How can I start liking veggies?

Try sneaking them in, like making homemade chili with less meat and more beans and tomatos, or adding shredded carrots to meatloaf or tomato sauce (I haven't done either, so I don't know how this would taste). You could also try roasting them with a little bit of butter spray and seasoned salt. I think if veggies are cooked properly and seasoned, they are pretty darn tasty! Promise yourself to try one or two new veggie side dishes a week - you might find a recipe you like, or a new veggie you never thought you would like.

Also, you CAN train yourself to like veggies - your tastes really will change. I've (re)discovered baby carrots as a great snack - if I don't want to eat them plain, I dip them in salsa, or lite Italian dressing, or roasted red pepper hummus. Really tasty! One of my favorite side dishes is a can of corn (regular, not cream-style), a can of black beans (drained) and a can of diced tomatos all heated together with a little garlic powder - very, very tasty.

You can also make many really good main meals with veggies - fettucinne with chicken, loads of broccoli florets, and lowfat cream of mushroom soup makes a really good alternative to pasta alfredo (use spinach fettucine for an extra boost). If you're not a convert to bulgar instead of rice, try it out some time - it's cracked wheat - cook it in chicken broth and add some tomatos and chili powder for a tasty side dish - the more tomatos you add, the more veggies you sneak in. Spinach salads are also really good, really nutritious, and really filling.

What veggies do you like? Which ones don't you like?

[ February 19, 2004, 08:30 AM: Message edited by: calgal ]

Do you like salads? I find that I can get a lot of veggies in when I made salads. My new favorite is taco salad w/o the taco.

I brown a pound of ground beef and flavor it wil taco seasonings (from packet or you can use a combo of regular spices). I take a LARGE bowl and fill it with at least 3 cups good lettuce (green! not iceberg), chopped tomato, 3 oz taco meat, 1 oz low-fat cheddar, salsa and ranch or bleu cheese dressing. So yummy - very huge and filling too!

I love almost all veggies. They are so good for "good health". Train yourself to enjoy them. I guess you could put them in drinks too, such as V-8 or tomato juice. Mix them in soups too.

Ashlee

I love veggies, so I add them to just about everything!

breakfast....

egg white omlete with diced red bell pepper, onion, spinach or broccoli(just the flower part), sprinkle with a little finely grated cheddar cheese and top with salsa serve with a 1 pt english muffin

lunch or dinners....

soups
stews
salads (taco or gilled chicken breast)

angel hair pasta served with veggie sauce (diced tomatoes, garlic, onions, celery, red bell peppers, finely grated carrots, zucchini and yellow squash, spinach)

stirfry (saute garlic, onions, celery, red bell peppers, carrots, zucchini yellow squash, broccoli, halved grape tomatoes, and spinach in a little olive oil add either grilled chicken breast or shrimp)

I do like stir fry. So I could try that .
I don’t like tomatoes , broccoli or peas . Squash just sounds bad


I like most beans, green, navy, pinto. Corn is good mostly the starchy kind.

I like the idea of putting some in chili.

I don’t think I could handle them for breakfast.
I guess I do just need to try a new one each week. Man I sound worse then my kids “do I HAVE to eat that???" [img]graemlins/sobbing.gif[/img]


KIm

Many of my friends don't like veggies cause they had parents who cooked them until they were limp and flavourless. Don't forget about green beans (I only eat fresh green beans), cauliflower, zuchinni. And even though fruit has points, an apple or pear is an easy way to get another serving in.

I always thought I wasn't the veggy type until I started eating salads with the dressing on the side. Man, oh man, did that make a difference in how things taste!

I also started trying to explore vegetables that I never thought appetizing before. Got started eating broccoli because I was out to dinner with a friend who had ginger garlic broccoli at a chinese food restaurant. Didn't know they could taste so good!

I guess the question is, do you not like vegetables because of the way they taste, or because you're not into trying new things? There are some things I don't touch (tomatoes were always one of those - don't like the texture, don't like the taste!) But I'll have a veggies soup that has tomato chunks in it (I just eat around the tomatoey bits!) lol! But the rest of the veggies taste fine!

Another thing you can do is eat something like the Boca burgers - get the Vegan one and you're eating a hamburger that doesn't look like grains and veggies. I eat those and grill some peppers and onions to go with it on my indoor grill.

A stir fry can be great as well. Just enough sauce to cover the taste of the veggies and you'll be all set!

I guess I don’t like them is because when I was a kid I didn’t and I have not gave them another try. I did eat some vegetable soup the other day. All them hunks of carrots and peas! I thought man I can’t eat this! But it wasn’t too bad. My body went into shock for all the "good" stuff I think


Kim

You remind me of my friend Cheryl she hated vegetables! One day she came to my house for lunch. I told her before had that I was making Veggie chicken patties Made by Morning Star. She Loved them! Counts as a vegetable too! Give them a try! Good luck! GinaH

Maybe instead of trying a new veggie each week, you could try a new veggie-based recipe each week? If you find a recipe that looks good to you, it might help you get over the "I'm eating a plain steamed vegetable" distaste. Perhaps a broccoli-and-rice casserole, or eggplant parmesan, or a mushroom pate on some good bread?

Also, keep in mind that while green, yellow, and wax beans are 0-point veggies, other kinds of beans--navy, pinto, black--are actually legumes and do have points. But they're good for you and yummy, so eat up!

Since you like stirfrying, you could try using mushrooms, snow peas and a few baby corn. It's a really good combo, and everybody loves baby corn!

Another thing you can do is make oven-fried zucchini and mushrooms: Cut the zucchini into French-fry-like shapes, dip the zuke and 'shrooms into a beaten egg white and then into bread crumbs that have been seasoned with Parmesan cheese and a bit of chili powder. Place them on a baking sheet, spritz with cooking spray and bake in a 400-degree oven till cooked through. This'll be 2-3 points, depending on how much bread crumbs you use. Dip them in FF ranch dressing or ketchup as you eat them. Very yummy!!

[ February 20, 2004, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: CordyC ]

I add green beans to all of my Lean cuisines and pasta dishes. Wax beans have no flavor, so they assimilate whatever they are in. For example, I like the lean Cuisine Bow tie pasta, + 1 sm can of green beans or wax beans and presto a bigger meal and added veges. Put a piece of 1 pt bread (like a pepperidge farms 7 grain roll, 100% whole gran bread or a lite english muffin) and you have a huge 5 pt meal that is very filling. 1 can counts as 2 veges. Everytime I have mashed potatoes I add green beans or baby peas. I sauteed zucchini, onions and mushrooms and put it on top of my pasta then the sauce. Bulks up the meal and puts those vegetables in. I love sauteed snow pea pods and crunching baby carrots for a snack. I steam asparagus in the microwave with butter spray and salt and it's delicious. I butter spray almost everything from Potatoes and bread to Veges. And it's 0 points!!!!!
Good luck,
Jainie

You've gottan a lot of good ideas already. For me, I never really hated vegetables but before I changed my way of eating, a bag of chips or little debbie snacks always tasted better to me(or so I thought). I am a large quantity, bulk person so I now fill up with veggies. I eat a can of green beans most days, I have an egg white mushroom, onion, zucchini omelette everymorning and I also like cooked broccoli a lot. Part of me eating it is because its healthy but also because I fill up on it and don't use all my pts in the process!

I'm a veggie hater too, so I can sympathize. I've been really trying to eat a green salad every day at dinner, because it's something I WILL eat. Also snack on raw baby carrots.

Make a mini pizza on a tortilla, and load it with mushrooms and other vegetables that you tolerate.

I don't know where you live, but here in Canada, SunRype makes a Fruit & Veggie juice. One glass equals one fruit and one vegetable serving and it tastes great. (It's one point though.) I have a glass for breakfast every morning.

Here are a few quick veggie items I like:

-Cut a raw zucchini cross-wise into round chips and use them to dip up chicken or tuna salad. Nice and crunchy,tastes very different from zucchini that is cooked to death and soggy!

-Toast bread, spread with Philly Lite garden veggie flavor cream cheese(2pts) and load up sandwich with any raw veggies you like. My sandwiches are HUGE, my points are low, and they are delicious!!

Wow, you all have some great ideas~ but still no one said I could cover them in chocolate! hehe
I recall reading about how to get your kids to eat veggies by sneaking them into spaghetti and meat loaf. I am going to make it my goal this week to try some! (holds her nose and eats a bite!!)
Thanks everyone for all the tips!

How's this for chocolate and veggies?????

Yeah!! It can be done! LOL oh that was nice of you to find that I love it! see you can do it! hehe

Kim

Again, I think roasting veggies is a wonderful thing. Most anything you think of can be roasted, but so far I've done mostly carrots, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, fennel, squash, cauliflower, peppers, red and green. I cut or slice them bite size and roast at 400 or 450 until tender and browned as much as I like. First I toss in just a bit of olive oil, spray the pan, or use the easy release foil. I sprinkle with salt and pepper and sometimes rosemary or thyme. Sometimes I add onion and garlic. Yum.

You wouldn't believe how roasting changes the flavor of a veggie as compared to steaming or boiling.

Oops, another thing I discovered is that some really good minestrone or other vegetable soup is wonderful for disguising individual veggie tastes, if that is what you want. In my case, a restaurant we frequent serves all their soups homemade. I used to shy away from the minestrone because I'm not a fan of mushrooms, and sometimes it can be loaded with them. Well, I discovered that when I gave it a try the mushrooms didn't have as much of that spongy texture I dislike, and they tasted like the rest of the soup. So did the peas and green beans that I normally skip. So, I'd say give some really good homemade soup a try!

[ February 24, 2004, 09:42 AM: Message edited by: SusieKew ]