Hope for Veggie Haters

Eating predominantly vegetables makes sense if you like them. But what if you know you need them and just can't stomach them?  After all, the traditional paradigm is that vegetables are a cooked mass of mush beside your meat and potatoes. They are a manipulative tool used to get children to eat. (Finish your peas, then you can have ice cream!)

The suggestions below break the traditional view that vegetables are just for dinner and that they are generally soggy and unpalatable. These tips will rev up your energy and increase your appetite for vegetables.

• Start by infusing banana-berry smoothies with small amounts of spinach. If you use mixed berries, the smoothie will be purple, not giving away its secret ingredient. You may not even notice the addition of the leafy green vegetable.
• Incorporate sprouts into your life. Grains, legumes and seeds, when sprouted, are a more powerful source of enzymes than any other raw fruit or vegetable. They also have much higher protein and fiber content than their unsprouted counterparts. So try adding toasted buckwheat sprouts to granola, or alfalfa sprouts to smoothies (you'll never know they're there). I like to snack on sprouted raw sunflower seeds or add them to casseroles, soups, and salads. For a primer on sprouting, you can visit the Happy Herbivore Blog.
• Focus on salads. Even if people don't like cooked vegetables, they will generally eat a salad with their meal. Feel you are in a salad rut? I've posted some suggestions to keep your salad fare "fresh."
• Use a "secret" green. Blue-green algae and spirulina, two of the most potent greens on the earth, are readily available in powdered form from health food stores. This means you can sneak them into soups, salad dressings, "meat" patties, and even cooked cereals. It is common to find commercial smoothies with these two ingredients, and a homemade casserole can easily cover them. 
• Focus on the Solanacea family at first, which includes peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos, because this family is the sweetest group of vegetables. In my opinion, there is nothing better than a fresh roasted red pepper. Cut in strips, it can be laid in a sandwich. Diced, it can be added to a salad. All that is required is to broil the sweet bell pepper until the skin is blackened. Then let it cool in a brown paper bag. Peel off the skin, remove the seeds and enjoy!

Before you know it, your body will be hungering for more nutrition, and you will be brave enough to try other vegetables, too.

To your health and happiness,
Hailey