Is there any cure for hating vegetables

[quakerboy]

Lets say you have someone in your life who just hates vegetables. Lets say they dislike the texture of virtually every vegetable, and that they hate the taste of virtually every vegetable. Let us stipulate that the only known "veggie" where one of those two do not apply is corn, which is almost more a grain than a veggie.


What does one do with that person? particularly if one is put in charge, given responsibility over making sure that that person eats reasonably nutritiously over an undefined period of time?

[david13]

1. This person is not George Bush the elder, and the vegetable

is not broccoli, is it? No? Ok.
They have to get over it. Bush the elder never did, thus he banned broccoli from the White House.
My wife starved as a child, but for tomatoes grown in the garden. Thus she loves vegetables, and first and foremost, tomatoes.
dc

[flvegan]

2. Is this person a child?

I only ask because I can relate to that. As a child, a salad was lettuce, croutons and dressing. Short of apples, I hated fruit. Veggies for me were corn, various potato concoctions. I grew out of it later in life.

[quakerboy]

5. Not a child, by most any standard I am aware of

I don't seem to be growing out of it. I tolerate limited quantities of vegetables, but I just hate the taste of most, and the texture of the rest.

I love fruit, though. Starch's are by and large tasty. But green veg just blech. Filler at best, disgusting by and large. I try. I try so hard. I have learned to tolerate broccoli and certain peas. I eat salads. But I hate every last bite.

[Brickbat]

6. Interesting, I'm just the opposite.

Love vegetables, can't stand fruit -- all the little fiddly seeds and whiskers and bursty things. Just nasty.

[AlecBGreen]

7. lol

[flvegan]

10. The only answer I have to that is: ketchup.

No, seriously, I feel for you as that sucks. I think I was around 30 before I enjoyed a tomato. I get the whole taste/texture thing. I hate carrots and bananas, among other things for that reason.

[quakerboy]

17. I forgot tomatos

I actually enjoy those on occasion, preferably of the cherry variety. But I hate ketchup. And now I am doing this atkins diet to support my wife. Which means the fruits and few veg that I actually can stand are out.

[flvegan]

20. Atkins?

Just wrap all the veggies you have to eat in bacon. Problem solved!

[quakerboy]

25. and cheese.

That's been the strategy thus far in life. It allows for the eating, but not the enjoyment. I really wish I could find a way to enjoy them.

[TommyO]

77. That's a novel solution!

Though I prefer my cauliflower roasted with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. Low carb and delicious.

[GoCubsGo]

50. The South Beach Diet's "mashed potatoes" are Atkins-friendly

I know many people find cauliflower off-putting, but these are actually quite good:

http://www.marialanger.com/2009/01/14/cauliflower-mashed-potatoes/

I use fat-free half-and-half instead of the milk/cream. You can add cheese, chives, garlic...

[noamnety]

53. I love cauliflower but

not everyone does. An option that's more potato like but atkins friendly is sunchokes. (I just dug the first shovelful of the season out of my garden a few minutes ago, so they are on my mind.) Microwave or roast them like a baked potato, and the inside gets potato-like but without the grainy aspect potatoes get. They get almost custardy inside.

[quakerboy]

62. My wife found those

it sounds utterly awful, but I have agreed to try it.

[grace0418]

12. Well, I am going to have food aversion hypnotherapy soon. I can let you know how it goes.

I love vegetables, and in fact I'm a bit of a foodie, but I can't seem to make myself like seafood. This is a very difficult thing for me because my husband is Asian so his family cooks tons of seafood-based dishes. Plus I want to travel more to Asia and not look like an ugly American turning up her nose at things. I did pretty well in Japan by eating everything people offered whether I liked it or not. But I *want* to like it. Anyway, I spoke to a woman who thinks she can help me, so I'm going in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Hawaii in December and want to enjoy seafood by then.

[quakerboy]

18. I would apreciate that

That is a thought I never would have had. I also have a seafood thing, but mine is related to eating bad fish a few too many times in a row, and causes physical reaction.

[grace0418]

I had a friend who couldn't quit smoking no matter what he tried. He was smoking

over a pack a day and really wanted to stop. Hypnotherapy is the only thing that worked for him, and it worked immediately. It seems like if it's something you really want, it should be fairly easy for a professional therapist to guide your brain into making the right choices. I'll bookmark this and let you know.

If something works for you and you end up liking vegetables, I have the most wonderful recipe for roasted veggies.

[pitohui]

96. i'd be surprised if this works (a couple of friends had pretty terrible experiences)

one of them simply ended up vomiting whenever he was given the offending food

the other guy developed a shrimp allergy that caused excruciating stomach pain -- he ended up requesting and getting a transfer out of new orleans neeedless to say!

in matters of taste it's pretty hard to argue w. your body's instinctual response

we can tell our body this is good, no, seriously, it's really really good but our body seems to have its own opinion

[snagglepuss]

32. Well kudos to you for thinking about vegetables. My BIL only eats peas

and his two sons have followed his example and none of them give this a second thought. Your awareness of your aversion to vegetables tells me you realize that they're important to health. Its not easy changing eating habits and preferences but its not impossible.

At one time hell nor high water could get me to drink non-fat milk now I can't stand milk with fat not even 1%. I am still, to this day, stunned that I gave up cream and sugar in my coffee which I now prefer black or with non-fat milk. That I who absolutely hated non-fat milk now drinks only non-fat is a testament that changing one's palette is possible.


I suggest adding veggies incrementally at first hiding them in food by way of a blender. For instance get a can of black beans, drain and blend with fresh garlic, a heaping tablespoon of salsa, splash of olive oil and spices. (cumin, coriander,and basil). Use it as a dip. Remember fresh garlic is a vegetable so there you have 3 different vegetables.

Try to incorporate raw onions as much as possible because they are a super food as is fresh garlic.

Think about buying a Juicer if only to make carrot juice, its delicious and you can gulp it down. I recently bought a Breville Juicer which is super easy to clean and very powerful.

I don't know if this would motivate you to eat healthier but it does me. Check out The World's Healthiest Food Website http://www.whfoods.com/

Type in any vegetable and you'll get a full nutritional profile and why that particular vegetable is so healthy. It is a real eye-opener. When you think about how incredibly healthy onions for example are you may feel more inclined to love them.

Hope some of these ideas help. Good luck.

:hi:

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

41. Juicer!

Yes, carrots with either apple or pear make a nectar of the Gods........ :)

[CC]

38. My sister hates veggies and always has. She forced

herself to eat them for a while then would give up. Couple years ago she got herself a juicer and loves the veggie juices as much as the fruit juices from it. She got Lalannes and uses his recipes. Not sure you would have to go with that brand but might be worth a try. She makes herself juices every day now.

[Orsino]

45. This sounds like my path, a little.

Most cooked green veggies would make me gag when I was a child. Paradoxically, I loved spinach.

I've learned to tolerate cooked broccoli, when it's drenched in enough cheese. Other than that, I do enjoy some raw veggies like carrots--even cooked, these are pretty good. And salads, if they're not fulla weird stuff like cucumbers.

[Art_from_Ark]

73. I agree about green vegetables

Especially broccoli. Blech.

[Brickbat]

3. Cheese.

That always seems to help.

[JanMichael]

4. Show them a couple of Peta videos

worked for us. Haven't had a bite of meat in years.

[femmocrat]

8. I love veggies, always did!

Maybe you aren't preparing them correctly? They are disgusting if over-cooked.

[quakerboy]

19. I used to think that

But I've tried any number of preparations and styles, and I still hate them almost universally.

[Duer 157099]

9. Sure, slip them some Miracle Fruit

I haven't tried it yet but I have some coming from ebay.

It has a compound called miraculin that binds to the taste buds and alters how food tastes, in particular, it makes non-sweet foods taste very sweet.

Supposedly it really alters how veggies taste. Personally I already love how veggies taste but it should be fun to try.

[quakerboy]

21. When it arrives, I would be extreemely interested in feedback on that

I've never heard of such a thing, but that would be interesting.

[Duer 157099]

24. Will do. I only also just recently heard about it

even though it was discovered back in the 60s or so. And of course, there are genetic engineering experiments going on where they insert the miraculin gene into other produce.

I suspect it's going to make things cloyingly sweet, but who knows. The downside is that it makes acidic foods taste very sweet and so people can accidentally eat too much acid which is really bad for the teeth.

But yeah, should be interesting.

[Duer 157099]

84. I haven't thoroughly tested it yet, but

my first reaction was YUCK!

Cloyingly sweet, just as I had suspected. It seems to work mostly with acidic foods, so I tried it with something that had lemon juice (some shrimp cocktail) OMG it was like eating tootsie rolls in sweet horsradish syrup. I had to wait for over an hour for the effect to subside so I could actually eat it.

So the take home lesson is: be careful what you use it for! I haven't had the nerve to try it on any veggies yet, but unless they are acidic to begin with, I doubt it will affect them much.

Now, I can see some uses for it, like if you want to drink lemon juice without adding any sugar, this is perfect. Or perhaps tomatoes that aren't ripe, but I bet it makes them even too sweet.

I'm scared to try it again.

[quakerboy]

87. Interesting

I followed your lead, once I knew it existed, and ordered a pack of them from ebay as well. They arrived tonight. I tried one, and so far am underwhelmed. I don't have anything super sour, but I tried it with a couple things and noticed negligible change. I will hold off for some lemon or something unquestionably sour, rather than the flavored mineral water that was my main test.

Man do the pills themselves taste blandly nasty, though. Which brand/size did you get?

[Duer 157099]

93. I got the ones called Miracle Frooties, 600mg x 10 tablets

I bet it would work really well with someting like really sour orange juice, or lemonade without sugar.

Next time I have some tomatoes, I'll try that. Maybe good with a tomato pasta sauce, or maybe pizza.

I'll have to investigate further and come up with some experiments.

Let me know what else you try and how it goes.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. Smother the vegetables in melted cheese.

Cheese makes almost anything edible.

[Arugula Latte]

13. I can't relate; vegetables are my favorite thing to eat on Earth.

Meat, on the other hand ... x(

My daughter hates most vegetables, which frustrates me to no end. One of these days, she has to come around, I keep telling myself.

[quakerboy]

23. Thats what my parents thought too. And my wife

But I still haven't come around. Meat, on the other hand...

Hope that doesn't ruin your hopes, and may your daughter come to enjoy vegetables without coercion.

[snagglepuss]

14. Does that person like Mexican food like refried beans?

[quakerboy]

16. If they are accompanied by adequate amounts of meat and cheese

[begin_within]

15. Soups, quiches and fritattas with vegetables, scrambled eggs, rice, pastas, etc.

I think the problem is facing vegetables individually or as the featured ingredient. If they are chopped finely and merely added to a dish that is dominated by something else such as eggs, cheese, some type of grain, pasta dishes, soups like cream of broccoli, etc. then they are usually much easier for people to deal with. I happen to like vegetables a lot but I understand how and why some people don't.

[quakerboy]

22. I can eat them that way, although Quiche texture is odd

But I still don't like them. I like all these things better without the veg than with.

[justabob]

26. what I have done

I hate vegetables, specifically the texture. I have been trying to make my self eat more, but texture is hard to get around. What I have found is leafier lettuces and spinach are better (but still a challenge), iceberg lettuce is NOT an option. I also use a potato peeler on carrots, squash etc and the texture is much less of a problem (also very good sauteed, they end up being more like pasta than veg). For things like bell peppers and onions I mince small so they are no crunchier than whatever else is in the dish you are having. A few other things.... rice and pasta are good covers for cooked veggies. That is what I know as a person so suffers from texture issues. :) Good luck!

[quakerboy]

28. Thats what I used to do

Hide it in "real" food. But with going to Atkins, its hard to have other things for texture. Its meat. And veg. And not much else, so far.

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. Yeah - cook them properly.

[quakerboy]

29. How?

Ive tried everything on the spectrum from raw to completely killed. Some stages are better than others, but none are good.

[noamnety]

34. and grow them yourself!

I was pretty amused to see someone on a gardening forum ask if there was something wrong with her zucchini. When she cut into it, it oozed a clear fluid.

Someone had to tell her that means it's fresh, it hasn't been shipped around the country and left to sit on a grocer's shelf.

It wasn't until I grew my own asparagus that I realized asparagus is the same way. When it's fresh, it's juicy. I never thought of raw asparagus as juicy when I was buying it.

[RoadRage]

30. Salt, Pepper, Butter & Lemon Juice

That gets my 4 year old & 1 year old to eat their full plates worth of Brocolli or Grean Beans ever night. And, they no they don't get dessert until the veggies are gone.. so that may or may not work depending on the age of the person you're forcing veggies on. :)

The other option is to hide the veggies in stuff.. do a Veggie lasagna, or look up recipies with hidden & pureed veggies that are mixed into ingreediants and they dont' know they are even in there. That works well too - mashed potatoes with pureed carrots, etc.

Good LUck!

[noamnety]

31. I'm good at getting kids to eat huge amounts of spinach.

If you cook, drain, and puree it, you can mix it with ricotta (a healthier cheese option) and make it into lasagna. Once it's pureed, you can't feel any cooked spinach slimy texture at all, and the italian flavors render the taste invisible.

Pancakes and quick breads are great for hiding pureed summer or winter squash, beets, or carrots.

If it's the texture that bothers you, dehydrate zucchini into chips (like potato chips, if you like them). They're crunchy and good.

If you are serious about changing your food preferences, though, you may need to get rid of addictive unhealthy things in your diet first. If you are drinking pop, eating HFCS or other refined sugars or too much sodium, that can completely throw off what your body craves. Once you start eating whole foods, the other stuff is a huge disappointment when you go back to it for a binge. Except ice cream, that stuff is always good, dammit.

What about fruit/veggie juices?

[GoCubsGo]

47. Most of the root vegetables make good dehydrated "chips"...

Beets, carrots, parsnips... Not sure about rutabagas, but I'd rather have those mashed with butter and salt & pepper anyway. ;-)

I like slipping spinach into my lasagna, too. (You can hide tofu this way, as well. Use 50-50 silken and ricotta.) Do a recipe search using "florentine", and you'll finds tons of other recipes with hidden spinach.

[Silver Swan]

33. My first husband

was (and is) the most finicky eater ever. The only vegetables he would eat were raw carrots and sweet corn. Early in our relationship, I fed him peas, and he said he would eat them again if there was no other food available.

I have no advice--his second wife has to cope with him now.

(I didn't like many vegetables as a child, but taste becomes less sensitive as we age, so things that tasted bad when I was young are good now. Unfortunately, spouse number one never gave his adult taste buds a chance.)

[quakerboy]

36. That sounds like me

Except I have a will to eat other things. And I do eat them. I just don't enjoy them. I have been exhorted more than once to use my big boy taste buds. I am really trying, but I hate every bite.

[eppur_se_muova]

35. Feed them absolutely nothing but corn until they puke.

Then cut out their liver and sell it to France.

Oh, wait, maybe that's a little extreme.

Or you be the judge.:evilgrin:





(pssst. FYI. Corn is not "almost" a grain.)

[quakerboy]

37. You are a dream killer

DREAM KILLER. Corn is the primary vegetable, and if you say different LALALALALALALA...

[cherish44]

39. Isn't there some cookbook that has recipes on how to hide veggies in other food?

Like putting spinach in brownies? Forget the name of it, but maybe there are ways you can sneak veggies into the food :)

[Chan790]

40. This worked for me...

it sounds so simple and it is. Buy a cookbook of vegetable recipes. It's been my experience that most people who hate veggies hate them because they grew up on canned enbalmed-vegetables or frozen barely-maintaining-its'-shape mush; the solution is to eat well-prepared vegetables...you'll find that you like some of them. Any decent cookbook can help with this, but one specifically for vegetables is going to be more help. Also be on the lookout for decent vegetable recipes where you can find them (green grocer segments on TV, magazines, cooking shows, books, friends, recipe thread in V/V/AR.) Always start with fresh produce, I buy mine daily but that can be onerous...generally though, I find that it only maintains peak freshness for about 3 days at most; get to know your grocer/produce person, they can help you choose the good stuff.

I can start you off with some help for some of the more-awful vegetable experiences:

Asparagus: Okay, if all you've ever had was the horror of mush in a can or mush in a frozen carton, I can understand...I absolutely refuse to eat that shit. Cooking asparagus is so simple, my moron roommate mastered it. It's supposedly a hard vegetable to cook right...it's only hard if you haven't got 10 minutes to give it your undivided attention. Take your 'gus, hold them at the cut end with one hand and about 1 1/2" up the stalk and snap off the dried ends...they'll automatically break at the "right" spot. From there you have two choices, roasted or steamed. No boiling! Both recipes here assume that your cooking about 1/2lb. which is 4 servings.

Steamed first: Take a pan, pretty much any sized sauce pan large enough for the asparagus to fit without being folded or bent, usually a 3qt. sauce-pan with lid will do...fill 1/4 to the top with water and add 2 tbsp. of salt (I like sea salt for this as it has a wider variety of mineral-content than table salt and that's pretty much all the seasoning this method will give you. You can add any dried spice or herb you'd like to the water, it'll impart mild tea-like flavors. I like a sprig of rosemary.) Turn heat to med-high and wait for water to boil...at that salinity and volume, we're talking about 3 minutes max so don't walk away or you'll have no water and a kitchen fire. Take a piece of aluminum foil a decent size larger than your pan (or if you have one, use a steamer basket, it works much much better) poke small holes into it with a fork, about 50-100. Form a small depression about 1" deep to steam your 'gus in, put the 'gus into the depression, put the piece of foil over the top of the pan and using the lid to lock it into place and a potholder to not burn your hand...form the foil around the outside of the pan to hold the foil steaming-tray in place. Check every two minutes until all asparagus are a vibrant green, should not take more than 6-8 minutes, 10 at very most. Plate and top with sauce of choice. (cheese, bechamel, gravy, hollandaise or a pat of butter and a light sprinking of salt (and perhaps pepper.))

Roasted: Take a 9"x12" baking pan, coat liberally with oil. Add your asparagus lined up and not touching. Add 1 tsp. of soy sauce over the top, salt and pepper liberally. Place into 350'F preheated oven and cook for 20 minutes. Remove, turn your asparagus over, line them back up, stick them back in the oven for another 30-35 minutes until they smell yummy. Take out and plate. No sauce needed, you might want to salt them a little bit more. They should come out crunchy on the outside and buttery-soft on the insides. You'll definitely need a knife and fork to eat them. If your asparagus are more than a few days old, you'll need to peel them first when using this method or else the outsides will be very fibrous and nearly impossible to eat. (Still yummy though if you don't mind having to chew it for several minutes before being able to swallow it.)

(I'll add more later. I have to go find the Brussels sprouts recipe from Momofuku.)

[GoCubsGo]

46. Roasted asparagus is delicious!

So is roasted cauliflower. I usually cook both at around 425-450*F and just tossed in olive oil with salt and pepper. Sometimes I'll add some garlic powder if roasting cauliflower. I usually cut the head of cauliflower into quarters and remove the inner core. If you do a search on "roasted cauliflower", there are multiple versions of it, and they'll all give suggestions on how to prepare the head for roasting. I haven't tried Brussels sprouts roasted, but I suspect they'd be pretty good, too.

[Chan790]

51. As promised and requested...

(from the kitchen of David Chang, executive chef of Momofuku and Ssam restaurants in NYC. Printed in GQ, Nov. 2009.)

Chang-style Brussels Sprouts (NOT vegetarian...not vegetarian-able AFAI-can-tell.)

1lb. Sprouts
1/4lb. thick-cut or chunk Bacon
Butter
Sriracha
Lime
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 400'F.
With knife, trim hard woody-ends of Brussels sprouts then slice in half through core length-wise.
Cut bacon into very-small chunks and cook in an oven-proof skillet over medium heat until crispy, about 5 minutes.
With slotted spoon, transfer to a paper-towel lined place.
Drain most of the grease from the pan and add sprouts cut-side down. Raise heat to medium-high and sear until sprouts start to sizzle.
Place skillet in oven and roast until sprouts are deep-browned, about 8 minutes, then shake to redistribute and flip them over with spatula.
Pull pan from oven when sprouts are bright-green and tender...taste one to check...about 10 minutes.
Return pan to stovetop over medium heat. Stir in bacon and 2 pats of butter. Incorporate.
Place in bowl to serve.
Add a squirt or two of sriracha and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Season with salt and pepper as required.
Serve.

[GoCubsGo]

52. Oh, YUM!!!

Thank you for posting that! I suppose one could make it "vegetarian" by using oil instead of bacon. Or, more butter...

[dugaresa]

54. You can cook fresh asparagus in about 3-4 minutes in the microwave

and it stays crunchy and delicious and you can then lightly salt them or cover them in a yummy sauce if preferred.

[Chan790]

55. I don't microwave.

I mean it's fine if you do, but I don't own one or use them. It's part of my foodism:

• No artificial sweeteners
• No HFCS
• No animals
• No fast food
• No preservative-laden highly-processed "quick meals"
• No microwaves
• No "crap" foods

I'm a food hard-liner.

[GoCubsGo]

78. A nice dressing for asparagus...

1/2 c. lemon juice
1/4-1/2 c. olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic, pressed

This is the dressing from the Moosewood's Black Bean Ful recipe, but it works on steamed asparagus, green beans, broccoli--especially cold. I highly recommend the Ful recipe, BTW. It's one of my favorite dishes, especially in the summer, chilled. Don't know if it's Atkins approved, but it is South Beach Diet-friendly, and vegan-friendly. Good and good for you. :-)

[Chan790]

85. Add some tahini and you've got one of my favorite salad dressings.

I'm not sure how something that nutty would work on asparagus or bean ful though.

[TZ]

42. If you find out let me know.

I'm in almost the same boat. Can tolerate a nice salad of lettuce, cucumbers, carrots and that sort though. Oh and cooked veggies...BLAH! Love raw carrots though.
Fruits are pretty yummy.

[quakerboy]

63. Will do

So far, I think I am going to try the sour to sweet stuff mentioned above. And for now, I guess i will just hope that an intensive course of eating them somehow breaks my brain and i can come to be ok with it. I did eat sauteed bell peppers last night. With enough meat, I could almost ignore them.

Fruit is indeed awesome. I miss them.

[crim son]

43. I'd smack 'em.

Picky eaters annoy the hell out of me. No, I'm not kidding. :hi:

[quakerboy]

64. Take your best shot

I am a pacifist, but I do duck and dodge pretty effectively for a big guy...

[Lyric]

44. I have the same problem. *sigh*

I am SUCH a picky eater when it comes to vegetables. Honestly, the only way I can eat most of them is to cover them in some ridiculously-unhealthy sauce or dressing until I can't taste anything BUT the sauce/dressing. Using this method, I can eat broccoli, carrots, lettuce/cucumber/tomato salad (DOUSED with ranch dressing, cheese, etc.), green beans (cooked in bacon or butter, always)...you get the picture. But by doing that, I might as well not be eating them at all. :(

I'm super-picky about onions--I can ONLY eat mild sweet yellow onions, and even then, only when they're super-diced and cooked into something so I can't taste them individually. I loathe green bell peppers, although I can tolerate small amounts of red bell peppers if they're cooked into something. Most greens are pointless--chard, collards, all of it grosses me out. I hate beets, radishes, turnips, rutabagas. It's all just so bitter and watery and ick. Ugh.

And I'm not much better with fruits. I like white grapes, but only if they're the really sweet kind. I dislike bananas. I can drink orange juice, but chewing the actual fruit icks me out. I like slices of fresh, cold Golden Delicious apples but only in small quantities. I can't stand any types of melon, or anything watery like plums. Fresh peaches taste sour to me--I have to cook them into something sweet like a cobbler in order to eat them. I hate seedy berries like raspberries and blackberries, and I hate watery ones like blueberries. I like strawberries, but only when I've sliced them, soaked them in sugar syrup, and put them on top of a cake or pie or something. I love pineapple, but again, not raw--I like the kind that comes in chunks, sweetened with light syrup. Not exactly healthy.

I try to force myself to eat better, but most of the time this stuff makes me want to vomit. The sickly-sweet pea-like flavor of asparagus is the most disgusting thing I can imagine, and it doesn't matter how it's cooked--it's still gross to me.

I basically survive on meat, cheese, and bread. I'm probably going to die of a heart attack at age 40. :(

[GoCubsGo]

79. Have you tried dried fruits?

They're sweeter than candy, without all of the extra sugar. You can get some vegetables dehydrated, too.

[TK421]

48. When I was little, I hated peas and would end up sticking them under the kitchen table

I still hate them today, but not as much. Onions I still hate with a burning passion even to this day.

I don't know what to tell you, but cheese sauce usually makes everything better :-)

[quakerboy]

69. Everyone seems to love mushrooms

those are the epitome of evil to me. I can get behind onion powder, or well cooked well minced onion. But big mushy pieces or crunchy bits are disgusting.

[Deep13]

49. eliminating refined sugar from the diet. nt

[AllieB]

60. Yup-vegetables taste SWEET when you don't eat sugar.

[quakerboy]

65. One better'd that

I have eliminated almost all sugars, even the unrefined ones. Veggies still taste horrible. And even if they did, the textures would still be wrong.

[AllieB]

72. How long has it been? It takes months to get rid of the sweet tooth.

And if you're drinking diet soda and using sugar substitutes, you'll never totally kill it.

[quakerboy]

75. 8 days

so far. no diet yet but starting to consider it.

[Taverner]

56. Find a better vegetable

Have you ever had Artichokes? Palm Hearts? Edemame?

[quakerboy]

66. Yes, i think so, and yes

And didn't care for any. Fresh cherry tomato's, sweet corn, sweet carrots, and olives. other than that, you can keep it all.

[Sanity Claws]

57. How does this person feel about vegetables cooked with meat?

I'm thinking of a Pot roast made with carrots, potatoes and celery. The vegetables taste very different when cooked slowly with meat.
I thought of this because this is how I got my dog to eat vegetables. Really. :)

[quakerboy]

67. Done that

Potatoes good. Carrots acceptable. Celery still blech.

[Sanity Claws]

76. Try other vegetables cooked with meat

What about Napa cabbage? I think it lacks the bitterness found in other cabbage-family vegs.

How does the person feel about Chinese or Thai cuisine? Lots of good vegetables in those cuisines.

[dgibby]

58. If you don't have your own juicer,

the V-8 fruit juice with veggies in it is good. Tastes like fruit juice, but has tons of veggie juice it it. I use it because, A. I'm too lazy to make my own, and B. I don't get enough veggies and fruits in my diet, although I actually like both. Also, you could use supplements to augment your diet. Good luck!

[AllieB]

59. Cheese sauce, puree vegetables into a terrine, or several other options.

I love vegetables, my husband not so much. This is a guy who grew up eating canned corn, green beans, and potatoes as his primary vegetables. When I met him, he would sometimes eat salad, if it was served with a good dressing. With this in mind, I often prepare vegetables with many other complimentary flavors. Some examples are sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon; turnips pureed with butter and cream (or herbed goat cheese and greek yogurt, if you're counting fat and calories); sauteed collards, chard, or turnip greens with bacon, garlic, and onions; and fried jicama or turnip chips. I have also made vegetable terrines with spinach and other vegetables. Let me know if you'd like any recipes. :-)

[quakerboy]

68. Terrine.

Its rare i am presented with a new word, but ya found one.

1. a casserole dish made of pottery.
2. a paté or similar dish of chopped meat, game, fish, or vegetables baked in such a dish and served cold.

I assume you mean the latter?

[AllieB]

71. Yes-it's the latter.

[valerief]

61. I wish I had a V8! nt

[Rhiannon12866]

70. Bookmarking for the suggestions, LOL. Also, V8 Fusion tastes like fruit juice... :-)

[wickerwoman]

74. Can you involve this person in growing them or at least cooking them?

I find I'm more willing to try the strange stuff if I have more of a stake in putting it on the table.

I never really started liking vegetables until I was cooking them myself. My parents nuked the shit out of everything and rarely served anything but broccoli or corn. So I sat down with a few cook books and said "I'll try one new veggie recipe a week." No very big investment in time or money. I tried everything a few different ways and within a year or so I liked everything (except artichokes... never have been able to get them down).

The other thing that really helped was growing a small veggie garden myself. I grew all my favorites and left a few spots for speculative veggies like kale and brussels sprouts. Having them sitting out there, knowing I'd invested energy in making them grow, gave me more incentive to eat them.

If there's no way to involve this person in growing or cooking the veggies, maybe you can disguise them? Will they eat tomato sauce on spaghetti? If they will, throw some onions, carrots, zucchini, whatever, into the ragu and then blend it right before you put it on the pasta. They'll never know the veggies are in there. You can also bake veggies into muffins like zucchini bread, carrot cake, etc. There's a fair number of recipes online for sneaking vegetables into finicky kids. Maybe you can start there and then gradually "out" the veggies in the dishes?

[applegrove]

80. Get them to eat veggies every day. They'll learn to prefer one type of veggie over another.

[quakerboy]

81. Doing that. and then some

Have been since I moved in with my wife, back in the day. I still hate almost all of them.

[Mojambo]

82. I like veggies, but I do have a problem with fruit

I just don't like any of it.

Oh maybe a mango every so often, but I just can't eat the daily recommended amount of fruit.

[quakerboy]

86. Thats how my wife is

I love most fruit. Except mango's. And pomegranates, which I believe I am allergic to.

[PerfectSage]

83. Do you like salad?

Baby spinach leaves and romaine lettuce have a neutral taste. They're loaded with antioxidants and fiber like broccoli and cauliflower. You can slather them with a salad dressing you like. I like a spicy salad so I sprinkle on chili powder and balsamic vinegar as well as italian dressing.

[quakerboy]

89. Heh.. I hate salad dressing

So far I have been having a few. With enough bacon and cheese, and decent non-bitter lettuce, they are acceptable.

[WCGreen]

88. Colon Cancer or at least a real bad case of constipation.

[Jamastiene]

90. Find good southern recipes.

Southern cooking cures lots of "I don't like that." It certainly did for me. Now, I can stand green veggies. There was a time, when I thought all of the greens were just nasty and stinky.

[Kali]

91. become an Eskimo?

How do you like fish and walrus stomach?

[OffWithTheirHeads]

92. Learn to cook. Vegies can be knock your socks off great

If you know what to do with them.

[TheKentuckian]

94. Lots of soup, mix with fruit (like do a salad no dressing with lots of

grapefruit, pineapples, apples, oranges, etc), keep trying stuff you might not dig spinach, cabbage, or kale but still might be all about some collards you never know.

Some stuff is better raw others cooked and still others cooked to oblivion. Some stuff can never be tolerated. I'm pretty lucky, while I despise plenty of vegetables I like about all the leafy greens to varying degrees and most beans/pods to get by okay.

[pitohui]

95. is this an s/m thing? otherwise i don't see how it can be a serious question

you cannot force an adult to eat foods they don't like, and in some cases, this includes entire categories of foods such as vegetables -- sure, i've known these people, they have issues WAY behind not eating vegetables and not eating/eating vegetables won't make any difference to their health anyway, it's all part of the smoking/drinking/being depressed and bitter and disturbed package -- it is a uniquely american fantasy that eating vegetables has any significant impact on one's lifespan or health compared to these other factors --

"one is put in charge, given responsibility over making sure that that person eats reasonably nutritiously over an undefined period of time" -- you mean, you're stuck cooking for somebody with alzheimer's?

there is nothing you can do, you can feed them anything, ten minutes later they'll still be yelling at you that you didn't feed em or you didn't feed it right

unless you're getting paid to do this, leave it to the professionals

you cannot argue w. adults in matters of taste and expect to win -- the sane adult will like what he/she likes no matter what you say, AND AS A FREE ADULT IT'S THEIR RIGHT NOT TO EAT VEGGIES AND YOUR RIGHT NOT TO COOK FOR FUCKWITS -- let them buy $5 subway sandwiches and $1 double cheeseburgers from burger k and stop cooking for them, it's just casting pearls before swine -- why prepare expensive vegetables anyway if they're not appreciated when junk food is so cheap and available?

the troubled/disturbed/mentally ill/alzheimer's person is not gonna change their mind about eating veggies either, and frankly it is not worth your time or effort to fight w. them on the topic

we all know by this time of century it's pretty much a crime that leads to lifelong eating disorders when we force food on CHILDREN, it's certainly too late by the time they're adults

save yourself if you like vegetables or genuinely believe they have some impact on health (statistics suggest it's pretty minimal though) -- as for the other person who won't eat what you cook, then they can prepare their own damn meals -- it's stupid and impractical to prepare two different meals every meal, just not gonna work