"Describe a vegetable that you truly dislike."

In a taste test, you're probably not going to choose broccoli over chocolate cake even if it is good for you, but for some people their hatred of vegetables is far more passionate. They simply refuse to add anything green to their diet. Why do some people hate vegetables and what can be done about it? If you truly despised vegetables and they weren't good for you, you could simply eliminate them from your diet without guilt. But veggies are such a rich source of antioxidants and fiber that to hate them is almost a recipe for bad health. Is there a way to make these powerhouses of nutrition more appealing to the taste buds? 


 Surprisingly, the hatred of vegetables may have a genetic basis. It seems that some people are programmed to be super sensitive to the healthy compounds found in vegetables, describing them as having an unpleasant, bitter taste. It's this bitterness that keeps them from adding that piping hot serving of steamed broccoli to their dinner plate. For others, they've learned to hate vegetables as a result of unpleasant childhood experiences where they were required to eat all of their vegetables before leaving the dinner table. 

For whatever reason a person chooses to hate vegetables, it's important for purposes of health to find ways to make them more palatable to the taste buds. One way to improve the perceived taste of vegetables is to eat them with foods containing glutamates which help to offset some of the bitter taste. The best sources for glutamates are meats which give you a variety of options for cooking tasty meat and vegetable combination dishes. Try creating a meat and vegetable soup or stew that you've sprinkled generously with a variety of herbs to add additional flavor. Even people who hate vegetables passionately can often tolerate them in the form of a soup or stew. 

Another trick for improving the taste of vegetables is to heat them to high temperatures by roasting. The roasting process creates a smoky sweet flavor as the sugars in the vegetables carmelize. This masks the objectionable bitter taste making the vegetables far more appealing to the taste buds.