number would be much higher than the super-tasters, but that's just my guess).

Best of luck to her!

I hate raw veggies, I mean I am 39 year old female and have JUST started eating salads. The best advice I have gotten is start small like shredded carrots, small gourmet cucumbers sliced very thin, etc.... use fat free ranch, whatever it takes to acquire a taste AND eat these types of food first when you get hungry. I think that is key. Just eat the baby carrots, drowned in veggie dip and then move on to the good stuff;-)

Maybe if you show her how much more food she can have in regards to vegetable calories verses a potato or pasta calories, she will give it a try. I was never crazy about string beans until I found out how low in calories they are. Like others have said, different preperations of the vegetables. Bell Pepper is really good sauteed or cooked in lean ground beef. Cucumbers are better in vinegar than plain to me. Ask her parents what vegetables she ate as a baby. Maybe you can bring in the adult version of these and she can develop a taste for them. Good Luck