Adults who won't eat vegetables

How old?

I actually met a gym rat recently who said he doesn’t eat vegetables or fruits.

Not recommending it, but I know someone who's eaten literally nothing but fatty meat ("carnivore diet") for like three years and he's one of the healthiest people I know. Dietary science is still pretty stuck in the past in a lot of ways, I think.

He's 22. When we go out it has to be a place with a burger and fries option. It's always a plain burger with cheese and bacon or sometimes a fried egg.

Well nutritionist want us to eat 25 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. They’re fucking lunatics

At that age, he can get away with it, but wait until it starts "binding" him and he can't take a shit.

Don't they have bowel problems since they aren't getting any fiber?

I don't mean to be gross but when I meet people like this I always wonder: how do they poop?

I have had bowel problems all my life and if I didn't eat a high fiber diet I'd be in a fuck load of pain. I feel like these people are ticking time bombs for a painful future.

Oh, jinx R7!

You can’t eat a strictly meat diet. It will catch up to you.

Jay Leno said on the Tonight Show many times that he never eats any vegetables. He’s not thin, but he looks as healthy or healthier than many his age. I suppose he could be riddled with disease and just keeping it to himself.

Genetics plays a role in how your body handles that r10

They shit only during a leap year.

OP how does this impact your life?

He's my friend and his unhealthy diet worries me.

Pathetic and disgusting. They need a good smacking.

When I was in graduate school, one of my classmates refused to eat vegetables or fruit.

I went out for a burger with her one time. As she ordered the burger, she said, "Don't put any of that green stuff on there," referring to the lettuce and pickles.

...and then she died.

Force feed him lettuce.

R14 Riiiiight

News flash: potato is a vegetable.

Fruit is not necessary. Vegetables on the other hand are essential!

[quote] Not recommending it, but I know someone who's eaten literally nothing but fatty meat ("carnivore diet") for like three years and he's one of the healthiest people I know.

Fat is good for you. High protein isn’t bad either. However, eating nothing but meat can lead to colon cancer. Not eating a vegetable will also lead to lack of essential nutrients which opens you up to developing all sorts of cancers.

I am not a vegetable lover and have struggled in my adulthood but I managed to eventually find veggies I liked (zucchini, eggplant, squash, red peppers, mushrooms,) as well as the obvious carrots, peas and potatoes. Still cant do leafy greens outside of salads though. Yeech.

I was in a Keto diet online group and several of the members ate nothing but meat and diary only. After a few weeks I decided Keto wasn't for me.

OP - it’s none of your fucking business! Get a life of your own.

Disclaimer: I understand this is my problem and nobody else's. I do not express my opinion of these eating habits to the people I know (2) who have them and am sort of amused by the strength of my own reaction.

That out of the way, these childlike eating habits bother me more than they should. I know a 60-something man who has never eaten a green vegetable (peas excepted). He ate a kale leaf a few months ago after I was genuinely shocked to hear of his eating habits. He said it was "alright" but hasn't bought more kale. He doesn't just not eat vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, zucchini etc. but he has NEVER eaten them. Is it his age (older) and nationality (American)? I'm 20+ years younger than him and not American so I was totally blown away when we talked about this. I didn't even know these people existed. He has also had cancer in the past (in remission for over 5 years but he'll be monitored for the rest of his life and is obviously terrified of it coming back).

The other friend is a woman my age who I've known since childhood and whose weird eating habits are attention-grabs, imo. She lives on Coke Zero and Chinese takeout. I mean, she LIVES on those things. She keeps Coke Zero beside her bed when she sleeps and the Chinese takeout is because she spent a year in Hong Kong. Before that, she would only eat potato chips and pizza with only tomato sauce and cheese on it and no other toppings. If there were other toppings she would pick them off and leave them in a pile on the plate. There is also a constant stream of animated "ew! oh gross! are you REALLY going to eat that?! ewwww! omg!" whenever I eat something that isn't Chinese food, plain pizza or chips. We don't see too much of each other anymore because honestly she pisses me off and the eating habits are just 1 part of it.

Anyway, how the fuck can you be an adult and not eat vegetables? It makes my smacking hand itch a lot.

Carnivore diets are insane. Only insane people would do that.

R26 You have diarrhea of the keyboard

R23 I have discussed my Foul Smoothie From Hell here before. It is packed with leafy greens and tastes like bitter garbage, but I can get many servings of veg under my belt in less than 30 mins a day and 5 mins if I chug. Maybe an idea? A powerful blender is needed (NOT a juicer, the fiber is needed).

Soz R28.

[quote]News flash: potato is a vegetable.

It identifies as a vegetable, but it's really just another form of rice and pasta.

It's often trippy seeing what groceries the average person ahead of you in the checkout line is buying. Why are you buying 2 1/2 gallons of half and half with all that coca-cola?

(Whole Foods, snobby upscale grocery stores and health food stores excepted)

I have a very evil ex who was so picky about fruits and vegetables it was like dealing with a toddler. The list was endless and cooking meals that he would eat was nearly impossible. He hated: tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers. cauliflower, eggplant, all berries, bananas, apples, pears, peaches, plums, and grapes. And that’s just what he told me he hated. I’m sure the real list is endless. The only two vegetables I ever saw him eat in 2 years were cooked carrots and potatoes.

And he also didn’t like pork chops, chicken breasts, or shrimp.

Aside from all that which made cooking and dining out miserable, it took slow years for me to realize what an incredible asshole he also was. He’d want me to watch him play video games (not just me being there and he was playing video games, he’d start playing a video game to show me how cool it was). His interests included almost exclusively anime, D&D, video games, and texting. while you were taking to him. And god help you if you said *anything* during a video game or tv show. Like asking him to turn the volume up? He would angrily sigh and make a huge production out of everything.

After we broke up, we remained friends for about a year, then one day he stopped talking to me. Wouldn’t return texts or would five days later. And when I asked him what I did, he said I made him feel bad all the time, so I apologized and said I never knew that and you could have told me. But I ended up apologizing to him for his being a dick. I know it’s best to assume there are two sides to every story, but I’m friends with all my exes, but this dude-I grew to despise and I really think 95% of the problem was him.

We absolutely do not communicate anymore and if I ever see him again, I’ll just turn around and leave.

Not to derail the thread, but now I find people who don’t eat vegetables to be untrustworthy, selfish, and horrible. Avoid at all costs. 0 out of 5 stars. Do not recommend.

R33 was he on the spectrum?

R30, don't apologise. There is a bitter person on this site who just goes around complaining about the lengths of people's posts for no real reason. I enjoyed reading your post and I thought this:

[quote]these childlike eating habits

Summed it up perfectly. It reminds me of when I was very young and more fussy but as you get into your teens most people start craving vegetables and our intake of healthier foods gets more as we age. But some people seem stuck in that kind of adolescent eating, it appears to me. I think for some people fresher foods can gross them out a bit because they're not as "good looking" for want of a better term - bruising, less colouring etc. I worked once with a woman who would only eat McDonalds every day. One day I sarcastically asked her if she would like something different, say Burger King? And she seriously answered that she didn't want that because Burger King seemed too "fresh".

I have an ex just like that R33. I would say, I wonder if it's the same guy but mine wouldn't eat any vegetables but potatoes and corn and hated any meat on the bone and all seafood except crab. He didn't mind chicken breasts though and loved fruit. But the video games and anime and d&d and rude expectation to never talk while he was engaged in any of those was the same.

I think the constant sitting and staring at a screen makes them more and more impatient and anxious and difficult so it exacerbates the character flaws. I too get anxious if I've been sitting too long and don't get up and stretch or move around.

R33 You have diarrhea of the keyboard as well

People who can survive like this probably have a high percentage of neanderthal genes.

Though they would benefit from cruciferous vegetables.

Ones ability to eat simple carbs is also somehow related to the latitude of one's ancestry.

Y’know. That’s an excellent question r34. Not officially, never diagnosed. But when he met my friends, he barely spoke to them and almost seemed like he was offended by them. He made then visibly uncomfortable. Nicest guys in the world and we were guests at their house on a vacation, and he was such an asshole to them. For the last 6 weeks or so before we broke up, every time we came back from someplace and planned to watch a tv show (usually an anime he insisted on and that I just tolerated) I’d think about saying, Y’know, I think I’m just gonna call it a day and head home. That was the sign it was time to break up. We had terrible sex, very infrequently. But he could also be nice and there were times I liked him and being with him seemed better than being alone. But those are a distant memory and now he’s just that asshole who wouldn’t even eat tomatoes to me.

I have an aunt that doesn’t eat green vegetables. She says that she gets the runs.

The stories about the "friends" in this thread are all lies.

I suspect that's it, r39. It's might just be the way he's built neurologically.

As an aside, I've had my own infatuation with someone with Aspergers. My therapist said, it's like asking someone if your tie matches with the rest of your suit - and they're colorblind. You're asking for capacities they don't have.

Sorry that reply was me, r34

They are called Brooklyn Seacows.

Ok, last word on the subject of the evil ex who hated vegetables. I saw a pic of him recently on a mutual fiend’s Instagram (technically my friend, someone that’s in his extended circle but they aren’t close) and he’s gained a ton of weight. And I won’t body shame someone. I don’t do it here anonymously and I don’t talk about things like that with people. But it took every fiber of my being not to post “Wow man! Packing on the pounds there!” because he was such an asshole that he makes ME want to be an asshole. He’s toxic (probably because he doesn’t eat vegetables). I didn’t post it, chided myself for even thinking that way, and then forgot about him.

R4, how is that a plain burger?

R45 Fascinating

It's weird and very childish. Enjoy getting health problems as you get older!

People who eat like this (and who aren’t on the spectrum) tend to be boring in other areas of life, in my experience. No thanks. Being too regimented and unwilling to try anything new seems like arrested development.

I had a friend like this in high school, he would take vegetable supplements instead. The ironic thing is his mother was a Food Tech teacher.

My dad wouldn't eat vegetables, so for many dinners he'd get most of whatever meat was served, while mom and I split the remainder and had a salad or some green beans to fill up on. He was so adamant about avoiding vegetables that he wouldn't even eat ketchup.

My partner went for years avoiding vegetables, unless they happened to be in a soup or a sauce. He started watching a fitness guru named Jeff Cavalier who talks about eating vegetables on occasion, and now he's finally starting to incorporate them into his diet regularly.

Thank you for backing me up, R35, I appreciate your kindness.

As for "childlike" - yes. For me there is something childish and therefore very off-putting about super finicky eating habits in adults. Of the two people I mentioned, the guy who had cancer doesn't even claim to be disgusted by vegetables, and when we talked about it he just said he had never tried them so he didn't want to. Which relates, I think, to what R49 says and what I have found to be mostly true: it's often a sign of a tightly regimented, habit-bound and unadventurous character. I forgot to mention this but he also won't eat seafood. Not just salmon and shrimp but ALL seafood, whether sea or freshwater. All fish, shellfish etc. For the same reason: he's never tried them and so he doesn't want to. I just can't get on board with that kind of thinking. Like you don't even anticipate disliking it, you just "don't wanna?" Fucking hell.

It just seems weird to me, but I have a nephew who refuses to eat almost all green vegetables - and he does throw up if he eats them. He can eat broccoli beef from Panda express though if the broccoli is buried under enough sauce. I love vegetables and crave the variety of tastes and textures, but then I have been cooking and eating them my entire adult life. I love greens of all varieties - kale, collards, turnips, mustards, cabbage, bok choy, nappa cabbage, chard, etc. I rarely prepare eggplant or okra, but I'll eat them if someone else prepares them - same with artichokes. I like all the common vegetables too - green beans, peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, corn (although to me that's as much a grain as a vegetable). I like summer squash, but I don't feel it has much to offer nutritionally, so I rarely eat it. I prefer cooked vegetables to raw salads, mostly because I think they're safer from possible contaminants. When doctors ask me about my diet, I don't think they believe that I actually eat that way. For instance, today I ate fresh fava beans that I harvested out of my garden, kale, orange peppers, and an apple. Tomorrow I'm planning to have asparagus and cabbage cooked with onions and peppers. I don't worry about my colon health - constipation is definitely not a problem with the diet I eat.

A vast population in Asia has survived for millennia on rice three times/day.

R54 Yes but they are 4 feet tall.

I love vegetables and fruits, but buying them is often an experience in undependability. Tomatoes and peaches, two of my favorites, are usually pure crap, taste and texture-wise. I can get to farmers' markets only infrequently due to mobility issues. I love blueberries, but often they're sour. Strawberries often have the texture of rocks.

I genuinely dislike broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and greens. Cruciferous vegetables just aren't for me. And no, it isn't a matter of trying YOUR Brussels sprouts. I hated every Brussel sprout I ever tasted.

Raspberries are usually good. I nearly always have them in the house. Pears can work, and they're a favorite fruit. I'll eat an apple every now and then. I love eggplant, but it's usually a lot of cooking unless I make eggplant caviar. I ate some halfway (but no more than halfway) decent tomatoes lately, but I don't think I'd have liked them as much if I hadn't mixed them with avocado, garlic, evoo and lemon. Oh, I squeeze lemon on lots of things.

I love peas, corn, carrots, and potatoes, and eat plenty of them, but I know they're all pretty carb-y.

I use good canned tomatoes (Cento whole peeled) in sauces. I would eat good tomatoes all summer long if they were available. My father used to grow our own, which were terrific, all summer long.

R26 your friend is not wrong though, even the American version Chinese takeout for the fatties is far more balanced and heathier than highly processed industry food products of pizza, chips, fries or burgers.

Just STOP with the diarrhea of the keyboard.

[quote]a mutual fiend’s Instagram

Pics please.

I do good myself with broccoli and various cooked greens, but sometimes if I eat a big salad, it will run right through me. But I love collard greens and Swiss chard, I have no issues whatsoever with those.

I love preparing and cooking vegetables. We always have a vegetable or two with dinner. I enjoy the challenge of prepping them and cooking them. We had an excellent vegetable stirfry from woksoflife last night (I had teriyaki salmon as a protein).

[quote]He's 22. When we go out it

he's hardly an adult then. but I was eating all sorts of vegetables in my teens and was briefly a vegetarian around that age

I had a poop the size of a toddler’s arm this morning. Felt about 10 pounds lighter afterward. Thanks, vegetables!

Veggies give me the shits.

I don’t cook, but I eat veggies

I love all vegetables except beets (which is more because of a beet related accident as a kid-long, weird story). I was vegetarian for 15 years not because of principle, but because I could live on vegetables and be totally happy.

People who don’t like ANY vegetables worry me.

R63, I assume a catch like you is already taken?

We eat like cave men cuz we're Neanderthals.

We love adults who won't eat vegetables.

I got to agree with R56 about Strawberries. I am 59 and just last fall starting eating better. I starting incorporating frozen veggies instead of canned into my meals. I added blueberries, strawberries and Almonds to my breakfast. Strawberries are very hit or miss. I recently stopped buying strawberries and started buying cherries. They are very consistent. I tried Golden figs, but they were like strawberries. Doing this and not sitting on my ass all day helped me drop from 201 to 180 between Christmas and April.

R56, I agree about fruits & vegetables having undependable quality. Too bad you don't like cruciferous vegetables because, IME, those are the most reliably OK (cabbage & cauliflower).

I ate a lot of Asian / Korean pears when they were in season. Really reliable. Bing cherries are reliable. I've also started buying pineapple.

[quote]a beet related accident as a kid

Simon Hall's bag of beets?

I love that site, r61. This is a little off topic because it's a chicken dish, but I made their Bahn Mi a few days ago and it was great. I also pickled some daikon with it, and it turns out I don't care for it pickled. Love it raw, though. Love regular American red radishes, too.

[quote]Simon Hall's bag of beets?

Oh god, I don’t know this story. Please share or post a link, and thank you!

The beet related accident is a pretty short and harmless story. A neighborhood friends’ little sister stuck her finger in a can of pickled beets and cut herself badly and needed stitches. But the kitchen was covered in blood and beet juice and you couldn’t tell what was blood and what was beet and it looked like a crime scene. And it smelled like metal, and ever since then, I haven’t been able to touch or stomach a beet.

I eat some veggies. More fruit but I am picky. I have a textural thing. I'll eat carrots, celery, greens, cukes, avocados, green beans etc. but I can't stomach eggplant, zucchini or squash, beets. Don't get me started on those fungi called mushrooms.🤢

Sorry, r75, I didn't mean for you to relate that story, I was just trying to joke. I completely understand why you wouldn't like beets. A neighbor girl sliced her hand open on a big bottle of soda when I was a kid, I think it was a 2-liter before they were in plastic bottles, and I didn't drink soda for years after that, not until I was in my 20s, and only then from a can.

Many of them will die from colon cancer due to lifelong constipation.

ALL of the FAT WHORES on My 600lb Life

No worries r77. I don’t have PTSD. Just won’t ever eat a beet in my life!

I love celery to the point of distraction. When it is super green and fresh there is nothing better. I often make a herb salad with things from the garden. Other favourites are garden tomatoes, peas and yellow beans. I eat most vegetables except green pepper, okra and eggplant. All gross.

[quote]I love celery to the point of distraction.

Ok, I do know a number of normal, vegetable eating adults who don’t like celery for some reason. I’m fine with it. I think it’s bland and it’s not a go to snack for me, but I cook with it all the time.

Interestingly (oddly) when you juice it with other things, it adds a slightly salty taste.

There is a herb called Lovage that smells and tastes like celery. Not as satisfying as chomping down on a crisp stalk of the root, IMO.

I love cilantro. I’ll put piles of it on tacos and in sandwiches. People who hate it and claim it tastes like soap-I feel so sorry for them.

[quote]A vast population in Asia has survived for millennia on rice three times/day.

As well as vegetables, fruit, meat and seafood.

Inuits and other Arctic peoples lived thousands of years without vegetables, fruit, or grains in their diet, purely on seal, blubber, fish, etc.

I don’t love cooked vegetables but I eat them every day except in the summer. I just came back from the farmers market with various lettuces, micro greens and pea shoots, snap peas and string beans plus cherries, peaches, raspberries and blackberries (too early for tomatoes and blueberries). I live on salads this time of year. Tonight’s salad will be red and green leaf lettuce, arugula, pea shoots and a chopped up peach with homemade balsamic vinaigrette. So good, I can’t imagine not loving a salad with freshly harvested vegetables.

I used to.get that soapy cleaner taste from cilantro but now I love it. Have been using it in my smoothies lately as the green.

Same here R84. Absolute must for Mexican or Banh mi.

Where (generally) do you live, r87? We’re at the height of tomato season where I am and they’ve been beautiful.

You're friends with Donald Trump, OP?

Such a shame, a nice salad is a pleasure, lots of yummy veggies. Personally I really enjoy onions, green peppers, corn, especially on the cob. I have to force myself to eat things like broccoli, much like a six year old.

I love vegetables, cooked or raw, esp. love salads in summer with nice homemade vinaigrette and herbs fresh out of the garden. My diet is quite healthy, except that I seem to have a strong aversion to fresh fruit. I eat prunes and other dried fruit, blueberries and raspberries, but the tartness of fresh fruit, particularly citrus, seems to put me off. If I buy it I end up throwing it out. Anyone else have this same issue?

I eat fruit but I prefer veggies, I use lemon for my drinking water .

I made thr absolute worst panzanella salad for Father’s Day. I’ve made them beautifully before, but I did everything wrong this time. It should have been a simple 5 ingredient salad but I decided it needed shallots and garlic (which I burned) and a ton of herbs (which were unnecessary) and cucumber, kale shoots and avocado. And then Instead of a simple oil and lemon dressing, I decided it needed a vinaigrette with course mustard and Worcestershire. I didn’t like the vinaigrette taste so I added balsamic. So when I dressed it, all the bread turned brown and it looked like the salad version of things that appear on cakewrecks.

In retrospect, what I made was gazpacho thst I just didn’t blend.

I had a vegetarian for a roommate in college (a very long time ago) - he fucking shit a wicker chair every day and it smelled like a bloated dead pig for hours. I also had a work colleague who refused to eat any vegetables ever - a grown man - the owner of the company order pizza for us one Friday, and because there was one piece of parsley on one slice, he wouldn't eat a piece - even from the other ones - as he was afraid there were vegetables under the cheese. Everyone is fucked, so more than others.

I'm pretty much total vegetarian, with a bit of chicken once a week or so.

One vegetable I cannot stand is asparagus, which is a good thing because it maks your cum very sour and bitter.

If you eat mostly vegan then shitting becomes like clockwork and wiping is a breeze.

I don’t love fruit at all, I rarely eat it. I instead have a glass of fresh orange juice or a smoothie each day. But I love veg & eat a shit load. I’ll caveat it has to be cooked veg, I cannot stand raw veg. Salad is not my thing. But I eat 5-6 portions of veg in a day! Also love beans & lentils.

As a kid, I only ate carrots. That was it. I then grew up & significantly broadened my food horizons. There isn’t much I won’t eat & I live to eat a massive variety of meals! I cannot fathom just eating plain, bland, fried food at all times. It must be so boring.

[quote]I don’t love fruit at all, I rarely eat it

A dietician told me I eat too many apples!! She asked how many I ate a day and I said 5. She said there’s a lot of a natural sugar in fruit and suggested swapping out the apples for something green. I mean, *some* apples are green. But I took her advice and stopped buying them by the metric ton (I still eat them. I love them) but now I buy Persian mini cucumbers. I love them as well and don’t have to worry about the sugar.

She also told me a serving of avocado for a healthy diet was 1/8 of an avocado. I’ve never eaten less than a whole avocado at a time!

My weight’s fine, so she can get bent with the 1/8 of an avocado recommendation. I’m still eating those whole.

We are EXCELLENT role models, OP.

I have a work friend like this too and he and his wife are hugely fat.

Nutritionists usually regard a "serving" as one or two ounces. They're nuts.

I have a friend from childhood and she won't eat anything "green" in color. It's such a strange thing to me. We are in our 50's now and of course, she was just diagnosed with diabetes and is now on medication. She's very overweight (so am I) and when I tell her how much I love Avacados or salads her response is a very childlike, "Ewww, that's GREEN!" I don't get it.

Another friend never wants anything other than grilled cheese sandwiches or plan burgers with no condiments. She freaks out if she's even near mayo.

[quote]I make eggplant caviar

Well smell you, Little Lord Fauntelroy

Ghastly. Simply ghastly!

One of my sisters hasn't eaten a vegetable since childhood, when my parents finally felt so sorry for her they stopped forcing her to clean her plate. She also hates fruit, legumes, rice, and most seasonings. Frankly, it's easier to list what she will eat because she hates almost everything. Beef, chicken, turkey, and pork are okay as long as they're plain. Potatoes. Milk, cheese, and ice cream. Cold cereal. Pasta, as long as there's nothing "weird" thrown in. Chocolate. And that's it. So she basically lives on meat & potatoes, mac & cheese, and fast food. She's eaten the same breakfast every morning for the past 30 years: a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's. Because she refuses to learn how to drive, her husband or grown children have to fetch it for her daily.

She's lived to be almost 70, so I guess it's working out for her.

[quote]…when I tell her how much I love Avacados or salads her response is a very childlike, "Ewww, that's GREEN!" I don't get it.

Well, I also don’t get it, but at the same time I kinda get it? I won’t eat anything white and creamy (except one thing 😈).

Mayo, sour cream, milk, ice cream (!) unless it’s almond milk (lactose intolerant), or anything that looks like it may have mayor or similar inside. Thought it was just a finicky kid thing I’d outgrow. Nope. They make me gag.

There was thread after thread here debating the merits of Duke’s versus Hellman’s mayo-I had to sit them out, because I had nothing to contribute.

I'll eat any fruit, but I honestly don't like any vegetables. I will force down carrots, peas, broccoli, salad, etc, but I always have, and probably always will, hate the taste of them.

People react similarly to the above when I tell them. I think they see me as immature or like a badly behaved child. But I always say that we all have foods we dislike the taste of, and for me, that's most vegetables. I can't help it. I'd love it if I enjoyed vegetables as it's clearly much healthier.

Like I say, I force myself to eat the most common vegetables for my health and fibre, plus I eat fruit as well, but I must have eaten hundreds of portions of the vegetables I've listed above and have NEVER grown to even mildly like the taste of them. I'd say at this point it's not going to happen.

I was a dream child where vegetable consumption was concerned. My favorite meal when dining out with my family as a kid, was a small sirloin, and multiple trips around the garden. Thankfully, Ponderosa (we always went there, and I miss the Ponderosa of the 1980s and early 1990s) didn't have a "once around" policy. Now, I wouldn't eat at a buffet or salad bar if you paid me. But I'm still a vegetable freak.

I'm a meat-eater, but because of the high cost in the last few years, I've cut back dramatically. It's okay though, because I love to cook, and am an avid home food preservationist (mostly dehydrating, and one can do quite a bit with one of those).

In additon to dehydrating bulk sale and produce from my garden for storage, I make my own fruit & vegetable powders, blended leathers, soup & casserole mixes, mushroom "jerky", other chewy non-leather fruit and vegetable snacks (tomato is my favorite), raw vegan 'flatbread" with seeds and nuts, and all sorts of other things. I have a blast doing it. Especially knowing that I genuinely enjoy eating what I make, and that it's very good for me.

So I guess I'm closer to one extreme end of the spectrum. But picky eaters drive me nuts. Especially adults. And they always have. There ARE things I won't eat, but they're in the meat category (chitterlings, brains, etc.).

[quote] "People who eat like this (and who aren’t on the spectrum) tend to be boring in other areas of life, in my experience. No thanks." R49

&

[quote] "it's often a sign of a tightly regimented, habit-bound and unadventurous character." R52

Agreed on both points, R49 & R52. On a college trip to England and France, there were a few students who only ate at fast food establishments already present in the United States. And not because they wanted to experience the few differences in the European versions, or something of the like.

They also stayed in the hotel during free time. IN FUCKING PARIS AND LONDON. There were people who would've killed to be on that trip (I myself had to bust my ass to afford it), and these assholes were behaving as if the entire trip was an inconvenience (they were not wealthy, spoiled individuals who had been there before). And surprise, surprise! They were utterly boring people with nothing remotely interesting happening in their lives. So I can confirm this to be true as well.

Y’all sound so prissy and domestic

[quote]I know someone who's eaten literally nothing but fatty meat ("carnivore diet") for like three years and he's one of the healthiest people I know.

Eventually, he's likely to see a decline in kidney function. The body needs some alkalinity to buffer the effects of an acid-forming diet, especially with our longer omnivorous digestive tracts (carnivores have shorter tracts to finish meat digestion before the matter putrifies too far). Some leafy greens or celery would do him a world of good without adding a lot of carbs.

Zappa wrote a song about this.

I meant to say earlier that I think it's weirder to care about the eating habits of others (especially strangers) than it is for someone to dislike vegetables.

I won't eat vegetables, with a couple of exceptions (I like bell peppers and green beans and a couple of other things). Bette White said one of her reasons for a long life was "eating nothing green" and if she could live to 99 doing that, I guess I can, too.

Don't eat almonds often. They are terrible for the environment. how about walnuts? They have a heartiness and good mouth feel.

My grandmother lived to 105, she ate nothing but raw beef and ghee straight from the jar.

To the 5x a day apple guy: have you tried eating bell peppers like apples? Just wash and eat whole, I mean? I do that and yes some people think I'm a psycho but it might satisfy the same urge and red bell peppers in particular have a shitload of vitamin C. More than your daily needs even in a small one.

To the I don't like salad/raw veg people: have you tried Asian salads? I don't mean from grocery stores in the west but proper Thai and Vietnamese etc. salads? I thought I didn't like salad either, until someone served me som tam when I was almost 30 and it blew my fucking mind. Turns out my childhood friend's racist mom, who was always telling me that white people don't know how to flavour food or use sugar in food prep, was right on that one point. I make a Thai-ish salad with mango, onion, carrot, cashews and a spicy peanut dressing that is better than any salad I ate in my life before that late 20s awakening.

Som tam is stupidly easy to make and it genuinely changed my food-based life.

Your dehydrator sounds fun, R110. I've toyed with the idea of buying one but never pulled the trigger due to fear of it just becoming another gadget that takes up space and is rarely used. Maybe I will rethink that.

I remember 80s/90s Ponderosa as well. What happened to that chain?

And your description of the people who only eat McDonalds etc. whilst on foreign trips sounds just like my Chinese food and Coke Zero-addicted friend. In fact I went on a trip around Europe with her when we were in our 20s and she did exactly that, making an ass of herself at every McD's by explaining loudly in English that she only wanted the burger and the bun, no condiments or anything else. And then she would eat the burger and the patty separately. Ugh.

I have a friend who is on the caveman diet who only eats meat and nuts. Once in a while he will eat some veggies and berries but rarely. I also find it bizarre.

[quote]I am not a vegetable lover and have struggled in my adulthood but I managed to eventually find veggies I liked

I am not a lover of the word "veggies."

Oil and vinegar based coleslaw is quite good.

I really wish people would stop asking others to stop using the term "veggies." Especially for you, I'm going to start using the UK/AUS term "veg."

Maybe you'll like that better, keeper of the English language.

To the apple eater, green apples have about half the sugar of say, a gala.

I think the dietitian is out to lunch. I diabetic, and apples have almost no effect on my blood sugar. Cherries and watermelon increase it. I also have to be careful with bananas.

I can’t think of a vegetable I don’t like or won’t eat. Same with fruit.

I also like fish , and most meats, other than lamb. I think it’s the fat in lamb that I don’t like. I will eat liver, but no other organ meats.

I *am*

I love Granny Smith apples

I hate peanut dressings

[quote] Inuits and other Arctic peoples lived thousands of years without vegetables, fruit, or grains in their diet, purely on seal, blubber, fish, etc.

Lucky for them they live in a frozen part of the world. Their BMs must be little more than grease balls & smell to high heaven.

I'm from the south and I have celery stuffed with pimento cheese at least twice a week. That's a little bit of heaven.

There are several vegetables I truly cannot stand. So, I have a question: do you truly believe that eating them while hating them will morph into liking them if the person "keeps at it" long enough?

There seems to be an idea that because you are fine with certain vegetables, others who dislike them aren't genuinely disliking them.

I’m one of the horrible people described in this thread. I’m now obese and fully expect to exit early, so there’s no point in reducing my food bliss.

I pretty much eat takeout daily, with incidental greens if they appear on sandwiches or maybe as a part of a big meaty salad/bowl. I’m not at all picky when it comes to meat or carbs, but I rarely pick a veggie by choice. I used to do keto, so I also swore off baked goods and fruit. That’s probably the only thing that’s saved me from diabetes…so far.

[quote]I really wish people would stop asking others to stop using the term "veggies."

Apparently some people really enjoy sounding as though they're 10 years old.

It’s a bit spectrum-y to put on histrionics when confronted with broccoli.

Re: fruit (apples) and diabetes/blood sugar. As long as you also eat the skin of the apple and not just the flesh, you're good. Fruit is actually a perfectly safe and very healthy food group to eat as long as you eat the *whole* fruit. The fiber prevents blood sugar spikes you would get from consuming the same number of calories in juice form, for example.

As for the Inuit, what the carnivore diet nutjobs are eating (generally steaks and...more steaks) is not the same thing as a traditional northern diet, the latter of which includes parts of the animal I would gag to even have to look at. They eat EVERYTHING, all the organs and eyeballs and flippers etc. and it is a much more nutritionally diverse diet than your average city-dwelling, Jordan Peterson loving carnivore diet devotee.

I think the grease in the meat is what makes carnivores poop. Fiber is fantastic, but suddenly adding a lot of fiber to your diet without adding enough liquid may make a person constipated dietitians claim. Some of the fresh fruit sold is just bland from being picked too early or overwatering…A good piece of fruit can be hard to find sometimes. Make friends who have fruit trees, that’s the ticket…

Frozen red grapes are where it’s at.

I do not eat meat or vegetables. BARELY eat fruit ( I like apples, oranges, and grapes)

I take ALOT of vitamins/chlorella.

I actually broke up with someone over this. He didn't even like red sauce on pasta, just buttered noodles because he hated tomatoes. I could not handle a life of chicken nuggests and plain (PLAIN!) McDonald's burgers.

I have a gal pal who is 24, and she hasn't had a vegetable other than potatoes since early childhood. Her parents are hippies who think you shouldn't force children to do anything, including eating veggies. I was a typical kid who didn't want to eat broccoli, but I outgrew it at 17 and actually craved different vegetables. I love spinach, turnips, broccoli, and kale. Now that I think of it, I haven't seen her eat a fruit either.

R136, yes!

People here insist on calling potatoes vegetables, I suppose because they grow in the ground, but they're actually tubers, which are basically big balls of starch that have little in common with green vegetables.

[quote] "Your dehydrator sounds fun, [R110]. I've toyed with the idea of buying one but never pulled the trigger due to fear of it just becoming another gadget that takes up space and is rarely used. Maybe I will rethink that."

You should only make the purchase if you intend to make the committment, R119. It doesn't have to run constantly, but even if you have it on hand to really take advantage of good deals on fresh produce when they arise (or if you have a garden), it will pay for itself.

You don't need a fancy, expensive one, either. Mine is about twelve years old, and was a hand-me-down from my sister, who used it twice for jerky, and relegated it to the basement (like a lot of folks). I DID fill it out with an extra ten trays (it only had two when I got it), and purchased enough fruit leather & small-content tray liners to max it out, taking it to twelve of each. I don't know that I'll ever do twelve trays of fruit or vegetable leather at once, but I have that option.

Having even a small stock of dehydrated fruits & vegetables in your pantry, can save you time and money if you're a smart shopper.

For instance:

Two days ago, I ran into a ton of perfectly good, unblemished red and orange bell peppers that were drastically marked down. The market had too many, and needed to get them out of the way.

I paid $.33 each (3 in a markdown bag for $1), instead of the advertised $1.50 (which is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned). I got nine bags, for a total of 27 peppers.

So I saved $1.17 on each pepper, for a total savings of $31.59. This was a fantastic deal. Of course, you can't expect these deals all the time, and have to grab them whenever they pop up. But I promise you, it's totally worth it.

If I hadn't had the dehydrator, I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the deal (they CAN be blanched and frozen, but my freezer space is limited). And after being processed (washed, hulled, and diced) and dried, twenty-seven whole large bell peppers take up less than half of a gallon size Zip Loc bag, or two quart jars.

A tip: dehydrating frozen vegetables is a great place to start, because they're already blanched, and require no processing. Just open the bag, load them onto trays, and let it go. I sometimes do this, when I can't get fresh things on sale, or if the frozen varieties are on sale, or markdown (I'll include a link to my favorite dehydrating channel below).

How do I use all this product? I consume them as snacks, and add my dehydrated stock to all sorts of recipes, and they typically don't require a separate rehydration. I MIGHT add the tiniest few drops of hot water to some in a bowl if I'm making a dip or cream cheese-based spread (which is a wonderful way to use dried frutis and vegetables), but otherwise, I just throw them in.

Just know that while the flavor and nutritional benefits remain (if dehydrated at a low enough temperture), the texture isn't going to be the same as fresh. Good luck. If you take the plunge, I'd love to hear about your experiences! Thanks for showing an interest.

[quote] "I remember 80s/90s Ponderosa as well. What happened to that chain?"

Bankruptcy, changing corporate hands, the norm. There is still one Ponderosa in my home state (or at least there was), but it's not the same as it used to be, sadly.

And regarding the fools who insist on blocking out anything resembling an experience outside of their own culture: I almost feel sorry for them. But if they want to live limited lives, that's on them.

R428 your dehydrating is fascinating but overwhelming! I must now return to the underwhelm thread.

Damnit R142. That sounds almost fun (I kind of get off on food prep and organizing and stocking up). Sadly I am an inner city poor with no garden and my limited kitchen space is mostly taken up by my one pricey kitchen indulgence (so far...): a Vitamix (I spoke upthread of my disgusting but super healthy smoothies - I'm sipping one and wincing as I type!). Having a bunch of dried fruit and veg on hand sounds SO convenient, though. I also see no reason why it couldn't be used to dehydrate meals to take camping/hiking.

Thank you for the info on Ponderosa as well. I have no actual memory of the food (steaks?), or whether or not it was any good. One of my parents must have liked it.

R143 Please inform the underwhelmeds that I am barred from posting at all even though it was my favourite thread, due to not being a paying subscriber. My Dehydrator Dilemma is threatening to whelm me right now!

Couldn't. The nurses were always in and out of the room.

Friends/relatives who are picky eaters are a fucking pain in the ass. Especially when you go out to eat with them and they're either being fussy about where to go or asking the waiter too many inane questions and making a production over ordering.

I had a close friends visit me a few years back and their 15 year old was a picky eater. We went on a little road trip and I suggested going to a great little diner for lunch. Fussy 15 year old started whining "oh, I don't like any thing they have here!....I only like hamburgers and fries" and I just snapped, "well, you can watch us eat because I'm not eating at McDonalds because you're a fuss pot when it comes to food."

They sulked but managed to eat dessert. Of course.

I'm using plural pronouns because of course this kid announced they were trans not long after this.

Fussy ass kids.

Is R3 a medical specialist? Just because someone is in shape doesn't mean he's healthy. He could have visceral fat and be pre-diabetic and neither of you would know unless he regularly undergoes a battery of tests. I'm concerned that 7 people have Liked that post.

The one thing that can be said is that the friend's diet lacks a large number of vitamins, minerals and fibre that are necessary for the body to exist, and to use as it constantly repairs its cells. He is probably swallowing tons of supplements, otherwise he'd have scurvy by now, to name just one thing. If he is, he's not just eating meat.

Inuit and Masai peoples traditionally only ate meat and blood.

As a kid, my mother always boiled vegetables to death so I hated most of them. But as an adult, I discovered simple roasting of most vegetables with olive oil, salt and pepper and now love almost all of them (except beets which taste like dirt to me.)

[quote]We went on a little road trip and I suggested going to a great little diner for lunch. Fussy 15 year old started whining "oh, I don't like any thing they have here!....I only like hamburgers and fries" and I just snapped, "well, you can watch us eat because I'm not eating at McDonalds because you're a fuss pot when it comes to food."

Good for you. But a diner that doesn't serve hamburgers and fries? Never heard of such a thing.

I like all major veggies except beets, cauliflower, and squash (fruit).

The Inuit traditionally also spend every day trekking across vast frozen landscapes while hauling laden sledges. They importantly eat everything raw, so that they're still getting vitamins from the meats. When the Keto-Kultists start doing that, then we can have a conversation.

Meanwhile, many Polynesian and South American tribes subsisted for eons on yams, yucca, and similar 100% starchy foods.

R150 I really should have written "deli" instead of diner.

I blame senioritis.

Men who won’t eat ass or drink piss

Be gone

No, piss-and-shit-breath r154, you be gone. And take your mouth with you.

Gross 🤮

My last surviving aunt hated vegetables and lived to be one month short of one hundred years old.

I'm the tender relationships between male characters that don't become sexual.

I can't believe DLers wouldn't be on board with devouring some erotic vegetables.

VEGGIES!!!!!!!!

OH, Veggies.

Veggies.

Even worse are adults who don't drink water. No tap, bottled or anything because they "don't like the taste." I've met a couple and it confounds me.

I don’t drink a lot of water, but mostly Ice tea so close

I drink club soda and seltzer water r161. Usually with Crystal Light or some other flavor enhancer.

I’m an alcoholic, but I drink lots of water because it helps me cool off when I want to be summer-drunk.

[quote]My last surviving aunt hated vegetables and lived to be one month short of one hundred years old.

How sad. If only she had eaten some greens now and then, she could have lived to be my age.

Don't eskimos eat only meat? And what the heck is "a plain burger with cheese and bacon" OP?

Stop obsessing about what other people eat, OP.

Mind your own business!

[quote]10 Naughtiest Vegetables on Earth - Julian London

Imagine Mr. London went to journalism school and this is what he's writing about.

Here's what it comes down to: Genetics and evolution. You cannot compare yourselves to friggin Inuit and say "They only eat meat." They're built to eat that way.

It's like the Bajau people known as Sea Nomads. They can go underwater without any equipment for 13 minutes, because they have larger spleens

I recall reading somewhere that Inuits got some vegetable matter by eating the contents of the intestines of the elk or reindeer or whatever that they hunted.

Nope, not googling it. Gross.

I'm a boozer and I like to drink affordable vodka with diet orange soda. I always drink out of a Big Gulp cup, because I think that's funny.

I'm young and I only like vegetables if they are breaded and served fried.

I eat the ones in wheelchairs.