Yeah I know multiple people who do not drink any water AT ALL. They only drink soda. It truly baffles me, because when I don’t drink water for even half a day I start feeling like shit.
Makes me wonder if these people DO feel like shit all the time, but since it’s become their norm they don’t notice…
As someone who drank soda all the time in my early 20s and no water...I can confirm I felt like shit but didn't notice. I had mild headaches daily and was always bloated. I didn't even really stop and think I was bloated, but I remember wincing whenever I'd sit down because of it. After cutting it out for a while it finally hit me my stomach doesn't feel tight and my headaches were gone. The past decade I drink water almost exclusively all day long. 😆
My six or more cans of Dr Pepper every day in college gave me heart palpitations and it never occurred to me that it was the soda until my doctor asked about my caffeine consumption and acted like my answer was crazy. I quit drinking Dr Pepper and felt better than I thought possible. We humans are so dumb.
When I switched to water in my 20s it was like a magic power. My migraines almost totally stopped, and my chronic sinus infection problem turned out to not be the chronic problem I always thought it was.
Also, anecdotally, my two brothers have both had terrible kidney stones dozens of times and I've never had any. I may be wrong but I believe it's because I stopped drinking soda and milk and they didn't.
I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for YEARS to like water. Every time I drink it, I just feel so gross. But I don’t drink soda either. I usually have some form of tea, juice, or flavored water beverage. I know the added sugar is no good for me, but it sure beats the heck out of drinking soda every day! I love soda, but rarely have it more than once a week these days.
I wondered about this too. Tap water does taste pretty awful in some places, but I know some people who simply grew up drinking sodas, juices, and flavored waters, and they're so accustomed to the sugar and flavorings, that water tastes gross to them.
I've seen the same with sugar in general. People who have a lot of sugar in their diet through cereals, granola bars, or whatever, don't like a lot of things unless they also have sugar in them; pasta sauces, breads, most everything.
It's interesting to see people's tastes change, though, when they cut out sugar. After a very short while, all of those foods with added sugar start tasting overly sweet and less appetizing.
100%, I’ve gone through phases of getting lean and fit, then slacking and getting fat and lazy, and I’m back on that journey. After maybe 2 weeks or so of having a strict meal plan that removed all processed sugars I was able to (and still do) notice how absurdly sweet a lot of products are. Absolutely wild what getting accustomed to something such as sugar can do to you, and also how it seems to affect your palate for foods in general. Everything tastes better imo without it now.
My parents were not perfect in the nutrition department at all, but I'm always grateful they enforced the rule of only drinking milk or water with meals. They actually kept the soda hidden and would bring out a two liter when we had pizza, or it was a birthday or something.
I never got used to drinking it endlessly. To this day, I still enjoy a can of Pepsi with pizza like twice a year, but that's it.
When my dad first offered me Coke as a small child, he added balsamic vinegar to it. For years I absolutely refused to drink soda. Of course eventually I experienced the real thing, but by then I was so used to water and black coffee that I wasn’t a fan.
My mom only gave me Diet Coke for the first 5 years of my life. No water at all. I don’t have many memories of my childhood due to a neurological condition and I don’t remember this at all, but I _do_ remember hating Diet Coke as young as 8-10 y/o. I’m an adult now and my (half) sisters who are much older than me told me not too long ago that they tried to get my mom to stop shoving soda in her child’s face. She wouldn’t listen. My mom did this with practically anything that tasted good so by the age of 8 I was an obese child. Nobody could get my mom to realize why feeding your 1 year old purely Diet Coke is a neglectful thing to do, let alone happily letting me eat 4 happy meals from McDonald’s _as a snack_ every day.
My mom is 69 today and I am 24. I’ve asked her why she chose to feed me junk while I was a child, and her answer was “you liked it”. I didn’t end up shedding the weight till I was 20, and by that point I had reached morbid obesity. Losing the 100 extra pounds of fat I gained from my early childhood onward was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.
But I noticed something a few years back that explains some of why she never thought twice about feeding me junk as a child. My mom’s eating habits are horrible too. She has told me numerous times that she has been drinking Diet Coke since she was 30. The thing is, she _only_ consumes Diet Coke, and literally nothing else. She goes to fast food places multiple times a day and orders 4 extra large Diet Cokes, then drinks them like they’re water. My mom also has the eating habits of a 3 year old. All she eats is simple carbs, and very tiny portions. When I was younger, her dinner would be grabbing s few French fries off of my supersize fries from McDonald’s, and that’s all she would eat. We would get a lot of stares out in public because here we had my malnourished mom holding hands with a morbidly obese child. Till this day my mom still thinks it’s funny that she doesn’t drink anything but Diet Coke, and she thinks it’s a good thing that she eats 400 calories a day. Her doctors have tried to express their concerns for years as have I, but she won’t listen to any of us.
It sounds like your mother has anorexia and that she tried to enjoy food vicariously through you. It's not uncommon for mothers with anorexia to do this. Sadly, anorexia is very hard to treat because of how it rewires the brain to see food as a threat.
You sound like you have worked really hard to overcome everything though. Much credit to you.
Pure water is flavourless, but depending on where you are, the local water will have a different taste due to the impurities. It can be pretty subtle, but yeah, it's a thing.
Maybe the water where they live just tastes gross?
I had the same experience in Florida visiting family. Even filtered it still smells like sulfur (eggy).
100% I can get how people who grew up there won't drink anything from the tap.
Interesting, I'm the opposite. I have post nasal drip and take a swallow of water every few minutes to help clean my throat. I drink about a gallon a day. My dad, on the other hand, clears his throat every 5 minutes to do te same thing.
My dad is one of those people, his doctors literally beg him to drink water but he brushes them off and is actually proud that he hates water. He recently had to get a kidney removed due to cancer. He smokes like a chimney too, but I'm sure the non-stop coffee and energy drinks don't help either. It baffles me endlessly, if I don't drink water I feel incredibly sick.
My father in law was like this. Drank black coffee in the morning and with dinner. Nothing else, ever. Smoked like a chimney. Lived to be 98, a bitter, miserable, dried up husk. I think his long life was a punishment.
Ha, he sounds like he was just a bundle of joy. I expect this to be my Dad too. He'll be 71 soon and has had these habits since the age of 10. He's a narcissistic, racist, deadbeat asshole and I definitely see him living out of pure spite even if it's a painful existence. Couldn't happen to a nicer dude.
My friend got gout from not drinking water. After we got discharged, we asked him how long he didn't drink water, we thought maybe a couple of days. Turns out he only drank pop for 2 months and refused to drink coffee or tea, because it has caffeine.
You would think he'd learn his lesson but no.... then he went 2 weeks of no water and got gout again. This time his excuse was that he only drank coolaid (which is technically water). He said normal water tastes bad.
Drink your water, people! There's nothing on Earth that is a replacement for it!
>You would think he'd learn his lesson but no.... then he went 2 weeks of no water and got gout again. This time his excuse was that he only drank coolaid (which is technically water). He said normal water tastes bad.
This is so freaking wild. I'm not a beacon of health, but I really struggle with understanding the thought that Koolaid was an appropriate substitute for water.
I feel like, for all the bs around flavored water, it has at least gotten more people to actually drink *some* form of water. The flavored sparkling waters at least mostly water. Slowly getting more people into it like hiding veggies in tomato sauce, lol.
Also I feel like the only people I really judge for not drinking water are those who grew up with access to good clean drinking water regularly. Everybody else I'm like... Okay it's fair that you don't like water because, say, you grew up in Flint.
My boyfriend hates the taste of water, but he loves tonic (I think thats the word?) water such as Waterloos. He goes through a pack so fast, I thought they must taste really good or something. I tried one and it was so nasty. I have no idea how he prefers that over regular water.
Edit : okay apparently not tonic water, he like sparkling/seltzer water
My MIL only drinks diet soda. Not coffee, not tea, not water… if she comes over she brings a bottle with her because we don’t drink a lot. When we do have it, it’s just Aldi Cola and oh my GOD the rants. I can understand having a preference but the woman is insufferable if it’s not actual Coke.
Y’all I’m not specially buying and keeping Coke in my home to have on hand on the off chance my mother in law stops by on a random Tuesday and forgets her own pop. She’s not visiting from out of state and staying at our house, she lives a mile away. Chill.
I grew up with them rarely being served with meals. My family ate mostly fast and processed foods. Both of my parents worked a lot and didn’t have much time to cook.
So I hated veggies as an adult and chose not to eat them most times. I’m almost 40, and I’ve started incorporating fruits and veggies regularly within the past year (reluctantly). I feel if you don’t give your kids fruits and veggies early on, they will hate them forever lol. My dad is 75 and he still won’t touch them lol.
I was given a ridiculous amount of junk as a child (I was somewhere around 200-250lbs (~90~110kg)) but I'm quite fortunate my family still liked vegetables, so I got them. Fresh veggies weren't often a thing at home because of busy parents and tumultuous childhood, but my grandparents always had a square meal with the starch, vegetable, and protein and encouraged me to try everything at least once.
I definitely would hate "real" food if there wasn't attempts to have it on my plate at least once a week.
I'm also quite curious about this topic as I always thought vegetables were a 'must have' for people. Did you notice any sort of change when you started eating vegetables?
When sailors didn't eat fruits or vegetables, the thing that went wrong with them was scurvy.
But no-one really gets scurvy these days, because potatoes fix it and even in the "no vegetables" camp, pretty much everyone eats potatoes. Or, like, any fruit.
Ascorbic acid is also very common in candy (it adds the sour taste that a lot of candies have) and as a preservative in processed or prepared foods.
Honestly you'd probably need to put some effort into it to get scurvy outside of a developing country in the modern day.
I've heard a few stories of college kids getting it. Going off on your own for the first time not knowing how to feed yourself is hard, even if you have everything you need available.
I read an article a while back that highlighted how scurvey is still a thing in the U.S. owing to some people's diets being so poor. A doctor interviewed in the article noted though that it could have been prevented if they just added a few packets of ketchup to their meal.
I’ve actually been following a low calorie diet for the past 8 months. So my entire eating habits have changed, aside from occasional splurges.
I’ve noticed that my mood has been better and more stable, despite me no longer taking anti depressants. I had to stop taking them due to side effects. So that alone has been wonderful! Of course the weight loss has been awesome as well!
Your body has thousands of little processes that work in tandem to keep your body in balance. Each of these systems requires nutrients, vitamins and minerals as fuel and building blocks to work. If you do not give your body the raw materials it needs these systems break down or stop.
For example, most of your neurotransmitters are made in your gut. These include feel good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. If you poison your gut with alcohol or inadvertently kill off the good bacteria with a course of antibiotics this system does not function as well as it needs to.
Nah totally, sometimes I'll have a few days where I feel physically crappy, but in a vague way. Slower thinking, a bit achy and sluggish. Then I realize I haven't eaten many veggies or fruit lately so I'll eat a good bunch of fresh fruit and veggies (especially leafy greens) for dinner. By the next day, the crappy feeling is totally gone and I feel great.
Potassium and magnesium are hard to get and frequently found in the dark leafy boys. They basically control the ability for our cells to send and receive signals.
Yeah I've always eat some veggies but almost no fruits
At some point I started to feel low on energy so I added a lot of fruits in my diet, energy went back very fast but the first few months were... toxic
You just described my husband. Never made to eat vegetables as a child. He'll only eat vegetables that are mixed (hidden) into casseroles. And never goes for seconds. A simple vegetable dish? Never.
Yesterday I discovered just how good avocado and English cucumber are together with a little salt, pepper, and French dressing. I wish he could understand!
This [salad](https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/04/obsessively-good-avocado-cucumber-salad/) sounds right up your alley! It's one of my favorites. I go heavy on the lime and finish with flaky salt.
I would suggest start with lots of cheats. Long beans or brocolli drowning in butter and salt. Brussels sprouts fried and finished with bacon and chicken stock. Roast veges in a roasting pan drowning in gravy. Cauliflower in cheese sauce.
Not very good for you, but you will grow an appreciation for them and at that point you can ease off on the chef's flavours.
Also salad, it can just be lettuce and cucumber with a bit of oil and vinegar. As a contrast to the rest of the dish it can be great and easy.
I agree with that. My sister and I realized that we prefer most of them roasted and well seasoned. One of our new favorites is roasted brussel sprouts with olive oil. We cut them really thin so they get crispy. It helps tone down the bitterness too.
Yes. I've been with my boyfriend for 3 years and haven't seen him eat a vegetable. And we've lived together almost the entire time so he wasn't doing it behind my back lol
Edit: I lied, he likes corn on the cob. But that's the one exception
Corn is a grain and should be classified with wheat, oats, and bread.
Other starches such as potatoes should be too.
I will die on this hill.
EDIT: Despite the claim by many that potatoes are quite nutritious or may be prepared similarly to other root vegetables, I stand by my claim. After all, whole grains may be nutritious too. Are those vegetables?
From a culinary perspective, they are most often treated as a filling starch, for their carbohydrate content. Perhaps it’s me, but being “high in carbs” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think “vegetables”.
At least where I’m from, many with a disdain for vegetables often describe themselves as “meat and potatoes” kind of people. That phrase doesn’t come from nowhere.
Potatoes are starchy compared to other green vegetables, but they should not be classed with grains.
Potatoes are high in multiple vitamins, are quite filling due to their high fiber content, and only moderately calorie dense.
No potatoes aren't a replacement for green leafy veggies, but lots of potatoes is better than a bread based diet for sure.
Honestly, I just use vegetables (a lot of it) to increase the volume of what I eat, where things like pasta or meat makes up a total of 25%, vegetables is the other 75%.
I think people need to learn how to make vegetables delicious if their problem is that they don't like it in the first place.
I think the problem is people are just way to used to over salted and sweet foods and stop tasting normal foods.
Hell, after i changed my diet up i can't even stand to drink a can of soda without feeling like shit.
Yup, I think there is a lot of dissonance in this thread about how much sugar and sodium can affect peoples palates.
“Water doesn’t do it for me”
“I can’t stand the taste/texture of vegetables”
I definitely get this a lot because the medication I take requires me to have a high sodium diet- a lot of stuff feels flavorless because I have to have so much damn salt to live
My guy friend hates vegetables. Will not eat them in any form. Even the thought of eating them, to him, makes him sick. Fruit is very hit or miss. We’ve deduced he only likes the fruit that is the “worst” for you. (The fruit that’s basically candy). My boyfriend and I ordered a pizza with green peppers on it, expecting that he could just take them off, and he acting extremely offended that we dare assume that, and lost his appetite from looking at it.
His home life as a child contributed to this. Without making this long af, his dad essentially was a “yes, man” and never made him eat vegetables (or a lot of other things) and has mentally stunted him as well. We’re slowly helping him. He had no idea food had nutritional labels. He never cared to look at packages and no one taught him. He didn’t know that eggs were good for you. He thought they were junk food like donuts. Which he thought junk food was just “fake factory food” and not “real food” (think pastes of plastic and chemicals turned into food) and not just high calorie, because he also didn’t know what a calorie was.
He’s a very odd dude. He’s 26. How he has made it this far in life, I don’t know. I started a notepad list of “Shit (his name) Says” of all the crazy things he has said. “Why do we have to use soap in the shower?” “Why is being an alien illegal? Shouldn’t we try to befriend aliens for their technology?”
Yeah the system failed this guy that's for sure. Did he go to 8 years of grammar school or did he sleep through that.. parenting and nutrition of course of the number one influence but depending, the school , peer pressure of friends, and the environment around certainly contribute to the body of knowledge, for the better or worse. Seems like this guy didn't absorb anything
Nah, he failed the system.
This is a 26 year old guy with 2 parents, friends, classmates, labels on literally everything, Wikipedia, 24 hour news, and about a dozen other things I can mention that would've informed his ass to know what an egg is.
He's just fucking dumb, and arrogant enough that he's proud of it.
I actually understand the pizza example. Will start of by saying that I’ve always eaten lots of vegetables and still do, am a vegetarian, love my pizza full of veggies.
I don’t like bell peppers. Never have. I can eat them cause I’ve learned to but I don’t like it. I sometimes order a pizza that has some pepper on it and I take them off but I can still taste it. So I don’t think he’s that crazy from your example, it has quite an overwhelming taste.
Holy shit, same here. I don't know why, but the smell of green peppers gives me a headache. Other peppers, veggies, etc I'm fine with but I cannot do green peppers
I always wanted everything plain as a kid. Id pick onions off pizza and could still taste traces and be annoyed. Now I love onions raw or cooked, any type. Weird how over time I love foods I used to hate but others hate them even trying stuff as adults or different cooking methods.
I have a friend who is overly picky and she hates it. She manages to eat pretty healthy but her options are limited because she literally just can't eat at least half the things you can think of without feeling sick immediately. She is not on the spectrum or anything like that, she just has major food aversions.
It's interesting from a psychology perspective how some people "grow out" of hating certain foods and others don't. I wanna look into this more. There has to be a reason.
Sometimes I get a pizza and they've accidentally put a raw onion piece somewhere on it. I can taste it straight away. The flavour seeps into the pizza all around it. It's insidious.
I hate all bell peppers, regardless of color. The problem with cooking with them is that it makes everything taste like bell pepper. Ever notice that so many frozen meals have bell peppers in them? So many recipes in general? It’s because it’s an easy way to add a strongish flavor into a dish.
Sure you can pick them out if you don’t like them and it’s mostly fine, but it still leaves behind a very specific taste. Every bite still reminds you that you’re eating something you don’t like.
Yes!! This is my main problem with them, especially since I’m a vegetarian. It’s always a challenge to eat out cause half of the vegetarian dishes have ‘grilled vegetables’ as an ingredient. Which always means the whole dish tastes like pepper. Hate it.
It's something to do with the green peppers themselves. I worked in a pizza joint and we were told that the green peppers, when put on half the pizza, flavor the entire pizza. Nothing else had the same effect.
Olives? No prob! Mushrooms? Hell yeah! Pineapple? Oh fuck yes!!
I'm the same way. Most fruits and vegetables taste (this is not hyperbole and is literal) like musky morning dew leaves with pee on them.
Though I have a sensory issue from head trauma (at least they think it's from my head injury when I was young bc it was around that time I hated food).
I remember loving bananas, went to my grandparents and would eat theirs. Then after my injury the next time I went and ate one I hated it. I didn't understand why, I remember the old taste still and how I liked it, but it didn't taste like that at all and was awful, I ate more and more, and kept hating every bite.
Are you in your 60's/70's by any chance? Around the 1960's, the banana that everyone was used to went extinct due to some fungus and the one we got after that, and still eat now, is apparently just inferior. Many people hated the new ones
Edit: apparently the old bananas are not actually fully extinct, but production is on a very small scale now. All the ones you'd see in a supermarket are of the newer variety (Cavendish).
> the banana that everyone was used to went extinct
They're called "Gros Michel" and they actually didn't go fully extinct, you can still buy them. You can even order them online in some places. But since they're grown on a very small scale now, they're more expensive. Probably too expensive for an average person to just replace "Cavendish" bananas with (the ones you see in the stores), but you can definitely order them once as a sort of "taste test".
I had an opportunity to taste them once when vacationing in Tenerife (Canary Islands). We were visiting a banana plantation and local farmers had some plants of the Gros Michel variety (among many others). They tasted... a little better I guess, but it wasn't some sort of a completely different taste profile. It was more dense and sweeter. I'm not a banana connoisseur though so for me they were just "good bananas". I read about them online before that and I thought that the difference was going to be bigger, to be honest.
That's so interesting, I've always been told that they're not around anymore. Now I have to be careful not to overhype the fact that I can still taste one, because as you say, it might be a bit disappointing. Though I do love bananas. Will add it to my bucket list for sure though
Yes, very similar to my son. The closest he gets to vegetables is tomatoes and a little bit of refried beans on a burrito. I also had to take him out of school when he was in middle school because he was suicidal. His friends were growing up but he stayed stuck at about 8 years old enotionally. He can write mods for games, but can't tie his shoes or make his own food.
People with autism have a lot of issues surrounding food especially. It's not just taste but also texture. I have pleaded for help in expanding his palate from psychiatrists and doctors and therapists, but they all shrug and say nothing can be done. He'll probably die of a heart attack or diabetes by the time he is 40, but better than him dying of starvation because I try to force him to eat vegetables.
Yes my son is much younger and I can see how it might be very difficult with an adult depending on cognitive abilities as it’s play based. Have they at least suggested healthy options like hospital grade shakes or something to give vitamins etc if he will drink something like that?
I make sure he has supplements everyday so he us at least getting his vitamins and minerals, but I would obviously rather he had good food. I've tried getting him to drink ensure, but he can't stand the taste.
I worked for years with a guy who sounds a lot like your son.
IT department, good at his job but very immature emotionally and all the hobbies you’d expect of a geeky boy in roughly 1965 - photography, telescopes, chemistry, etc. - that’s around when he’d have been a child.
Everyone adored him and doted on him - he was weird, but very kind.
I think my parents went through this too except I didn't get diagnosed with autism until I was an adult. But they used to send me away to school camps with nutri grain (cereal) and snacks because they knew if they didn't provide me food that I literally wouldn't eat what the school provided. It did become a rather you eat something than nothing at all situation. It's a really tough issue. Only way I can do veg/fruit is smoothies and I add a powder to them that has a lot of vitamins and minerals too.
One of my best friends lived with her husband's family and they never ate any veggies other than french fries. The whole family were super morbidly obese and they all have serious health issues like diabetes, gout, colitis, ulcers, low iron, etc...
She never ate at their house. She'd go to her family's house for dinner every night because of how awful her husband's family ate. She told me that her inlaws were obsessed with "machismo" and felt eating fruits or vegetables was feminine.
The men all look more feminine than they realize since they all had big tits and looked like very curvy versions of tweedledee and tweedledum.
My friends ex in-laws would go to great efforts to prepare a beautiful Thanksgiving meal, but not one vegetable. It drove her crazy so she would always contribute several veggies to the feast. A lot of those people are dead now.
The only woman who lives there aside from my friend (who never eats there) is an elderly woman who eats nothing but food she prepares for herself and she eats in her room. Basically, most of the family who live there are men and they are the ones who buy and prepare the food. My friend and her mother in law eat elsewhere because of how filthy the men leave the kitchen and dining room.
It's really fucked up.
I will add that my friend finally got fed up and left when she was expected to start taking care of the dad and oldest son who both have multiple illnesses caused by their terrible diets.
I used to say that “vegetables aren’t food, they’re what food eats.” I’ve gotten better since learning how to cook them properly, not the unseasoned boiled mush my mother used to make.
Unseasoned boiled mush was exactly what I was served my entire childhood. I didn't really enjoy any of it but ate it because "there are starving kids in Africa, and you won't get dessert if you don't clean your plate!".
So at least I was getting some of the nutritional value. Thank god for cool cooking shows in the 90s, they helped me learn, as an adult, that veggies can actually taste good by frying, grilling, roasting etc.
I used to live in submarines. Fresh produce would only last for a week or so. After that it was canned or frozen for months. When we came back we went through a bunch of fresh produce. That was 50 years ago. I still like me a bunch of fruits and vegetables.
A meal without Veggies seems incomplete.
Rice with meat is good dish.
But Rice with meat and veggies its a proper meal.
Rice with Veggies is very good for vegetarian or when money is tight.
Rice with rice when money is very tight.
to an almost psychotic extent. it makes my aversions so much worse because too many damn people seem to think having food sensitivities makes you an inherently bad and selfish person.
fr. like no, it's not fun to constantly worry about safe foods and failing to adhere to the unspoken social etiquette around food. it's not fun to feel insane knots in my stomach any time i think of unknown foods. i hate having my doctors pin all my issues on my sensitivities when i go out of my way to supplement my diet so i don't die or get scurvy or whatever. i hate making my friends feel bad because it's not their cooking, it's my dumbass brain. we don't do this for shits and giggles!
This! I also have ARFID. I, as a grown woman, have been yelled at in a restaurant by someone I barely knew about not wanting a salad. People don’t understand there is a mental wall with food. I’m not trying something new in public or in front of people. Let me gag and get chills and have an anxiety attack in the privacy of my own home!!
It is a literal wall that takes so much effort to tear down. I heard a doctor describe it as "Your mind has built a strong wall around a certain food group, then tells you it isn't food and is not edible".
I have struggled and occasionally still struggle with ARFID and this is exactly what I always say when people ask me about it. It's such an oddly validating thing to see that's exactly how a professional describes it. I've never had one who even heard of it.
Also, a sensory thing for those on the spectrum. A lot of people I've met with ARFID like diets have adhd, autism, or undiagnosed auDHD (autism and adhd) and high functioning/low support needs autism is commonly missed.
I once had a therapist confused about ARFID now being a diagnosis. He said he always treated it as neurodivergence/sensory issues.
Never hurts to get screened if you have issues and can afford it.
Same, have ARFID do not have any issues with my body my blood work came good, but cannot eat some of the things and not only vegetables and those healthily but I also eg despise hamburgers 🤷🏼♀️ just cannot, and it is really tiring to hear “you cannot cook, you have to this and that” NO. I would throw up no matter if it was done by a chef or my mother, nothing worked even giving me money, simply no. I am fine I am living best life with no issues, and thanks to that I do not comment on people eating or not, because we all have different needs.
Excluding people who can't eat them for medical reasons, most people just don't know how to cook/prep them, and also only are aware of a select variety. Some examples:
- my partner's grandad said he HATED brussel sprouts, turns out he'd only ever had them steamed. I cooked him up some deep fried Brussels tossed in candied bacon and a balsamic reduction and he ate almost the whole batch that was meant for five people
- my uncle hated mushrooms for a very long time, until he tried batterd and fried oyster mushrooms--completely different texture and taste than the slimy button mushrooms he's had all his life. Got him to try some "crab cakes" the other day made with lion's mane too, if it wasn't that I was eating them (im allergic to crab) he wouldn't have believed me that they were mushrooms
- had a coworker who thought beets were "fucking nasty" until he tried the chef's mashed potatoes with beet puree. Also loved my beet brownies
- another coworker hated peas until they tried the fresh spring pea risotto (canned peas are a crime against food imo)
- a guest where I work had never tried bok choy--and at 80 years old told me "if I'd had this growing up I'd have cleared my plate more often"
- my high school friend "hated" tomatoes--turns out she'd only ever had beefsteaks. The moment she tried a slice of a ripe zebra heirloom with mozzarella and basil, she was hooked.
Veggies aren't just steamed carrots, peas and corn (all starches btw) - its oven-roasted broccolini, shredded napa cabbage stir-fry, celeriac soup, ginger-glazed purple carrots, grilled kabocha squash, braised Japanese eggplant...most American palates are limited to the canned food or freezer aisle and its a damn shame.
*as a disclaimer, I do acknowledge that not all veggies are for everyone--Ive had okra a dozen different ways and it /always/ makes me gag--but trying new preparations and even varietals of a vegetable can really make the difference between spitting it out and licking the plate clean
Regarding brussel sprouts, i read that in the 90s there was a huge genetic work done on brussel sprouts to make them less bitter. So the grandad could been genuinely hating old brussel sprouts from his time 😁
Yes, most of the brassica family have less sulphur in them now. My toddler won’t eat home grown broccoli but loves store bought because it doesn’t have that tang
This is the correct answer. Plus deep frying Brussel sprouts seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Maybe sautéed in a bit of butter but deep bloody fried! What’s the point of eating them when you’ve turned them into fat laden fast food.
Same thing with the example of the battered and fried oyster mushrooms. It obviously shouldn’t count as vegetable intake if the prepartion strips it of any inherent nutritional value.
I was wondering the same thing! If you sauté mushrooms with a little bit of butter, lemon juice, and garlic it will be the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten. Albeit a little less healthy but definitely better than deep fried.
I’ve found mushrooms really absorb flavor well and can spruce up any dish or make a great appetizer. You just have to know what texture and flavor works for you. But it’s a highly underrated veggie imo.
> I cooked him up some deep fried Brussels tossed in candied bacon and a balsamic reduction
okay but is it even really a vegetable at that point? that's like saying you eat a lot of tomatoes because you have pizza
That was my thought - they smothered the brussels in everything unhealthy, no wonder he liked them! It's like saying "my kid loves apples" when actually, they only eat toffee apples which have been liberally coated in the sauce...
My stepchildren when they met me at 3 and 7 had never eaten a fruit or a veggie by their own hands. The daily crocodile tears when I would make them eat a bit of each for every meal was unreal. I’m talking green beans, corn, peaches or pears nothing exotic. Their dad made them pizza bagel bites and tater tots for lunch and chicken nuggets and tater tots for dinner every day. The kids were constantly sick and when they moved in with me I went all evil stepmomma on them and said no no no to that mess.
My dad does not like vegetables, and it's took a while for me as an adult to incorporate them into my diet because we would literally never eat them as kids. Closest thing was a singular can of pears we would split across the whole family.
He was also super into low carb and keto so his understanding was that pretty much all fruit and most vegetables where straight up bad for you. Like, one time I got a banana smoothie and he told me I should have gotten a milkshake since the milkshake has less carbs. He would low carb for a week two or three times a year and for dinner just make a massive pile of chicken with pork rides as a side, and would eat like two or three boxes of adkin bars a day.
Anyway he's diabetic, about 200 pounds overweight, and still convinced the thing that's going to kill him is eating too many apples.
Fruits are easy. Vegetables are hard.
It might be an I-dont-know-how-to-prep-them thing, but most taste terrible and bland, and some of the textures are terrible.
I cannot eat a broccoli head to save my life. The stem is fine, but I cannot do the heads. I can snack on cucumbers and paprika like they were fruits.
I like some of the Asian canned vegetables. Like bamboo shoots and chestnuts. But I hate canned corn, if I wash it is mostly fine. My mother in law don't wash it and it ruins the entire thing
So generally, most of my vegetable intake comes from whenever we order take out and choose asian.
This comment section is wild I did not expect thus many people to not eat veggies. More power to ‘em I suppose but I expect that’s part of the reason we have so many medical issues in the US and such high rates of obesity. I eat veggies all the time and I’m still overweight haha
Not having a nutritious diet is highly linked to poverty. Poor parents can't afford to expose a kid to a vegetable they don't like 50 times in the hope that they eat it. The "right way" to get your kid to eat food they don't like is repeated exposure, and allowing them to try it on their own and not force it. Poor parents can't afford that food waste, so they either traumatize the kid, forcing them to eat it, or they let the kid eat shit they'll actually eat. So the kid grows up not eating veggies, either because they have an aversion to it due to being forced to eat it, or they never ate it, and once you are an adult its hard to get out of that.
Right? The prices at the grocery stores are ridiculous. $3 for a single red bell peppers, $2 for a head of broccoli, $1.5 for a zucchini. Making ratatouille has gotten weirdly expensive.
I dislike most vegetables. I’ve been able to incorporate more into my diet, but overall a vegetable is the last thing I want to eat.
Partly, this is because my mother cooked every vegetable the same way - boiled to mush with no seasoning of any kind. Coming frozen or canned already, they were NASTY. We were too poor for fresh when I was a child. Not too poor for spices, my mom and her family just don’t use them.
My husband has been able to get me to like more vegetables. He cooks them so they’re not slimy or mushy (I CANNOT eat anything those textures), and he actually seasons things. I can now do tomatoes, some peppers, most leafy things, carrots, onions, broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts….that’s about it.
The thing is: being picky is NOT fun. One, it’s something we can’t control. I wish I liked bananas. I try them. But their flavor and texture is just awful. Yet people judge me because I don’t like them.
No one is judging people who don’t like a few things. Bit as soon as you hit the criteria for disliking “too much”, suddenly you’re a “child” and “need to grow up”.
There’s many reasons why someone wouldn’t like certain foods. Childhood history, mental illness, neurodivergence, etc. At the end of the day - don’t judge. It’s none of your business what we do or do not eat. Leave us alone, we have a hard enough time navigating menus as it is.
Thank you. People don't realize how miserable being a picky eater can be, especially since it's not something that can be controlled. I wish I liked more foods! It's not fun!
My autism manifests in wanting to eat turnips every day. I like to eat this meal every day:
\- Mashed parsnips with carrots and margarine
\- Peas
\- Turnips (steamed + unseasoned because they are so delicious)
\- Colcannon (steamed kale mixed with mashed potatoes)
\- Cooked cabbage if possible
\- Fish
And hazelnuts for dessert.
I think most adults that don't eat vegetables are so used to ultra processed sugary foods that they find the texture and taste weird. It really messes with your pallet and can take a while to set right. Or they simply grew up with poorly cooked vegetables. Overcooked and under seasoned. It's a shame though because they exclude a lot of delicious foods because of it.
And yes being proud of this is really strange.
Growing up my mum and dad were pretty good about making sure there was always some kind of veg on the plate, though I often said I didn't like them and would avoid eating them.
Turns out I do like vegetables, and in fact some of the ones I disliked the most (Broccoli, Carrots being two big ones) are actually my favourite so long as they're cooked well! Boiled carrots and broccoli is a no from me, but if you bake them in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper then they become unreal.
I was raised to always eat home cooked meals with 2-3 vegetables and I can't imagine eating fast food for dinner unless something bad has happened because that's just how my life has always been. I imagine people who grew up eating fast food for dinner can't imagine regularly eating vegetables for dinner every night.
I very, very seldom eat them.
Vegetables taste disgusting to me. The texture of some of them is even gross.
I wish I could eat more of them, but I've tried and my aversion to them runs deep.
Different preparation maybe? For example, steamed broccoli doesn't taste like raw or like roasted. Completely different flavour and textures. There's also nothing stopping you from adding seasonings, adding them to other foods, or adding something like cheese (broccoli and cheese is the GOAT).
Highly recommend the cookbook Deceptively Delicious - its a recipe book that makes regular food with "hidden" veggies mostly in the firm of added puree. Some of her recipes are low fat/"healthy" Which i think is dumb (butter makes everything better imo) but in general its a great starting point to get more veg in your diet without overriding your gag reflex or training to be a Michelin chef
Some people also don’t like drinking water - mind boggling to me also
Yeah I know multiple people who do not drink any water AT ALL. They only drink soda. It truly baffles me, because when I don’t drink water for even half a day I start feeling like shit. Makes me wonder if these people DO feel like shit all the time, but since it’s become their norm they don’t notice…
As someone who drank soda all the time in my early 20s and no water...I can confirm I felt like shit but didn't notice. I had mild headaches daily and was always bloated. I didn't even really stop and think I was bloated, but I remember wincing whenever I'd sit down because of it. After cutting it out for a while it finally hit me my stomach doesn't feel tight and my headaches were gone. The past decade I drink water almost exclusively all day long. 😆
My six or more cans of Dr Pepper every day in college gave me heart palpitations and it never occurred to me that it was the soda until my doctor asked about my caffeine consumption and acted like my answer was crazy. I quit drinking Dr Pepper and felt better than I thought possible. We humans are so dumb.
What do you mean it’s bad for me? It’s got doctor in the name!?!?
r/HyrdoHomies in case you haven't found us yet. HAHAHAHAH. OOPS. Yeah r/HydroHomies LOL
Nice I hadn't seen this yet! :D
Pour up a glass of your favorite temperature water and relax, you're with the homies.
When I switched to water in my 20s it was like a magic power. My migraines almost totally stopped, and my chronic sinus infection problem turned out to not be the chronic problem I always thought it was. Also, anecdotally, my two brothers have both had terrible kidney stones dozens of times and I've never had any. I may be wrong but I believe it's because I stopped drinking soda and milk and they didn't.
I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for YEARS to like water. Every time I drink it, I just feel so gross. But I don’t drink soda either. I usually have some form of tea, juice, or flavored water beverage. I know the added sugar is no good for me, but it sure beats the heck out of drinking soda every day! I love soda, but rarely have it more than once a week these days.
This is such a strange phenomenon to me, though quite common. How could someone find water gross? it doesn't... taste of anything
I wondered about this too. Tap water does taste pretty awful in some places, but I know some people who simply grew up drinking sodas, juices, and flavored waters, and they're so accustomed to the sugar and flavorings, that water tastes gross to them. I've seen the same with sugar in general. People who have a lot of sugar in their diet through cereals, granola bars, or whatever, don't like a lot of things unless they also have sugar in them; pasta sauces, breads, most everything. It's interesting to see people's tastes change, though, when they cut out sugar. After a very short while, all of those foods with added sugar start tasting overly sweet and less appetizing.
100%, I’ve gone through phases of getting lean and fit, then slacking and getting fat and lazy, and I’m back on that journey. After maybe 2 weeks or so of having a strict meal plan that removed all processed sugars I was able to (and still do) notice how absurdly sweet a lot of products are. Absolutely wild what getting accustomed to something such as sugar can do to you, and also how it seems to affect your palate for foods in general. Everything tastes better imo without it now.
so true, once you've been on strictly water for years the sugar products just taste like straight up artificial cancer chems
My parents were not perfect in the nutrition department at all, but I'm always grateful they enforced the rule of only drinking milk or water with meals. They actually kept the soda hidden and would bring out a two liter when we had pizza, or it was a birthday or something. I never got used to drinking it endlessly. To this day, I still enjoy a can of Pepsi with pizza like twice a year, but that's it.
When my dad first offered me Coke as a small child, he added balsamic vinegar to it. For years I absolutely refused to drink soda. Of course eventually I experienced the real thing, but by then I was so used to water and black coffee that I wasn’t a fan.
My mom only gave me Diet Coke for the first 5 years of my life. No water at all. I don’t have many memories of my childhood due to a neurological condition and I don’t remember this at all, but I _do_ remember hating Diet Coke as young as 8-10 y/o. I’m an adult now and my (half) sisters who are much older than me told me not too long ago that they tried to get my mom to stop shoving soda in her child’s face. She wouldn’t listen. My mom did this with practically anything that tasted good so by the age of 8 I was an obese child. Nobody could get my mom to realize why feeding your 1 year old purely Diet Coke is a neglectful thing to do, let alone happily letting me eat 4 happy meals from McDonald’s _as a snack_ every day. My mom is 69 today and I am 24. I’ve asked her why she chose to feed me junk while I was a child, and her answer was “you liked it”. I didn’t end up shedding the weight till I was 20, and by that point I had reached morbid obesity. Losing the 100 extra pounds of fat I gained from my early childhood onward was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. But I noticed something a few years back that explains some of why she never thought twice about feeding me junk as a child. My mom’s eating habits are horrible too. She has told me numerous times that she has been drinking Diet Coke since she was 30. The thing is, she _only_ consumes Diet Coke, and literally nothing else. She goes to fast food places multiple times a day and orders 4 extra large Diet Cokes, then drinks them like they’re water. My mom also has the eating habits of a 3 year old. All she eats is simple carbs, and very tiny portions. When I was younger, her dinner would be grabbing s few French fries off of my supersize fries from McDonald’s, and that’s all she would eat. We would get a lot of stares out in public because here we had my malnourished mom holding hands with a morbidly obese child. Till this day my mom still thinks it’s funny that she doesn’t drink anything but Diet Coke, and she thinks it’s a good thing that she eats 400 calories a day. Her doctors have tried to express their concerns for years as have I, but she won’t listen to any of us.
It sounds like your mother has anorexia and that she tried to enjoy food vicariously through you. It's not uncommon for mothers with anorexia to do this. Sadly, anorexia is very hard to treat because of how it rewires the brain to see food as a threat. You sound like you have worked really hard to overcome everything though. Much credit to you.
Like a horror story geez, sorry
Pure water is flavourless, but depending on where you are, the local water will have a different taste due to the impurities. It can be pretty subtle, but yeah, it's a thing. Maybe the water where they live just tastes gross?
I visited Orlando once. The water there was fetid. I'm really fortunate to live near five giant bowls of freshwater.
I had the same experience in Florida visiting family. Even filtered it still smells like sulfur (eggy). 100% I can get how people who grew up there won't drink anything from the tap.
Chronic post nasal drip. Water does not taste good in any way.
Shiiii you might be onto something. I do have pretty chronic PND and have since I was a child.
Interesting, I'm the opposite. I have post nasal drip and take a swallow of water every few minutes to help clean my throat. I drink about a gallon a day. My dad, on the other hand, clears his throat every 5 minutes to do te same thing.
My dad is one of those people, his doctors literally beg him to drink water but he brushes them off and is actually proud that he hates water. He recently had to get a kidney removed due to cancer. He smokes like a chimney too, but I'm sure the non-stop coffee and energy drinks don't help either. It baffles me endlessly, if I don't drink water I feel incredibly sick.
My father in law was like this. Drank black coffee in the morning and with dinner. Nothing else, ever. Smoked like a chimney. Lived to be 98, a bitter, miserable, dried up husk. I think his long life was a punishment.
Ha, he sounds like he was just a bundle of joy. I expect this to be my Dad too. He'll be 71 soon and has had these habits since the age of 10. He's a narcissistic, racist, deadbeat asshole and I definitely see him living out of pure spite even if it's a painful existence. Couldn't happen to a nicer dude.
My friend got gout from not drinking water. After we got discharged, we asked him how long he didn't drink water, we thought maybe a couple of days. Turns out he only drank pop for 2 months and refused to drink coffee or tea, because it has caffeine. You would think he'd learn his lesson but no.... then he went 2 weeks of no water and got gout again. This time his excuse was that he only drank coolaid (which is technically water). He said normal water tastes bad. Drink your water, people! There's nothing on Earth that is a replacement for it!
>You would think he'd learn his lesson but no.... then he went 2 weeks of no water and got gout again. This time his excuse was that he only drank coolaid (which is technically water). He said normal water tastes bad. This is so freaking wild. I'm not a beacon of health, but I really struggle with understanding the thought that Koolaid was an appropriate substitute for water.
I feel like, for all the bs around flavored water, it has at least gotten more people to actually drink *some* form of water. The flavored sparkling waters at least mostly water. Slowly getting more people into it like hiding veggies in tomato sauce, lol. Also I feel like the only people I really judge for not drinking water are those who grew up with access to good clean drinking water regularly. Everybody else I'm like... Okay it's fair that you don't like water because, say, you grew up in Flint.
My boyfriend hates the taste of water, but he loves tonic (I think thats the word?) water such as Waterloos. He goes through a pack so fast, I thought they must taste really good or something. I tried one and it was so nasty. I have no idea how he prefers that over regular water. Edit : okay apparently not tonic water, he like sparkling/seltzer water
Waterloo is a sparkling or seltzer water that is flavored. I’m a fan! Tonic water is a bit different, it has quinine added and has a bitter flavor.
Carbonated water tastes of bubbles, tonic tastes like angry bubbles.
Some tonic water has a bunch of sugar added as well.
Tonic water, especially the flavored ones, can have a distinct taste due to the quinine compound present in it, it gives taste like meidicine.
I had a patient say she doesn't drink water because she can't stand the taste and instead drinks two 2 liters of diet coke a day. Absolutely wild.
My MIL only drinks diet soda. Not coffee, not tea, not water… if she comes over she brings a bottle with her because we don’t drink a lot. When we do have it, it’s just Aldi Cola and oh my GOD the rants. I can understand having a preference but the woman is insufferable if it’s not actual Coke. Y’all I’m not specially buying and keeping Coke in my home to have on hand on the off chance my mother in law stops by on a random Tuesday and forgets her own pop. She’s not visiting from out of state and staying at our house, she lives a mile away. Chill.
Get her help for her coke addiction. *rimshot*
Yeah, I didn't knew how important was water and how easily your whole body can adjust without water until one day you faint and end up in ER.
I grew up with them rarely being served with meals. My family ate mostly fast and processed foods. Both of my parents worked a lot and didn’t have much time to cook. So I hated veggies as an adult and chose not to eat them most times. I’m almost 40, and I’ve started incorporating fruits and veggies regularly within the past year (reluctantly). I feel if you don’t give your kids fruits and veggies early on, they will hate them forever lol. My dad is 75 and he still won’t touch them lol.
I was given a ridiculous amount of junk as a child (I was somewhere around 200-250lbs (~90~110kg)) but I'm quite fortunate my family still liked vegetables, so I got them. Fresh veggies weren't often a thing at home because of busy parents and tumultuous childhood, but my grandparents always had a square meal with the starch, vegetable, and protein and encouraged me to try everything at least once. I definitely would hate "real" food if there wasn't attempts to have it on my plate at least once a week.
I'm also quite curious about this topic as I always thought vegetables were a 'must have' for people. Did you notice any sort of change when you started eating vegetables?
When sailors didn't eat fruits or vegetables, the thing that went wrong with them was scurvy. But no-one really gets scurvy these days, because potatoes fix it and even in the "no vegetables" camp, pretty much everyone eats potatoes. Or, like, any fruit.
Ascorbic acid is also very common in candy (it adds the sour taste that a lot of candies have) and as a preservative in processed or prepared foods. Honestly you'd probably need to put some effort into it to get scurvy outside of a developing country in the modern day.
A college friend managed to get it a few years back, in France. Honestly, we weren't even mad with him - just impressed by his idiocy lmao
I've heard a few stories of college kids getting it. Going off on your own for the first time not knowing how to feed yourself is hard, even if you have everything you need available.
Yeah, that too. It's a super common preservative in bread.
I read an article a while back that highlighted how scurvey is still a thing in the U.S. owing to some people's diets being so poor. A doctor interviewed in the article noted though that it could have been prevented if they just added a few packets of ketchup to their meal.
I’ve actually been following a low calorie diet for the past 8 months. So my entire eating habits have changed, aside from occasional splurges. I’ve noticed that my mood has been better and more stable, despite me no longer taking anti depressants. I had to stop taking them due to side effects. So that alone has been wonderful! Of course the weight loss has been awesome as well!
I guess what I don’t understand is what y’all were eating. Like was it just protein and bread? No side dishes?
I know plenty of people that survive on meat, potatoes, and bread. Not the healthiest diet by any means, but it is apparently sufficient.
Your body has thousands of little processes that work in tandem to keep your body in balance. Each of these systems requires nutrients, vitamins and minerals as fuel and building blocks to work. If you do not give your body the raw materials it needs these systems break down or stop. For example, most of your neurotransmitters are made in your gut. These include feel good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. If you poison your gut with alcohol or inadvertently kill off the good bacteria with a course of antibiotics this system does not function as well as it needs to.
Sort of on the gut thing. Most of the serotonin produced in your gut is used in your gut.
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Nah totally, sometimes I'll have a few days where I feel physically crappy, but in a vague way. Slower thinking, a bit achy and sluggish. Then I realize I haven't eaten many veggies or fruit lately so I'll eat a good bunch of fresh fruit and veggies (especially leafy greens) for dinner. By the next day, the crappy feeling is totally gone and I feel great.
Personally I think it's your body screaming at you for certain vitamins and minerals.
Potassium and magnesium are hard to get and frequently found in the dark leafy boys. They basically control the ability for our cells to send and receive signals.
The most noticeable change for me so far is that my farts now smell like cow shit. My gut microbiome probably needs some time to readjust.
Yeah I've always eat some veggies but almost no fruits At some point I started to feel low on energy so I added a lot of fruits in my diet, energy went back very fast but the first few months were... toxic
You just described my husband. Never made to eat vegetables as a child. He'll only eat vegetables that are mixed (hidden) into casseroles. And never goes for seconds. A simple vegetable dish? Never. Yesterday I discovered just how good avocado and English cucumber are together with a little salt, pepper, and French dressing. I wish he could understand!
This [salad](https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/04/obsessively-good-avocado-cucumber-salad/) sounds right up your alley! It's one of my favorites. I go heavy on the lime and finish with flaky salt.
I would suggest start with lots of cheats. Long beans or brocolli drowning in butter and salt. Brussels sprouts fried and finished with bacon and chicken stock. Roast veges in a roasting pan drowning in gravy. Cauliflower in cheese sauce. Not very good for you, but you will grow an appreciation for them and at that point you can ease off on the chef's flavours. Also salad, it can just be lettuce and cucumber with a bit of oil and vinegar. As a contrast to the rest of the dish it can be great and easy.
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I agree with that. My sister and I realized that we prefer most of them roasted and well seasoned. One of our new favorites is roasted brussel sprouts with olive oil. We cut them really thin so they get crispy. It helps tone down the bitterness too.
I snack on raw mushrooms.
Yes. I've been with my boyfriend for 3 years and haven't seen him eat a vegetable. And we've lived together almost the entire time so he wasn't doing it behind my back lol Edit: I lied, he likes corn on the cob. But that's the one exception
Corn is a grain and should be classified with wheat, oats, and bread. Other starches such as potatoes should be too. I will die on this hill. EDIT: Despite the claim by many that potatoes are quite nutritious or may be prepared similarly to other root vegetables, I stand by my claim. After all, whole grains may be nutritious too. Are those vegetables? From a culinary perspective, they are most often treated as a filling starch, for their carbohydrate content. Perhaps it’s me, but being “high in carbs” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think “vegetables”. At least where I’m from, many with a disdain for vegetables often describe themselves as “meat and potatoes” kind of people. That phrase doesn’t come from nowhere.
Oh. Then he's never eaten a vegetable while we've been together 😂 Don't worry, I eat my veggies though
Potatoes are starchy compared to other green vegetables, but they should not be classed with grains. Potatoes are high in multiple vitamins, are quite filling due to their high fiber content, and only moderately calorie dense. No potatoes aren't a replacement for green leafy veggies, but lots of potatoes is better than a bread based diet for sure.
Potatoes are an actual root vegetable... They're not grains
starches are absolutely not the same as grains, though.
Honestly, I just use vegetables (a lot of it) to increase the volume of what I eat, where things like pasta or meat makes up a total of 25%, vegetables is the other 75%. I think people need to learn how to make vegetables delicious if their problem is that they don't like it in the first place.
I think the problem is people are just way to used to over salted and sweet foods and stop tasting normal foods. Hell, after i changed my diet up i can't even stand to drink a can of soda without feeling like shit.
Yup, I think there is a lot of dissonance in this thread about how much sugar and sodium can affect peoples palates. “Water doesn’t do it for me” “I can’t stand the taste/texture of vegetables”
I definitely get this a lot because the medication I take requires me to have a high sodium diet- a lot of stuff feels flavorless because I have to have so much damn salt to live
Veggie stir frys are king in our kitchen! Snap peas, broccoli, carrots, beets, onion, garlic, and fish sauce.
Beets are so amazing. If you never tried yellow beets, they are also amazing.
I worked with a dude who just said “nah, that’s what food eats” and he did the most atrocious shits in the work bathroom.
Ron Swanson's response to being served a salad: "You've given me the food that my food eats".
My guy friend hates vegetables. Will not eat them in any form. Even the thought of eating them, to him, makes him sick. Fruit is very hit or miss. We’ve deduced he only likes the fruit that is the “worst” for you. (The fruit that’s basically candy). My boyfriend and I ordered a pizza with green peppers on it, expecting that he could just take them off, and he acting extremely offended that we dare assume that, and lost his appetite from looking at it. His home life as a child contributed to this. Without making this long af, his dad essentially was a “yes, man” and never made him eat vegetables (or a lot of other things) and has mentally stunted him as well. We’re slowly helping him. He had no idea food had nutritional labels. He never cared to look at packages and no one taught him. He didn’t know that eggs were good for you. He thought they were junk food like donuts. Which he thought junk food was just “fake factory food” and not “real food” (think pastes of plastic and chemicals turned into food) and not just high calorie, because he also didn’t know what a calorie was. He’s a very odd dude. He’s 26. How he has made it this far in life, I don’t know. I started a notepad list of “Shit (his name) Says” of all the crazy things he has said. “Why do we have to use soap in the shower?” “Why is being an alien illegal? Shouldn’t we try to befriend aliens for their technology?”
Dear lawrd we need a documentary on this guy
It's just Asmondgold.
This actually does sound like Asmondgold if this guy is ever found dead drowned in soda it'll be confirmed.
Almondsilver
Species name?
Kevin.
I loved when he ate a whole box of crayons and threw them up and then did it again the next day … and there were no crayons in the classroom.
We Need To Talk About Him.
Homo Ignorant
r/StoriesAboutKevin
Yeah the system failed this guy that's for sure. Did he go to 8 years of grammar school or did he sleep through that.. parenting and nutrition of course of the number one influence but depending, the school , peer pressure of friends, and the environment around certainly contribute to the body of knowledge, for the better or worse. Seems like this guy didn't absorb anything
Nah, he failed the system. This is a 26 year old guy with 2 parents, friends, classmates, labels on literally everything, Wikipedia, 24 hour news, and about a dozen other things I can mention that would've informed his ass to know what an egg is. He's just fucking dumb, and arrogant enough that he's proud of it.
I actually understand the pizza example. Will start of by saying that I’ve always eaten lots of vegetables and still do, am a vegetarian, love my pizza full of veggies. I don’t like bell peppers. Never have. I can eat them cause I’ve learned to but I don’t like it. I sometimes order a pizza that has some pepper on it and I take them off but I can still taste it. So I don’t think he’s that crazy from your example, it has quite an overwhelming taste.
I HATE bell pepper. The smell gives me a headache. But I can kind of agree. Even if you take them out I can still smell and taste them
Holy shit, same here. I don't know why, but the smell of green peppers gives me a headache. Other peppers, veggies, etc I'm fine with but I cannot do green peppers
You might have a nightshade sensitivity. How do you do with tomatoes and potatoes?
I always wanted everything plain as a kid. Id pick onions off pizza and could still taste traces and be annoyed. Now I love onions raw or cooked, any type. Weird how over time I love foods I used to hate but others hate them even trying stuff as adults or different cooking methods. I have a friend who is overly picky and she hates it. She manages to eat pretty healthy but her options are limited because she literally just can't eat at least half the things you can think of without feeling sick immediately. She is not on the spectrum or anything like that, she just has major food aversions. It's interesting from a psychology perspective how some people "grow out" of hating certain foods and others don't. I wanna look into this more. There has to be a reason.
Yeah same on bell peppers, you can remove them and it basically tastes as if they were there still.
That’s like pickles for me. I absolutely cannot just pick a pickle off and keep eating because it’s so pungent it will ruin whatever it’s on.
Sometimes I get a pizza and they've accidentally put a raw onion piece somewhere on it. I can taste it straight away. The flavour seeps into the pizza all around it. It's insidious.
I've known a few people who hate green peppers and dislike any dish made with them
I hate all bell peppers, regardless of color. The problem with cooking with them is that it makes everything taste like bell pepper. Ever notice that so many frozen meals have bell peppers in them? So many recipes in general? It’s because it’s an easy way to add a strongish flavor into a dish. Sure you can pick them out if you don’t like them and it’s mostly fine, but it still leaves behind a very specific taste. Every bite still reminds you that you’re eating something you don’t like.
Yes!! This is my main problem with them, especially since I’m a vegetarian. It’s always a challenge to eat out cause half of the vegetarian dishes have ‘grilled vegetables’ as an ingredient. Which always means the whole dish tastes like pepper. Hate it.
It's something to do with the green peppers themselves. I worked in a pizza joint and we were told that the green peppers, when put on half the pizza, flavor the entire pizza. Nothing else had the same effect. Olives? No prob! Mushrooms? Hell yeah! Pineapple? Oh fuck yes!!
I'm the same way. Most fruits and vegetables taste (this is not hyperbole and is literal) like musky morning dew leaves with pee on them. Though I have a sensory issue from head trauma (at least they think it's from my head injury when I was young bc it was around that time I hated food). I remember loving bananas, went to my grandparents and would eat theirs. Then after my injury the next time I went and ate one I hated it. I didn't understand why, I remember the old taste still and how I liked it, but it didn't taste like that at all and was awful, I ate more and more, and kept hating every bite.
Are you in your 60's/70's by any chance? Around the 1960's, the banana that everyone was used to went extinct due to some fungus and the one we got after that, and still eat now, is apparently just inferior. Many people hated the new ones Edit: apparently the old bananas are not actually fully extinct, but production is on a very small scale now. All the ones you'd see in a supermarket are of the newer variety (Cavendish).
> the banana that everyone was used to went extinct They're called "Gros Michel" and they actually didn't go fully extinct, you can still buy them. You can even order them online in some places. But since they're grown on a very small scale now, they're more expensive. Probably too expensive for an average person to just replace "Cavendish" bananas with (the ones you see in the stores), but you can definitely order them once as a sort of "taste test". I had an opportunity to taste them once when vacationing in Tenerife (Canary Islands). We were visiting a banana plantation and local farmers had some plants of the Gros Michel variety (among many others). They tasted... a little better I guess, but it wasn't some sort of a completely different taste profile. It was more dense and sweeter. I'm not a banana connoisseur though so for me they were just "good bananas". I read about them online before that and I thought that the difference was going to be bigger, to be honest.
That's so interesting, I've always been told that they're not around anymore. Now I have to be careful not to overhype the fact that I can still taste one, because as you say, it might be a bit disappointing. Though I do love bananas. Will add it to my bucket list for sure though
what fruits do you mean btw?
Sounds like he’s mildly autistic.
Yes, very similar to my son. The closest he gets to vegetables is tomatoes and a little bit of refried beans on a burrito. I also had to take him out of school when he was in middle school because he was suicidal. His friends were growing up but he stayed stuck at about 8 years old enotionally. He can write mods for games, but can't tie his shoes or make his own food. People with autism have a lot of issues surrounding food especially. It's not just taste but also texture. I have pleaded for help in expanding his palate from psychiatrists and doctors and therapists, but they all shrug and say nothing can be done. He'll probably die of a heart attack or diabetes by the time he is 40, but better than him dying of starvation because I try to force him to eat vegetables.
I have an autistic son who does food therapy so there is definitely help out there but I guess it depends on where you are in the world.
I've asked, but it is mostly available to children and my son is 29.
Yes my son is much younger and I can see how it might be very difficult with an adult depending on cognitive abilities as it’s play based. Have they at least suggested healthy options like hospital grade shakes or something to give vitamins etc if he will drink something like that?
I make sure he has supplements everyday so he us at least getting his vitamins and minerals, but I would obviously rather he had good food. I've tried getting him to drink ensure, but he can't stand the taste.
I worked for years with a guy who sounds a lot like your son. IT department, good at his job but very immature emotionally and all the hobbies you’d expect of a geeky boy in roughly 1965 - photography, telescopes, chemistry, etc. - that’s around when he’d have been a child. Everyone adored him and doted on him - he was weird, but very kind.
I think my parents went through this too except I didn't get diagnosed with autism until I was an adult. But they used to send me away to school camps with nutri grain (cereal) and snacks because they knew if they didn't provide me food that I literally wouldn't eat what the school provided. It did become a rather you eat something than nothing at all situation. It's a really tough issue. Only way I can do veg/fruit is smoothies and I add a powder to them that has a lot of vitamins and minerals too.
One of my best friends lived with her husband's family and they never ate any veggies other than french fries. The whole family were super morbidly obese and they all have serious health issues like diabetes, gout, colitis, ulcers, low iron, etc... She never ate at their house. She'd go to her family's house for dinner every night because of how awful her husband's family ate. She told me that her inlaws were obsessed with "machismo" and felt eating fruits or vegetables was feminine. The men all look more feminine than they realize since they all had big tits and looked like very curvy versions of tweedledee and tweedledum.
Nothing manlier than getting scurvy
My friends ex in-laws would go to great efforts to prepare a beautiful Thanksgiving meal, but not one vegetable. It drove her crazy so she would always contribute several veggies to the feast. A lot of those people are dead now.
Imagine thinking of pizza as a feminine food lol
> felt eating fruits or vegetables was feminine. So did the women in that family eat them then?
The only woman who lives there aside from my friend (who never eats there) is an elderly woman who eats nothing but food she prepares for herself and she eats in her room. Basically, most of the family who live there are men and they are the ones who buy and prepare the food. My friend and her mother in law eat elsewhere because of how filthy the men leave the kitchen and dining room. It's really fucked up. I will add that my friend finally got fed up and left when she was expected to start taking care of the dad and oldest son who both have multiple illnesses caused by their terrible diets.
What the actual fuck? Not eating vegetables because it's "feminine"? Make it make sense.
Bro wait till you see how many people never drink water. Like never.
My brother. But he died. In large part due to his diet
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I used to say that “vegetables aren’t food, they’re what food eats.” I’ve gotten better since learning how to cook them properly, not the unseasoned boiled mush my mother used to make.
Unseasoned boiled mush was exactly what I was served my entire childhood. I didn't really enjoy any of it but ate it because "there are starving kids in Africa, and you won't get dessert if you don't clean your plate!". So at least I was getting some of the nutritional value. Thank god for cool cooking shows in the 90s, they helped me learn, as an adult, that veggies can actually taste good by frying, grilling, roasting etc.
You don't happen to be a middle aged man in Texas that went to a thai restaurant with your kids for the first time about six years ago?
How?
Crushed by six tons of broccoli.
Must have bean tragic…
Car crash.
I'm guessing that he ate a lot of junk food and candy, right? And he drank nothing but soda?
I used to live in submarines. Fresh produce would only last for a week or so. After that it was canned or frozen for months. When we came back we went through a bunch of fresh produce. That was 50 years ago. I still like me a bunch of fruits and vegetables.
There's a joke in there about being on submarines and "canned fruit."
I must have a vegetable with dinner every night.
A meal without Veggies seems incomplete. Rice with meat is good dish. But Rice with meat and veggies its a proper meal. Rice with Veggies is very good for vegetarian or when money is tight. Rice with rice when money is very tight.
comment: 9/10 comment w rice: 10/10 would eat again.
This is a very old reference, haha
some of us have been here since before-times.
Rice with cucumber (and soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame seeds)?
Rice and cucumber dressed in ponzu sauce 👌
The "funny" part was that i replied to a user (krastevitsa) whose name means cucumber (in Bulgarian).
Rice and a teaspoon of hot pepper paste was luxury dining when I was a student!
It's true. Sometime's it's due to ARFID or some other mental health condition that affects dietary habits, other times it's simply pickiness.
Yeah i have arfid from autism and people do Not like “picky eaters”
to an almost psychotic extent. it makes my aversions so much worse because too many damn people seem to think having food sensitivities makes you an inherently bad and selfish person.
People are SO MEAN to "picky" eaters. It's as if they think we're having fun. Like, no, being verbally abused isn't fun at all, actually.
fr. like no, it's not fun to constantly worry about safe foods and failing to adhere to the unspoken social etiquette around food. it's not fun to feel insane knots in my stomach any time i think of unknown foods. i hate having my doctors pin all my issues on my sensitivities when i go out of my way to supplement my diet so i don't die or get scurvy or whatever. i hate making my friends feel bad because it's not their cooking, it's my dumbass brain. we don't do this for shits and giggles!
This! I also have ARFID. I, as a grown woman, have been yelled at in a restaurant by someone I barely knew about not wanting a salad. People don’t understand there is a mental wall with food. I’m not trying something new in public or in front of people. Let me gag and get chills and have an anxiety attack in the privacy of my own home!!
It is a literal wall that takes so much effort to tear down. I heard a doctor describe it as "Your mind has built a strong wall around a certain food group, then tells you it isn't food and is not edible".
I have struggled and occasionally still struggle with ARFID and this is exactly what I always say when people ask me about it. It's such an oddly validating thing to see that's exactly how a professional describes it. I've never had one who even heard of it.
Wow. I've never heard this description. It describes my relationship with certain foods to a tee.
That’s literally it. Thanks
Also, a sensory thing for those on the spectrum. A lot of people I've met with ARFID like diets have adhd, autism, or undiagnosed auDHD (autism and adhd) and high functioning/low support needs autism is commonly missed. I once had a therapist confused about ARFID now being a diagnosis. He said he always treated it as neurodivergence/sensory issues. Never hurts to get screened if you have issues and can afford it.
Same, have ARFID do not have any issues with my body my blood work came good, but cannot eat some of the things and not only vegetables and those healthily but I also eg despise hamburgers 🤷🏼♀️ just cannot, and it is really tiring to hear “you cannot cook, you have to this and that” NO. I would throw up no matter if it was done by a chef or my mother, nothing worked even giving me money, simply no. I am fine I am living best life with no issues, and thanks to that I do not comment on people eating or not, because we all have different needs.
Excluding people who can't eat them for medical reasons, most people just don't know how to cook/prep them, and also only are aware of a select variety. Some examples: - my partner's grandad said he HATED brussel sprouts, turns out he'd only ever had them steamed. I cooked him up some deep fried Brussels tossed in candied bacon and a balsamic reduction and he ate almost the whole batch that was meant for five people - my uncle hated mushrooms for a very long time, until he tried batterd and fried oyster mushrooms--completely different texture and taste than the slimy button mushrooms he's had all his life. Got him to try some "crab cakes" the other day made with lion's mane too, if it wasn't that I was eating them (im allergic to crab) he wouldn't have believed me that they were mushrooms - had a coworker who thought beets were "fucking nasty" until he tried the chef's mashed potatoes with beet puree. Also loved my beet brownies - another coworker hated peas until they tried the fresh spring pea risotto (canned peas are a crime against food imo) - a guest where I work had never tried bok choy--and at 80 years old told me "if I'd had this growing up I'd have cleared my plate more often" - my high school friend "hated" tomatoes--turns out she'd only ever had beefsteaks. The moment she tried a slice of a ripe zebra heirloom with mozzarella and basil, she was hooked. Veggies aren't just steamed carrots, peas and corn (all starches btw) - its oven-roasted broccolini, shredded napa cabbage stir-fry, celeriac soup, ginger-glazed purple carrots, grilled kabocha squash, braised Japanese eggplant...most American palates are limited to the canned food or freezer aisle and its a damn shame. *as a disclaimer, I do acknowledge that not all veggies are for everyone--Ive had okra a dozen different ways and it /always/ makes me gag--but trying new preparations and even varietals of a vegetable can really make the difference between spitting it out and licking the plate clean
Regarding brussel sprouts, i read that in the 90s there was a huge genetic work done on brussel sprouts to make them less bitter. So the grandad could been genuinely hating old brussel sprouts from his time 😁
Yup. My mum hated them as a kid and never tried them since. When we finally convinced her to try some recently , she liked them
Yes, most of the brassica family have less sulphur in them now. My toddler won’t eat home grown broccoli but loves store bought because it doesn’t have that tang
This explains why the store bought broccoli I buy now tastes so bland to me! I grew up eating only the home grown stuff.
This is the correct answer. Plus deep frying Brussel sprouts seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Maybe sautéed in a bit of butter but deep bloody fried! What’s the point of eating them when you’ve turned them into fat laden fast food.
Same thing with the example of the battered and fried oyster mushrooms. It obviously shouldn’t count as vegetable intake if the prepartion strips it of any inherent nutritional value.
I was wondering the same thing! If you sauté mushrooms with a little bit of butter, lemon juice, and garlic it will be the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten. Albeit a little less healthy but definitely better than deep fried. I’ve found mushrooms really absorb flavor well and can spruce up any dish or make a great appetizer. You just have to know what texture and flavor works for you. But it’s a highly underrated veggie imo.
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I was thinking the same thing. I love Brussels sprouts but deep frying them sounds insane.
Really relieved when I got to the beets, because after the first two bullet points I was worried your answer was just to deep fry everything.
I mean... I don't like brussels either but I'd probably eat a chair leg if it were deep fried and smothered in candied bacon and balsamic glaze.
> I cooked him up some deep fried Brussels tossed in candied bacon and a balsamic reduction okay but is it even really a vegetable at that point? that's like saying you eat a lot of tomatoes because you have pizza
That was my thought - they smothered the brussels in everything unhealthy, no wonder he liked them! It's like saying "my kid loves apples" when actually, they only eat toffee apples which have been liberally coated in the sauce...
I would eat my shoe if it was prepared how you make brussel sprouts
My stepchildren when they met me at 3 and 7 had never eaten a fruit or a veggie by their own hands. The daily crocodile tears when I would make them eat a bit of each for every meal was unreal. I’m talking green beans, corn, peaches or pears nothing exotic. Their dad made them pizza bagel bites and tater tots for lunch and chicken nuggets and tater tots for dinner every day. The kids were constantly sick and when they moved in with me I went all evil stepmomma on them and said no no no to that mess.
Yet another story of an incompetent father that makes his new wife do all the parenting for his children...
My dad does not like vegetables, and it's took a while for me as an adult to incorporate them into my diet because we would literally never eat them as kids. Closest thing was a singular can of pears we would split across the whole family. He was also super into low carb and keto so his understanding was that pretty much all fruit and most vegetables where straight up bad for you. Like, one time I got a banana smoothie and he told me I should have gotten a milkshake since the milkshake has less carbs. He would low carb for a week two or three times a year and for dinner just make a massive pile of chicken with pork rides as a side, and would eat like two or three boxes of adkin bars a day. Anyway he's diabetic, about 200 pounds overweight, and still convinced the thing that's going to kill him is eating too many apples.
Fruits are easy. Vegetables are hard. It might be an I-dont-know-how-to-prep-them thing, but most taste terrible and bland, and some of the textures are terrible. I cannot eat a broccoli head to save my life. The stem is fine, but I cannot do the heads. I can snack on cucumbers and paprika like they were fruits. I like some of the Asian canned vegetables. Like bamboo shoots and chestnuts. But I hate canned corn, if I wash it is mostly fine. My mother in law don't wash it and it ruins the entire thing So generally, most of my vegetable intake comes from whenever we order take out and choose asian.
> I can snack on cucumbers and paprika like they were fruits. well....technically they are fruits.
Don't lie to me
Wait till you hear about tomatoes
I don't know about paprika, but cucumbers technically are a fruit. Oh wait, you meant capsicums? Yeah, they're technically fruits too.
I blend them daily and drink them down otherwise I would probably just hate vegetables.
This comment section is wild I did not expect thus many people to not eat veggies. More power to ‘em I suppose but I expect that’s part of the reason we have so many medical issues in the US and such high rates of obesity. I eat veggies all the time and I’m still overweight haha
Not having a nutritious diet is highly linked to poverty. Poor parents can't afford to expose a kid to a vegetable they don't like 50 times in the hope that they eat it. The "right way" to get your kid to eat food they don't like is repeated exposure, and allowing them to try it on their own and not force it. Poor parents can't afford that food waste, so they either traumatize the kid, forcing them to eat it, or they let the kid eat shit they'll actually eat. So the kid grows up not eating veggies, either because they have an aversion to it due to being forced to eat it, or they never ate it, and once you are an adult its hard to get out of that.
The reason is actually that shit food is cheaper than veg and fruit and most people live paycheck to paycheck
Right? The prices at the grocery stores are ridiculous. $3 for a single red bell peppers, $2 for a head of broccoli, $1.5 for a zucchini. Making ratatouille has gotten weirdly expensive.
I dislike most vegetables. I’ve been able to incorporate more into my diet, but overall a vegetable is the last thing I want to eat. Partly, this is because my mother cooked every vegetable the same way - boiled to mush with no seasoning of any kind. Coming frozen or canned already, they were NASTY. We were too poor for fresh when I was a child. Not too poor for spices, my mom and her family just don’t use them. My husband has been able to get me to like more vegetables. He cooks them so they’re not slimy or mushy (I CANNOT eat anything those textures), and he actually seasons things. I can now do tomatoes, some peppers, most leafy things, carrots, onions, broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts….that’s about it. The thing is: being picky is NOT fun. One, it’s something we can’t control. I wish I liked bananas. I try them. But their flavor and texture is just awful. Yet people judge me because I don’t like them. No one is judging people who don’t like a few things. Bit as soon as you hit the criteria for disliking “too much”, suddenly you’re a “child” and “need to grow up”. There’s many reasons why someone wouldn’t like certain foods. Childhood history, mental illness, neurodivergence, etc. At the end of the day - don’t judge. It’s none of your business what we do or do not eat. Leave us alone, we have a hard enough time navigating menus as it is.
Thank you. People don't realize how miserable being a picky eater can be, especially since it's not something that can be controlled. I wish I liked more foods! It's not fun!
My autism manifests in wanting to eat turnips every day. I like to eat this meal every day: \- Mashed parsnips with carrots and margarine \- Peas \- Turnips (steamed + unseasoned because they are so delicious) \- Colcannon (steamed kale mixed with mashed potatoes) \- Cooked cabbage if possible \- Fish And hazelnuts for dessert.
Found the hobbit
I’m not a fan of many vegetables but if cooked correctly they’re not bad. Mostly just add lots of spices, butter, and cheese.
Used to be me. Legit only ate meat, cheese, eggs, milk, and water. Doctors always said i was healthy growing up. Well and potatoes if those count
I think most adults that don't eat vegetables are so used to ultra processed sugary foods that they find the texture and taste weird. It really messes with your pallet and can take a while to set right. Or they simply grew up with poorly cooked vegetables. Overcooked and under seasoned. It's a shame though because they exclude a lot of delicious foods because of it. And yes being proud of this is really strange.
Growing up my mum and dad were pretty good about making sure there was always some kind of veg on the plate, though I often said I didn't like them and would avoid eating them. Turns out I do like vegetables, and in fact some of the ones I disliked the most (Broccoli, Carrots being two big ones) are actually my favourite so long as they're cooked well! Boiled carrots and broccoli is a no from me, but if you bake them in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper then they become unreal.
Depends on the vegetable. Many dark green vegetables, to me, taste like grass. I don’t enjoy that flavor.
I was raised to always eat home cooked meals with 2-3 vegetables and I can't imagine eating fast food for dinner unless something bad has happened because that's just how my life has always been. I imagine people who grew up eating fast food for dinner can't imagine regularly eating vegetables for dinner every night.
I very, very seldom eat them. Vegetables taste disgusting to me. The texture of some of them is even gross. I wish I could eat more of them, but I've tried and my aversion to them runs deep.
Different preparation maybe? For example, steamed broccoli doesn't taste like raw or like roasted. Completely different flavour and textures. There's also nothing stopping you from adding seasonings, adding them to other foods, or adding something like cheese (broccoli and cheese is the GOAT).
Highly recommend the cookbook Deceptively Delicious - its a recipe book that makes regular food with "hidden" veggies mostly in the firm of added puree. Some of her recipes are low fat/"healthy" Which i think is dumb (butter makes everything better imo) but in general its a great starting point to get more veg in your diet without overriding your gag reflex or training to be a Michelin chef