Fruits & Veggies Are Just Not That Popular. No! Really? I actually like most vegetables but they are less satisfying than pasta, pizza, ice cream and pretty much anything they say I shouldn’t eat.
And speaking of veggies, I heard, from Number One Son, about a really funny t-shirt. It says “Vegetables Are What Food Eats.” I had to look it up. A Google image search came up with several different versions. It’s not appropriate for me since I don’t eat a lot of meat but I had to laugh at the cleverness and also found myself in agreement with the independent, freedom-loving “don’t tell me what to eat” attitude.
September 27th, 2010 - 11:03 am
Yeah, the NYT has some kind of article where they are shocked, shocked to find Americans aren’t eating “enough” veggies. (My response: why should they care what I do or do not eat?)
I do my best. But I cannot eat carrots or celery (food intolerance), green pepper or eggplant (food intolerance or possibly allergy, I don’t know, I’m too miserable after eating it to care), raw broccoli or cauliflower (digestive issues). And a lot of vegetables served the way we’re told to eat them (plain and steamed) just make me gag.
For the record: I don’t like French fries all that much; I’d rather have a nice baked potato with a little sour cream.
And then of course there are the “food purists” who scream that corn cannot be a vegetable, and that potatoes should probably not, either.
September 27th, 2010 - 8:02 pm
And there’s the old joke about the origin of the word “vegetarian”: it’s an approximation of some Native American (tribe never specified for some reason) term meaning “incompetent hunter.”
I can handle most veggies, even (gasp!) Brussels sprouts, though I can’t work up any enthusiasm for eggplant and not much for celery. (Wanna do something with celery? Cut it down to quarter-inch bits and throw it in the Crock-Pot with the roast.)
Unfortunately, I adore French fries, but I have made an effort to cut down my consumption.
September 28th, 2010 - 10:52 am
I don’t care for eggplant. Every once in a while I’ll try to do something with it (most recently, I made ratatouille), but IMHO the eggplant is just an inedible mushy substance that somehow manages to taste both bitter and… tasteless. I also tried parsnips after successfully avoiding them since childhood, and found that they still taste terrible. And they’re sort of gluey. On the other hand, I used to hate beets with the heat of a thousand supernovas, but a few years ago discovered that fresh beets are nothing like canned, and are in fact edible.
I’m trying to cut down on my fries consumption too. With marginal success. I’ve found that sweet potato fries (sweet potatoes are another childhood hate, until I found out that they exist in other forms than canned) are a good substitute, and good for you. Right?
September 28th, 2010 - 1:49 pm
Canning is what they do to vegetables to make kids hate them.
I like sweet potatoes but my husband absolutely refuses to eat them no matter how they’re cooked.
(My Internet connection has been down. This is the first time all day that I’ve been able to get on it.)