Vegetables - The Bane of My Existence

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datenshi
datenshi Posts: 840 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Oh broccoli with your abundance of Vitamin A,

Oh how I dislike thee.

Oh lima beans with your wealth of potassium,

Oh how you choke me.

And on and on I could go...

So as you may have guessed... I dislike vegetables. The vegetables I can stomach, I can only do so once, maaaaaybe twice a week. So what is one to do when they are trying to eat better, lose weight, and runs at the sight of anything leafy and green?

Any and all suggestions welcome and in anticipation of what I am guessing would be the first question... I like potatoes, I can tolerate corn, raw cucumber, and raw carrots (but only once or twice a week) and I think that about covers it. If I am feeling truly reckless I might have some green pepper once a month or so.

Are there any really good fruits that will give me the same nutrition benefits as vegetables?

Are there any others out there that experience the same issue? If so, what do you do?

Take care all,
Tammy
:flowerforyou:

Replies

  • BrendaLee
    BrendaLee Posts: 4,463 Member
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    I wish I could help, but I hate them too! :angry:
  • pickadilly2009
    pickadilly2009 Posts: 320 Member
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    I don't like them either. I eat broccoli, spinach, zuchinni and asparagus....well and salad I like but that is my entire veggie plate! I don't consider onion as a veggie but I do eat a lot of those. I have heard there are books out there that help you get veggies into your kids by disguising them in other foods...maybe we should get those books and do it to ourselves! lol
  • lynniejones
    lynniejones Posts: 1,291 Member
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    What don't you like about them? The flavor? The texture? How do you normally prepare them?
  • PinkShoes
    PinkShoes Posts: 269 Member
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    Hi!
    I love vegetables! But I get bored of just ordinary steamed or boiled veggies. I go to cooking websites such as www.cookinglight.com, www.eatingwell.com, www.eatbetteramerica.com, or just google...most websites have a search engine withing them...I type in a specific ingredient, such as carrots, green beans, broccoli, etc., and it brings up a list of recipes featuring that ingredient. Many of the recipes are really yummy because they incorporate other flavors!

    When it comes to leafy greans, have you tried swiss chard? I HATE cooked spinach but I LOVE cooked swiss chard. Cut up the chard (leaves and stems). Boil the stems for about 20 min. or until tender. Boil the leaves for about 5 min. or until tender. Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add chard leaves and stems and minced garlic (I like a lot of garlic so I mince several cloves). Sautee everything for about 10 minutes or so. Add a splash of lemon juice right before serving. Also, I like to sprinkle malt vinegar over any cooked green!

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  • gemiwing
    gemiwing Posts: 1,525 Member
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    Hide them! Puree them and hide them in your spaghetti sauce (great for greens and carrots).
  • onfleur
    onfleur Posts: 159 Member
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    Khmut may be the answer to your dilemma towards vegetables. You can actually drink your greens. I drink one to two glasses a day and find that it works great for me. Try it, you may like it.:flowerforyou: :flowerforyou:
  • Phoenixflame
    Phoenixflame Posts: 560 Member
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    Haha, considering I go through tubs of raw veggies, I'm not there for much support. But veggies rock, point blank. Plants should be THE staple of your diet. I say this as a devoted meat eater who flies off the handle when someone disses beef as pure heart-gunk.

    Thankfully, there are many ways to hide them.

    Pick mellow flavored veggies like zucchini.

    Dress 'em up with sauces and spreads (you can make them yourself)

    Hide them in smoothies and sauces

    Go wild with spices

    Use MODERATE, HEALTHY amounts of oil--extra virgin coconut oil is my new obsession!

    Sprinkle on nuts!

    Try EVERYTHING. There are so many vegetables in the world--I'm sure you'll find more that you like. Visit an ethnic grocery store! Pop down to the farmers' market!
  • angelajiniel
    angelajiniel Posts: 115
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    I am also not a fan of veggies.

    I have recently learned to stomach broccoli (but only with cheese or butter!) and asparagus. if asparagus is cooked properly, it's almost sweet. I love to grill it up with just a little olive oil, salt and pepper. I have also found that I can add some to soups and stews and not notice. Squash and zucchini hide nicely. I've also added spinach to Italian dishes without noticing. My husband swears he can tell and won't eat it, but I can't taste a difference, and I know it's there! You can also hide pureed cauliflower in just about any sauce. And mashed potatoes. Oh, and sweet potato fries are pretty good too.

    I have to hide most of my veggies just like with that cookbook for kids. Even though I know they're there, because I put them there, I can still do it. I've learned that I have to do my best for myself. Plus, when I have kids, I don't want to pass these bad habits along to them. That's my motivation. Good luck!
  • delpha2
    delpha2 Posts: 42
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    Dear derocco,

    It somehow seems that maybe you want to like vegetables...that you think they are healthy and good for you and feel that you should be eating more of them. This is a good time to explore the reasons why you hate veggies. Aversions are part of conditioned behavior and eating habits are established early in life. Think about all the preferences you have for certain foods, too. Do you love oatmeal raisin cookies because your grandmother always baked them?

    My husband grew up eating white bread and canned veggies as a child. He told me about a visit he had at a friend's house and the disgusting whole wheat peanut butter and jelly sandwich his friend's mom made for him. He said it was so dry and he could hardly choke it down. Of course, now he only eats whole wheat bread and finds the white stuff to be lacking in the nutty flavor and rich texture of whole wheat bread.

    Even a smoker who gives up after 20 years of addiction will say that cigarettes stink or that they can't stand the taste of them after a while of being smoke free.

    I cut sugar out of my diet and so when I eat something with sugar it tastes so sweet to me.

    Your current tastes are not permanent. With some experimentation, open-mindedness and the willingness to take a look at your own habits in a larger context, you can learn to LOVE veggies. I promise. If you do the work, you won't believe that there was a time when you didn't love your veggies.
  • datenshi
    datenshi Posts: 840 Member
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    Wow, thank you all for your input and suggestions. There are quite a few I can try and hopefully get more veggies in me...lol.

    I grew up on canned veggies and we rarely had raw/fresh veggies. I've tried fresh veggies since then and there are a couple i can stomach as I mentioned but not very often.

    I will give some of your suggestions a try and again thank you for your support and taking the time to respond. It is very much appreciated!

    Have a great weekend!
    Tammy
  • SkinnyMummy
    SkinnyMummy Posts: 4
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    Hi,

    I too was like you in that i hated veggies, but i learnt to cook them indian-style, with spices adding healthy nutritious and very low calorie flavour. Once you've learnt to make the base sauce you can add ANY veg or a mixture of veg to it and is always yummy!! Even my partner enjoys the dishes, and he cannot usually stand vegetables either!!

    Good luck experimenting
    x
  • Johnnyswife
    Johnnyswife Posts: 1,447 Member
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    Cheese is the chocolate of the veggie world! Cover some of these in cheese, and it makes it easier to eat.
    I hate most veggies too. Try eating stuff like green beans, snap peas, spinich, raw! They are awsome in salads, plus eating them fresh allows you to get all the vitamens that normaly cook out.
  • arewethereyet
    arewethereyet Posts: 18,702 Member
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    So here is how I introduced veggies to my existence.

    I love tomato sauce for my pasta. Tomato is a veggie.

    One down

    I add onions, that makes 2

    I now add summer squash and zuchinni making 3 and 4

    add a nice salad with green lettuce, matchstick carrots, sliced up cabbage and I have an entire days veggies on one plate.

    That was a year ago, now I HAVE to have my veggies. DH made burgers last week for dinner (1x a year he cooks:laugh: ) I dare not complain.............when he called me to dinner there was a salad AND a veggie!!

    Good luck:flowerforyou:
  • FireMonkey
    FireMonkey Posts: 500 Member
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    I used to hate veggies, but there are so many choices out there that I found some I like. It also helps if you're able to grow some in your garden or on your balcony. There is just no comparison between home-grown and store-bought. Or try the local farmers' market.

    I also check the frozen food aisle - it's gone way beyond "frozen-peas-and-carrot-mix". I like the "Europe's Best" brand, especially the "Zen Garden". Just haul out the wok, throw some chicken or shrimp in the bottom, half a bag of Zen Garden, some bok choy, and add a sauce you like, and there's half your dinner. You can add cellophane noodles right in the wok, or we usually have brown rice with it.
  • Amy_B
    Amy_B Posts: 2,323 Member
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    Here's a smoothie I've heard of to hide the veggies...
    1/2 a banana
    2/3 cup frozen spinach (about 1/2 a frozen block you get in the stores)
    1 cup milk
    1 scoop of protein powder
    1 tbs ground flax seeds
  • ngwife4life
    ngwife4life Posts: 569
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    Wow, thank you all for your input and suggestions. There are quite a few I can try and hopefully get more veggies in me...lol.

    I grew up on canned veggies and we rarely had raw/fresh veggies. I've tried fresh veggies since then and there are a couple i can stomach as I mentioned but not very often.

    I will give some of your suggestions a try and again thank you for your support and taking the time to respond. It is very much appreciated!

    Have a great weekend!
    Tammy

    My husband grew up on canned vegetables as well and HATES everything except corn. I've managed to hide very finely chopped broccoli in spaghetti sauce and my next trick is going to be yellow squash. His parents used to give him baked and mashed potatoes with ketchup (yuck!) but I've recently given them to him with butter/salt and then a baked one with cheese and bacon bits. He hates me for making him like them! The suggestions you have gotten, I agree with. I've been working to mask them with other dishes and sauces so that he has no idea he's eating them. It works well with mushrooms, too but if you can identify the specific piece of food, it's probably too big. I love adding mushrooms to sauces to help fill me up faster! :flowerforyou:
  • jlwhelan1
    jlwhelan1 Posts: 664
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    I was recently introduced to roast veggies and now they are a staple of my house.

    Here is one combo I recently tried because it was the combination we had on hand in the house.

    yams (peeled and cut into chunks)
    fresh (homegrown in my case) beets peeled and cut into chunks
    Onion cut into quarters or large pieces

    drizzle olive oil over all
    grind fresh pepper over all
    sprinkle paprika over all

    mix to coat

    cover in aluminum foil and bake (375) until all are soft and cooked.

    This is remarkably sweet and very satisfying. This is the first time I've EVER liked beets.

    I have used many combination of veggies depending on what we had on hand and we have liked them all - but some were more out there than others.

    potato (red, yellow, purple)
    sweet potato
    yam
    carrot
    turnip
    rutabaga
    cabbage (my husband's favorite! and I never liked cabbage before I had it fried in an Indian dish and then this.)
    beets

    My 10 year old likes radish (1/2s) and red potatoes cut to the same size and roasted in this way for breakfast. I'm not as big of fan of the radish flavor, but I still eat it.
  • datenshi
    datenshi Posts: 840 Member
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    Hi all,

    Wow, tons of more suggestions. With all of these great ideas I am sure to get them in my diet somehow. Some of these suggestions reminded me of some ways I do like some veggies but as you will read, I am an awful cook and I only ever get them when someone else’s cooks them for me...lol.

    SkinnyMummy – Indian style sounds good. I like curried chicken if it isn’t tooooo hot and I think I would like it with carrots and maybe a few other veggies I can think of. It is the taste of vegetables that is my problem rather than texture or smell so stronger spices might be one of the tricks I need.

    Johnnysgirl34 – Sadly I am not a big fan of cheese either except processed slices...lol... although cheese is how I get onions in my diet, except I have read some people don’t count them as veggies. It may sound gross to some people but I love fried onions mixed with hash browns and melted Kraft slices and dip it in ketchup. My husband hates when I cook it though because it makes the whole house smell like onions...lol.

    Arewethereyet – I do love pasta and am going to try switching to whole wheat, adding some veggies, even just a little to the sauce is a good idea. A few people have mentioned zucchini has less flavour to it so I might try that one.

    Hanne56 – I love the Europe’s Best frozen fruit but haven’t tried any of the veggies yet. Do they really taste the same as fresh or do you find there is a difference?

    Amy_B – Do you find that smoothie tastes more like bananas or the spinach?

    Ngwife4life – I love potatoes so that one is easy to get in. It is the ONLY veggie I don’t get tired of. The problem is I like them with lots of butter...lol. Well, I will just have to try to cut down on the butter little by little.

    Jlwhelan1 – I do like roasted red peppers on my pizza but I haven’t tried it on anything else. And roasted potatoes is one of my favourite dishes except my mother in law makes it since I have to admit, I am a terrible cook. I’ll just have to have her come over every couple of days to cook...lol. ;P

    Take care everyone and good luck with your goals. For my fellow Canucks out there, Happy Canada Day tomorrow!

    Tammy

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