Ask you to help me eat vegetables? Fussy eater

[BlueCrystalM]

I’m a terrible eater ... my favourite meal would be chicken nuggets and chips.

I don’t know if it’s anxiety but my throat seems to close up at the thought of eating vegetables ... I can’t undetstsbd how people find them tasty.

I’d love to be able to eat a salad

Maybe start off with the vegetables closest to things you do like, then work your way from there?

E.g as you like chips, have a baked potato, then try a sweet potato, then a carrot, etc, etc

Do you like soup? This weather is great for making a veggie and lentil soup. But each week try a different veg and different ways of cooking it. You'll start to develop preferences for different ones and get used to it. (I.e, cauliflower - roasted, cheese covered, sauted with potatoes and spices,). Start with the easy ones - sweet potato (fries, roasted sweet potato salad, soup, hash), sweet corn (roasted, soup) etc.

It sounds stupid but even a tomato I don’t know how to eat it ... do you eat the seeds?

Are there any that you do like/can eat at the moment?

Do you remember ever like vegetables?
For me, I only really enjoyed eating vegetables when I started cooking and learning how to. My parents boiled the crap out of everything until it was like purée..... disgusting.
What I mean is could the problem be you don’t like the way vegetables have been cooked before and now you think you don’t like them?? I know people what say they don’t strawberries but if you eat them in season they are very different to the hard tasteless crap you buy when they are forced to grow.
Raw carrots?? Homemade coleslaw ??

Fussy eaters usually like carrots, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes and white potatoes. Could you try them?
Or carrot/cucumber sticks dipped in humous?

Tomato is something that you need to try different varieties of, they are quite different I think.

Tell us what veg if any you DO like and how you like them cooked?

Generally probably easier to start with sweeter less challenging veg rather than say kale.

Sweetcorn, sweet peppers, carrots, beetroot, butternut squash, sweet potato?

Also cook them in a way that brings out the sweetness and reduces any bitter flavours - mainly frying or roasting.

Just to start with

Then build up to less sweet veg, different cooking methods etc.

Try just one or two at a time and get used to them then introduce another.

How does that sound?

Tomatoes you eat the whole thing apart from stalk/leaves. Salad tomatoes and bigger can be sour especially raw but smaller varieties like cherry or mini plums are sweeter

Raw can be easier than cooked if smell puts you off. Cut up raw peppers, celery, carrots are easy to munch on.

Could you try making carrot, parsnip or sweet potato chips firstly which wouldn't be too different to what you like now? If you eat rice then you could make cauliflower rice instead. Pasta sauce with veg cut up small/pureed into it.

Yes, you do usually eat the seeds in tomatoes. You just either slice or cut large tomatoes into wedges, or cut cherry tomatoes in half, or eat them whole. But if you don't like the seeds due to texture issues, you can scoop them out.
I find lettuce can be quite bitter, so I like to have a dressing on it, or salad cream.
Cucumber doesn't have much flavour, but it's nice and crispy and refreshing.
Watercress is peppery and I can eat it by the bagfull.

It's a shame you've missed out on eating vegetables, as there are so many different ways to cook them, and so many different flavours.

You could try making soup, then blend it so there are no chunks. Leek and potato is tasty, and soup is really easy to make. You don't need to follow a recipe, just chop up some veg, melt a little butter in a pan and put the veg in. Let it cook giving it a stir for 5 minutes, then add water to cover the veg and a little bit more, and a stock cube, plus a little bit of salt and pepper. Cook until the veg is soft (about 20-30 minutes), then blend it. And that's it! You can also experiment with adding some herbs and spices. A jar of dried mixed herbs would be good to start with. You'll only need to add about a teaspoonful to a pan of soup.

It's a really good way of using up vegetables, so if you buy some and decide you don't like them the way you tried them, but still have some left, make a soup. You might find you like them in a soup.

Mashed potato with peas or sweet corn - you eat the veg without really realising.

Roast veg (carrot/sweet pot/parsnip) can be done with potatoes like wedges and are sweet to eat.

So many people say that they don't like vegetables because of the way they're cooked. Steamed & bland or boiled to death. Cook them in a pan with butter. Or roast them. You can get the trays of mediterranean vegetables to roast quite cheaply from the supermarkets, maybe give them a go?

Roasted cauliflower and broccoli with loads of salt, cumin or smoked paprika is next level amazing. You can use fry light or something if you don't want to use butter. But butter is the best thing to cook vegetables in, IMO.

Try roasting things like brussels, carrots, parsnips with garlic.

Aubergine & courgette are lovely stuffed with feta and pine nuts and roasted in the oven.

You can boil cauliflower & broccoli, mash it and add cream cheese and bacon, then bake in the oven for a delicious easy dinner.

Kale crisps are lovely - bake a load of kale on a baking tray with a bit of oil and garlic.

Beetroot in a ham salad just lifts it (or sandwich, if you're not quite at the salad stage yet.)

Add diced peppers to tuna mayo.

Cook peas and then half mush them up and add mint. Delicious.

Fussy eater here!

I eat a lot more veg now.

I suggest:

Put tomato, peppers, onion, mushrooms, sweet corn on pizza.

Salt, sugar and fat makes everything taste better!

Olive oil drizzled over peppers, carrots, squash, sweet potato, tomato, parsnips and baked in the oven makes them sweet and easier to eat.

Parsnips also work with maple syrup or Parmesan.

Use a hand blender to hide veg in tomato sauce for pasta.

I prefer soup blended to avoid the veg lumps.

'Vegetables' encompasses a wide-range of flavours and textures. Some are soft, some are crunchy.

What sort of textures / flavours do you tend to like in other foods?

Do you like mash potato?
I recently discovered celeriac. I use it in place on mash potato as it is much nicer and lighter.
I also like to mash butternut squash, sweet potato and carrot and swede. To me they aren't like eating veg.

Going by the things that you like, such as chicken nuggets and chips, why not try something vegetable but with a similar texture, for instance vegetable fritters or vegetable crispy bakes.

Have a look in the frozen foods and ready made foods section of the supermarket for things to try, such as crispy breaded mushrooms.

If you want to cook yourself, try sweetcorn fritters or courgette fritters, both very easy and quick.

You've got some interesting discoveries ahead of you, as you find out which tastes you like, so have fun and enjoy yourself!

so I think the easiest way is mixed in e.g. stir fry , curried , in pasta , or stews yesterday I had sugar snap peas, peppers, Kale, spinach and carrot in a curry. tonight had pasta with peppers onions , sugar snaps mixed in then spinach and broccoli on the side. you can add loads to stir fry grate it if it's easier so carrot and butternut squash grated in. Mash into your mashed potato we use butternut squash. I would probably start with that rather than a full plate of salad to begin with

I think you also need to reframe your thinking. Maybe consider growing a few things, even in a window box if you've no garden.

Food is a gift. Every type of food. I love all vegetables and can see something special is each individual type and taste. It's such a pleasure to eat these things and I think we are very lucky to have access to so much variety. Maybe keep that in mind as you try your way through various veg.

Sneak them into other food. Add steamed vegetables to your pasta sauce and blitz it all together until it's smooth. Same with chilli or stews - add oven roasted onions, peppers and tomatoes.

You can build up a taste for something if you eat it often enough, so start with something that doesn't turn your stomach - maybe peas or corn? And have it over and over again until you are accustomed to it. Then add a new vegetable and do the same thing.

What else do you eat except chicken nuggets and chips? Maybe you can add veg to something. Do you like ketchup, salad cream or any other sauces? Do you eat baked beans?

Tinned sweetcorn is a good one to start with, putting some on plain pizza is a good start. Then next time try maybe some finely chopped peppers as well, then maybe some finely sliced white onions before trying red onions which can be more powerful.

Salad doesn't have to be leaf! I like leafy salads, but I also like non leafy stuff like halved cherry tomatoes, diced peppers, and cucumbers with grated carrot with a small amount of olive oil and plenty of salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Cooked veg really does matter how it was cooked when you were tried with it when a kid. Start with the sweeter ones; so carrot, tinned sweetcorn, swede, then leafy greens like cabbage which can be mixed with mash to make colcannon. How you cook them is a personal preference, but I am happy to admit I keep at least 2 bags of the steamfresh bags of veg in the freezer at all times. There's only two of us, so it means less waste and each contain 2/3 different veg. I also tend to use steam bags in the microwave for green beans and then add a knob of butter when dishing up.

It's also ok to say that you don't like something, but keep in mind it takes several tries to get accustomed to the taste of new foods so don't give up within a couple of tries- give it 6/7 attempts, cooked different ways before making your mind up.

I like broccoli, but no way is cauliflower ever going to be a veg I actively choose to eat. If it's dished up at Sunday lunch at my PIL I will make an effort to eat some. But really, I consider it having come from the very depths of food hell.

Plus, despite liking cabbage, kale can get in the sea, and so can cooked spinach although I love it raw in sandwiches/ salads.

I would approach it from the opposite direction.

I love food and I love cooking. But there is one food I loathe. Were I to try preparing and cooking it, by the time I got to the meal I'd be so anxious and stressed that I would not be able to eat it.

So I'd say don't try to cook. You like fairly processed food with fairly specific textures, so choose something vegetably that would be similar. Vegetarian croquettes, perhaps, or a tinned vegetable soup. Or root veg crisps, or sweet potato chips (preprepped, in the freezer with the oven chips). Minimal preparation. Have a little portion as part of a meal with things you know you like, so that there's no pressure to eat it if you don't like it.

Try 2-3 different foods every week. Have things more than once. Gradually widen your range. Once you're comfortable eating pre-prepared foods of different tastes and textures, only then start thinking about cooking from fresh or eating raw vegetables.

There's no rush. Tiny baby steps are fine.