Ten Tips for Veggie Haters or How to Enjoy Eating Veggies

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You know you should be getting your veggies every day.  But you just don’t like them. Here’s some tips to get your veggies without having to gag them down. And there are links to dozens of tested, top rated vegetable recipes.

1. Match your food tastes. Do  you like Spicy? Crunchy? Saucy? Soft? Sweet? Bitter? A specific cuisine? Try dishes that satisfy those tastes (veggie recipes by category).

2. Retry them. A study of elementary school students showed that the more the children were exposed to the taste of vegetables they disliked, the more they learned to enjoy them.  You could retrain your taste buds in as little as 2 weeks of healthy eating, according to RealAge experts and YOU: On a Diet authors Michael Roizen, MD, and Mehmet Oz, MD.  Several comments on the RealAge blog confirmed the truth of this study. Over the years, you’ve probably acquired a taste for several things you first disliked. Give a few veggies a try for two weeks to see if they taste better to you.

3. Reframe them. Akin to the previous suggestion, what you might not like is your childhood memory of vegetables; being forced to eat them, eating mushy vegetables, or some bad experience. Things have changed since you were young. Food processing and preparation techniques have improved, recipes are more available (and taste-tested thanks to food research and internet food sites)  and your taste buds have changed. Say to yourself, “these aren’t my mommy's veggies!”

4. Hide them. I don’t mean feeding them to the dog or hiding them in mom’s philodendron. Dice them and add them in recipes such as Lasagna or Pizza. Grind them and add them to sauces and other recipes. Search for recipes on the internet that use ‘hidden’ vegetables. The food network has tips for kid-friendly vegetables with recipes, so does The Sneaky Chef. Rocco Dispirito includes black beans in his revamped brownie recipe.   

5. Re-flavor them.  A WebMD article on easy ways to eat more vegetables notes cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts can taste bitter, especially if overcooked. To cut the bitterness of these veggies, add a little olive oil (or other fat) when stir-frying or sautéing; add something salty or sour (like a drizzle of light soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, lemon, or shredded Parmesan); or glaze the vegetables with something sweet (a small spoonful of honey or orange marmalade).

6. Grill them.  Everything tastes better on the grill. And grilling adds an element of fun to everything. Try these sites: Steven Raichlen, BBQ Univeristy,  Taste of Home, 10 Top Grilled Vegetable Recipes, Cooks Illustrated – How to Grill Vegetables, Care2 (make a difference), 5 Marinades for Grilled Vegetables.

7. Cover them. If you like sauces, there are hundreds you could use to give the veggies more flavor from easy sauces (barbecue sauce, soy sauce, sweet, marinara and sour sauce) to not so easy (béarnaise, hollandaise, cheese sauce). Just make sure to go lightly on the high-calorie, high-fat sauces.  For an example of using sauce when you normally wouldn't think to, at a Chicago pizza place buffet, I top their otherwise bland veggie medley their marinara sauce. It transforms the veggies into a tasty dish and keeps me from overloading on pizza.

8. Season them. Sometimes, just a sprinkle of seasonings can make veggies pop. Places such as Penzeys (current catalog with recipe suggestions)  and Spice House (list of vegetable recipes)  have all kinds of special herb blends and recipes.  Look at the labels on your herbs or visit Which Spices/Herbs to Use for suggestions.

9. Try them. If you think you don’t like vegetables, chances are there are a lot of vegetables you’ve never tried. Try some veggies you’ve never tried: sugar snap peas, jicama, bok choy, palm hearts, fennel, atrichoke hearts. Try them cooked a new way. Try some recipe or cuisine you’ve never tried. Scan the recipes here to see if there is anything that has a few ingredients that appeal to you and try it. You might be surprised!

10. Commit to try at least two of these techniques and at least four of the recipes in the next month. Chances are you’ll find something that works for you.

Let us know how any of these techniques worked for you and which recipes you liked.

References

1. How to Love Vegetables More in Just a Few Weeks, RealAge.com
2. Try these easy ways to get more vegetables into your diet, WebMD.com, Elaine Magee, MPH, RD