i HATE vegetables...how do you learn to like them??

ok, i admit it, i hate vegetables....i just do....i ate corn, green beans, taters, raw carrots and salad pre op.....but not much other than that....raw carrots, yeppers, cooked NOPE....raw zuchinni in salad, yepers, cooked NOPE....peas not so much anyhow you make them....i cook with onions and peppers, but to eat them raw..NOPE....oops sent it before i was ready..sorry about that...  

so did any of you dislike vegges pre op and learn to like them? or did you already like them?  life is just too short to make myself eat things i hate....i have tried raw carrots but it was not so good post op when i was like 6 month post op.....so have not tried them since....i have a a sub sandwich made as a salad at subway and it was good, it had some of those itty bitty carrots in the salad and that was fine...so maybe i will have to cut up my baby carrots better..
i am fine eating meat, dairy, cheese, milk, fresh fruit (never canned) im even growing my own pineapple in my back yard...i have blackberries growing too, just have not gotten to eat eat...

so whats a girl to do when i hate vegges??
thanks for letting me vent..
debby

Buy Jessica Seinfeld's book "Deceptively Delicious." While I am vehemently AGAINST her approach with kids (I believe it does not teach kids to deal with veggies on their own terms and then they become adults who don't eat veggies), it could work for you.

 I agree. I have a huge issue with the approach of hiding vegetables in kids' food.  How are they ever going to learn to like them if they don't even know they're eating them??

 I 'hide' them but my kids know i'm doing it and they eat veggies all on their own.  I do it mostly to add a nutritional boost to food.

not the same thing i know - but my daughter LOVES that i put pumpkin puree in chocolate cakes. 

Do you just eat veggies plain or have tried jazzing them up a little?  Yesterday my fiance and I made a stir fry all kinds veggies , but it had tons of flavor from adding garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, 5-spice powder, and ginger.  I like to put as much thought into seasoning my veggies as I do the main dish.  For example, for green beens, I might saute some onions and add a little curry powder. For pumpkin, winter squash, and  sweet potatoes, you can add a little cinnamon, nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice.  For summer squash or zuccinni, I would saute them with some garlic, onions, herbs, and a chopped tomato.  Many veggies taste much better when you roast them in the oven so they get caramelized (squash, asparagus, brussels sprouts, and kale are all good this way).  If the fat doesn't bother you, you can add a *little* browned butter (a little really goes a long way) or a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.  Similarly, a really strongly flavored aged hard cheese, like a good parmesean, can help flavor veggies.  Also, grilling veggies adds lots of good flavor. 

I did not like vegetables at all pre op.  I liked salad, baked potatoes smothered in gooey stuff and lots of butter, cauliflower if it was dripping in cheese sauce.  When we sat down to eat, I ate mostly meat - really only meat unless we had bread and salad too.  I would eat 5 fried pork chops, can't believe I admitted that publicly, put vegetables on my plate, but they ended in the garbage.

Now post op...I'm practically vegetarian.  I eat meat  but very little.  I came to this new lifestyle by accident because post-op meat made me sick - all kinds every time.  I had a very picky pouch.  When I ate it, no matter how moist, it sat in my pouch like a rock and left me feeling very, very  uncomfortable...even with just a few tiny bites. I would chew, chew, chew to mush to try to be able to not feel uncomfortable.  By the time I swallowed, the consistency grossed me out.   As a result, I turned to vegetables.

 My love for vegetables began when my husband began making homemade vegetable soup.  He is a great cook. He would cut meat the size of peas and cook in the soup so I could get some sort of protein somewhere.  This was when I was trying to find something I could easily eat.  While I always liked Chinese food, and that has a lot of vegetables, but the dishesI always ordered  were usually full of meat too and smothered in sauce. I progressed from homemade soups to making our own stir fry.  The next thing I knew I had developed a love for vegetables.  This has been the singular best and most unexpected benefit of this surgery for me.

Mine new love for veggies was a matter of survival.  I began by eating them cooked very softly, mushy so they too would not bother my pouch.  It took a very long time for me to eat raw vegetables. 

Now I have to make myself eat meat.  I no longer eat beef unless it is BBQ, and then it is only a little.  If you really want to learn to like them, I would start looking for recipes.  Even if you begin with one vegetable and one recipe.  Find something you really enjoy and search for another.

You are really going to enjoy your fruit once they are ready to eat.

 I suppose it depends on why you don't like them.  I have found that when someone tells me they dislike an entire food group, it's generally based more in some bad mental image/experience they get when they think of those foods. My husband always told me he hated anything green--peas, broccoli, asparagus, etc.  Turns out, his grandmother used to cook them to mush and make him eat them.  So when I grilled fresh asparagus with lemon juice, and steamed peas and served them with garlic sauce, he tried it and loved them. 

Sometimes it helps to get out of your own head and try to find a way that you can incorporate those foods that excites you.  For instance, I don't like eggplant.  But I LOVE pasta and italian food. So I tried eggplant parmigiana, and it was delicious. If you love ...say, mac and cheese, try adding some frozen, bright green peas or chopped broccoli to your next batch. 

It sounds like you have issues with texture, too--you'll be fine with the flavor of something raw or cooked, but not the other way around. There's nothing wrong with that. If you like cooked onions and pepper, go crazy with fajitas, add them to meatloaf and omelets. Try using a cheese grater to shred raw carrots super fine into salads or soups. You don't HAVE to eat anything you don't want to. But you may try experimenting with new ways to prepare and include the things you do like. 

I am almost the exact same way with veggies as you are. Here is what I do. I eat what I like and don't eat what I don't. My taste buds did not change after surgery. I try to eat balances and healthy. I'm not perfect, I slip up, and I don't always make the best choices. I love salads, spinach and spring greens, I load them with carrots, radishes and cucumbers because those are veggies I like. A brussel sprout or green bean will never pass my lips. I focus on lean protein first and foremost. I take daily vitamins and suppliments as well.

Sometimes you can learn to like things, sometimes you can't.  I used to dislike yogurt.  Now I love it.  Cottage cheese, on the other hand, I cannot make myself like even though I have tried.

Since you know some veggies you like, I would eat those a lot.  I would also try new veggies prepared in new ways and try to keep an open mind.  Sometimes we decide something like "I don't like veggies" and then when we try a veggie, even if it's one we've never had before, we automatically don't like it.  So I would experiment with fixing them different ways.  Maybe you don't like boiled carrots but maybe you like glazed carrots, or roasted carrots with garlic, etc.

You can also "sneak" some veggies into different foods.  Like, you might not notice a very small amount of finely chopped cooked veggies in some chili or some sort of soup or stew that you do like.  Or in pasta sauce, or in some sort of cheese casserole, etc.

Try to avoid raw veggies early out, as they are harder to digest.  Veggies should be part of a balanced diet. You had the surgery and I'd think you'd like to eat as well as possble to get optimum results from WLS.  I like veggies, all but a couple of them. You don't have to eat large quantities of them, just eat them as part of your diet.  Go to a support group and discuss the suggestions you hear there.  Cooking veggies offers you the option of varying their flavors also. DAVE