Learn to Love Your Vegetables

Low Carb Living, September 2004.

Originally published in Low Carb Living, September 2004.

Your average asparagus spear has a lot going for it: plenty of fiber, loads of cancer-fighting phytochemicals, only a handful of carbohydrates. It even looks dapper on a dinner plate. But despite those benefits -- and the Greek chorus of doctors and dietitians warning us to eat our vegetables -- asparagus and the rest of the produce section are the wallflowers of the food world. You know they're great. You know you should like them. You just don't.

Of course, if veggies tasted a little more like, say, a Krispy Kreme donut, maybe more than 23% of us would be eating the recommend 5-plus servings a day. But in a sad twist of fate, the phytochemicals that make vegetables so good for you also give them their characteristic bitter flavor, which we're genetically predisposed to dislike. "Hating bitter is a poison detection system," says Linda Bartoshuk, PhD, a professor at Yale University School of Medicine. "But sweet in nature is generally a cue for safe calories, and we're hard-wired to want calories. I think that's what Haagen Dazs ice cream is all about."

Because taste is fairly subjective -- a complex reaction to oral sensations and odors that's part upbringing, part genetics -- not everyone experiences flavors the same way. Win the heredity dice roll and you'll happily chow down on cauliflower crudites. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to fight thousands of years of evolutionary conditioning just to make it past the sundae bar.

For the 15% of people who qualify as supertasters, matters are even bleaker. Certain biological proclivities -- along with a higher-than-normal number of tastebuds -- make them experience oral sensations, like bitter flavors and odd textures, more intensely. That can make veggies even harder to swallow.

Don't give up on the produce aisle yet, though. According to Gary Beauchamp, PhD, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, when it comes to taste, "nothing is programmed. Nothing is permanent or can't be changed." In fact, simply studying up on the health benefits of vegetables can be enough to motivate you to give them another try. Want to slow the aging process? Lose weight? Add fiber to your diet? Studies have shown that vegetables can be key, and reminding yourself of that might be enough to boost the asparagus spear's appeal.

You'll probably never like veggies more than chocolate. But with some of these tastebud-taming tips, you can learn to like them more than before. . . .

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