I'm just curious We know that a lot of our members have struggled to learn to like vegetables. Are there any specific veggies that you wouldn't eat before your diet, that you have learned to enjoy now that you are treating your body better? Can you share some examples?

I wouldn't touch most veggies before, well, except for corn I guess. But now, OMG! My tastes have completely changed and I can't believe all the veggies I eat and actually enjoy! Number one most despised vegetable was cucumber. Now, I can't seem to get enough of it! YUM! Another major thing for me was trying that broccoli slaw mix stuff that you can buy in the bag at the grocery store. I add it into almost everything now, and because of it, I have a newfound appreciation for broccoli. Also, I eat tons of fresh spinach now, along with bell peppers, carrots, celery, green onions, tomatoes, (which I also hated with a passion) more nutritious lettuces instead of the old standby; iceberg. The list just goes on and on, and frankly, I'm amazed by it. I never thought I could be someone who actually likes vegetables! The same goes with fruits, I wouldn't touch most of 'em before, except bananas. Now I eat a variety of fruits every day, including strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, and bananas (of course). My trick with fruits is discovering that I love them frozen! This alone opened a whole new world to me. And lemme just say how lucky I feel that I am actually able to enjoy these things. I couldn't imagine trying to force myself to eat things I hate just in an effort to live a healthier lifestyle, but I know that so many people are just like I was; repulsed at the idea of eating those dreaded veggies. This has definitely been a gradual process of trial and error, and did not come easy at first. But if you just open yourself up to the possibility, experiment and try new things, well, almost anything is possible, isn't it? I know that must be true if I, of all people, can actually enjoy eating my fruits and veggies. So give it a try my fellow veggie haters, because tastes really can change, I promise!!

Beverly

I used to hate all veg! I had a hard time eating a potato that wasn't chipped and fried! But now I love my potatoes boiled, baked etc, I've also started to eat mushrooms, corn on the cob, courgettes, eggplant, carrots, avocados, and other yummy things! I just chop em all up and throw them in a wok, add some noodles and some chicken et voila, healthy dinner!

I've been on a health kick for a long time, 20 years at least, so it's hard to think so far back! ... My least favourite veggie, way back when, was turnip but I LOVE it now... Lucky for me I liked veggies pretty much but as kids we only ate canned peas and carrots, and boiled potatoes. At 16 I introduced steamed broccoli, cauliflower to my parents because I had started reading teen magazines that advocated fresh veggies and fruits....

I hated green beans (my stepmother would always buy canned and then make these horrid casserole things). Then one day I decided to buy some fresh green beans and just steam them. Wow! I like green beans! I finally decided to try that with green beans because I had done the same thing with spinach years ago. Canned/frozen spinach = gross! Fresh spinach or slightly wilted/sauted spinach = delish!

There are definitely still fruits/veggies I think are icky, but i try to eat a good variety of them.

Spinach!

I used to think that the only way to prepare spinich was to boil the heck out of it, and serve it in a mashed-looking heap. BLEAH!

Now, I serve it raw in salads, and mixed with other greens or cooked with LF cheese, or baked into bread, etc.

I'm not really there yet :P I've lost about 90 pounds since Jan of 04... but I'm still mostly clueless when it comes to veggies. (Not counting potatos and corn... and I still think of tomatos as a veggie even though I KNOW it's a fruit)

Basically, anything green... I have NO idea how to prepare it. My mother wasn't really a good role model as far as food goes and I seem to have a natural clumsiness in the kitchen.

Renee

Beet! When I was a kid, my mom would force us to "try" vegetables we didn't like at least a few times. Every so often when there were beets on the table, she would make us eat one. Sometimes this would work, but more often we would hold our breath and swallow the item whole, or we would bury it in bread or mashed potatoes. Either way, we rarely actually tasted the offending veggie.

Then when I was 25, I was helping my mom at her garage sale and we ordered greek salads (beets were on the salad). My Mom started to stab my beets right off my salad, and I said jokingly "Hey that's my salad!" So I felt I had to at least try one on principle, and it was SOOO good. So at first, I ammended my preference to "like beets only on salads." I even like them hot now, but I still hate the awful "spiced beets" on alot of salad bars.

The biggest thing you have to get over with food is the FEAR that it's going to taste bad. I love trying ethnic food, and would rather have a bad experience than a boring experience eating out. I've become abit of a food adventurer (especially since the actual food is such a low cost item for most restaurants, if you mention that the item really isn't exactly what you were expecting, they will often offer to bring you something else), My mother on the other hand is always saying "what if I don't like it," when asked to try something new. My answer is "so, then you won't like it".

Veggies are especially like this though, because how they're prepared can make all the difference in whether you'll like them or not, or other factors that you can't really control like how fresh they are, what variety... It takes a little experimenting. I don't know varieties of celery, for example, but I can recognize the one I like (light greenish yellow, shallow ribbing) and the one I hate (dark green with deep stringly ribbing).

Apples are like that too, I hate red delicious and mealy apples like Macintosh, but I love crisp soursweet apples like Braeburn, Pink Lady, HoneyCrisp, Royal Gayla, Fuji...

Colleen

I started eating eggplant regularly within the past year.

I started eating spinach regularly within the past five years.

I still haven't gotten around to liking beets.

I have yet to find a good use for (or an easy way to cook) rutabaga. It's got such a cool name that you figure it would *have* to be good, but no. It's a bit of a disappointment.

I like all the other vegetables, I think.

Broccoli. At first, I could only eat it with cheese on it, but now I can eat it just by itself.....

celery well I don't hate it but it is to tough and stringy

About the only veggie I don't eat is cooked spinach. I'll eat it raw, in salads, but not cooked. To me it tastes like grass! I know it's good for me and I"ve tried it every way imaginable and in all kinds of dishes but I just don't like it.

Beets are actually my favorite vegetable. I can actually just open a can and eat them straight!

Green peppers! My Nona (Italian grandmother) used to fry them in about 1 or 2 inches of olive oil - they would turn out grey, soggy and oily! Blech! I hate eggplant for the same reason.

I finally was able to eat them in my 20's when I discovered they weren't so bad on pizza. Now I throw them into salads (raw) or add them to stirfries and pasta. And the only way I can enjoy eggplant is when it is made into Moussaka

I finally remembered a veggie to add here. I love this veggie so much now that I had entirely forgotten that I used to despise it as a child.

Asparagus! When I was a kid, mom did a lot of canning, and we would have jars and jars of aspargus to eat all year. It was slimy and disgusting and I would throw major fits when forced with some on my plate.

It wasn't until adulthood that I realized that asparagus didn't have to be canned that steamed or broiled it's absolutely heavenly. I eat pounds and pounds of it when it's in season.