Don’t like vegetables? Try this.

I have always liked vegetables, and enjoyed eating a wide range of colourful ones, knowing they were also good for me…but not everyone enjoys eating veggies. It’s not your fault if you don’t like eating vegetables. The world of ultra-processed and takeaway foods corrupts and overstimulates our palate. Excess salt, MSG and both natural and artificial flavours are scientifically designed to be addictive, and to make ordinary food less appealing. It is a process of learning to love the simpler flavours again - retraining the tastebuds. It is possible! 

I do tend to write a lot, and speak to clients, about eating more vegetables, because 5 serves a day is the minimum recommended to give you all the polyphenols and other nutrients for a healthy body. And hardly anyone eats that much. I recommend half your plate being vegetables. So I thought I had better share some ideas about how to develop a taste for eating vegetables, and enjoying them, in a protein-obsessed world of tempting treats and savoury snacks. 

About 25% of people have super sensitive taste buds and can strongly taste the bitter in vegetables like broccoli. Experiment with some of the following.

Different Cooking methods

I encourage you to explore different cooking methods to enhance flavours.  Plain boiled or steamed vegetables can seem bland or even bitter, but roasting vegetables with a drizzle of olive oil brings out their sweetness. You can roast many different vegetables- potatoes, pumpkin, beetroot, carrot, parsnip, broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower. Throw some garlic in the baking tray too, and some sprigs of rosemary, and your whole kitchen will smell wonderful. Sprinkle with just a little salt as needed, but weaning off excessive salt is also good to help sensitise your palate. 

Another way of bringing out flavours is to saute or stirfry with herbs and spices. Whether it’s some curry powder, some fresh green herbs, fresh garlic and ginger, a squeeze of lemon or lime, or a bottled sauce, humans have been adding flavours to vegetables forever.

Ethnic Cuisines

We live spoilt for choice but often get stuck in food ruts. Some cultures are very vegetable-centric, such as Mediterranean, Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines. 

Pair Vegetables with foods you DO like

For example, add some mushrooms or spinach or parsley to a cheese omelette, some lettuce and tomato to a hamburger, some green peas to a pasta dish, some raw baby spinach to a protein smoothie. 

Go with the textures you like

I used to give my kids a bowl of crunchy raw veggies- carrot sticks, red capsicum, snow peas, cucumber slices, frozen peas- before dinner while watching their afternoon kids’ TV shows. They both preferred raw veggies anyway, and if they were fussy over dinner, I had already got their veggies in. 

If you like soft textures like mashed potatoes and peas…then more cooked foods might be your preference, like steamed or mashed cauliflower, cooked leafy greens with fetta melted in them, or soups and casseroles.

Soups

These are a fantastic way to eat more vegetables, because they can be hidden in whatever your favourite soups are, and most soups have vegetables in them anyway. It’s actually ok to eat soup every day, even in summer, if thats the best way for you to get your veggies in. Even canned soups, or premade soups, might be a better choice than not eating enough veggies. Here are some ideas. 

Salads

Here is a trick if you are not super fond of salads…..add fruit. I tend to eat a salad for lunch, at least in the warmer weather, and I will add and of the following: cubes of fresh mango or dragon fruit, slices of orange, any fresh or defrosted berries, pieces of canned pineapple, slices of peaches/nectarines, banana, raisins or chopped dates….then every mouthful of my healthy green leafy salad is also sweet and yummy. Sometimes I might make a mango dressing with mango, lime juice, coriander and a little water. Beware of unhealthy ingredients in bought salad dressing, but if you need to, use whatever dressing you love, while you learn to love veggies.

Smoothies and Juices

These are both great ways for people who find chopping up veggies and cooking them too tedious. And who need to eat their veggies in a sweeter base. When you add leafy greens like baby spinach or kale to a smoothie, you cannot taste them. A good smoothie for beginners is a banana, a handful of baby spinach, 1/2 cup frozen berries, and whatever liquid you choose- coconut water, dairy or non-dairy milk, or plain water. A more advanced smoothie might be to fill 3/4 of your blender with leafy greens and cabbage….and 1/4 with fresh or frozen fruit, then add a liquid of your choice as above. Blend and enjoy the flood of nutrition and life energy into your body as your cells come alive and thankyou. You will mostly taste the fruit, especially if you have added some citrus or frozen pineapple.

If you are having health issues and really need to flood your body with the abundance of health-promoting nutrients in raw plants…which I highly recommend…then fresh juicing - even from Boost or another juice bar - is a great way to do it. I recommend basing juices on celery and cucumber, and adding just enough fruit to make them taste good to you. My favourite is celery, cucumber, apple, lemon and ginger. 

Vegetables with breakfast

A savoury breakfast such as avocado on toast with a side of cherry tomatoes; 

A mushroom omelette;

Leftovers!

Other ideas: 

• Frozen vegetables are fine, so keep a supply of frozen peas, broccoli or leafy greens or any mixes that appeal to you, in the freezer. 

• Double your recipes so you do not have to cook every day- important if you are cooking for one.

• Write notes to yourself so you remember what you like. I do that when my husband says he really enjoys a particular meal- I write it down, so I can remember to cook it again. I am often surprised what appeals to him.

• Do some planning and some prep work. Plan some meals ahead for the week, and make sure you have the ingredients on hand. Or, look in the fridge or freezer and see what needs eating and plan around that. A lot of the time, we fall back on poorer food choices because we haven’t planned ahead, and we find ourselves hungry already at meal times. But it only takes a few minutes to scribble down some ideas on a notepad in the kitchen, or on your phone. 

• Other prep work might be chopping up veggies for salads and putting them in containers. Then when its time to make a salad, most of the work is already done.

• When you eat out, look for something that has vegetables in it, and that appeals to you.  Or order a side of veggies or salad, instead of chips. 

Start where you are, and plan for success. Make baby steps. No one can eat food they don’t like…but we can gently expand our tastebuds, and retrain them. Then a whole new world can open up, along with better health.