What to do when you don’t like vegetables. 3 steps for training your palate (and why it’s important).

https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAnd...one_who_hates/

It really makes me sick when people talk how certain foods are healthy and others are not, because it’s just not accurate. It also makes some people brag about how “healthy” they were eating by cutting out sugar, fat, salt, etc. and the bragging is so obnoxious I want to ram my head into a wall!

What’s even more sickening is that people with eating disorders say they want to eat more “healthy” as in “eat more fruits and vegetables, they’re good for you and much better than those crappy processed foods and high sugar snacks”. It’s like, don’t you guys realize that using the term healthy on specific foods and other labels is one of the main reasons why we have eating disorders to begin with?!

It’s one thing if you want to try something new, but it’s another if you do it just because people say certain foods are “healthy”, and sadly so many of us have done it so we can meet the standards of eating right. It’s as if whatever we eat is not normal and everyone else doesn’t like that because to them, we’re not “normal”.

For example I have ARFID and I avoid vegetables like the plague. For those of you thinking: what the f*** is ARFID?! ARFID is short for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, although I get really sick and tired of people asking me this as if they don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. How did I have such an extremist mindset? When I was a baby, I was fed canned vegetables like any other baby, and shortly after I got so sick and threw up. My mom refused to acknowledge that part of my infant life, but I know because I was the one experiencing it.

Then there’s the stuff regarding my restrictive eating, how the way I’m eating is “unhealthy” because I don’t have veggies in my diet and that I “should” eat more vegetables because they don’t want to see people like me get fat and obese. These kinds of people are also the same people who will say being overweight or obese makes you unattractive and will justify it saying we’re at an unhealthy weight. Excuse me but no, there are people who are overweight but STILL HEALTHY.

I’ve had to go on diets before because my mom wanted me to lose weight and eat “healthier” but I was miserable. I hated fad diets, every single one of them! It makes me sick that people with eating disorders are forcing themselves to eat “healthy” by thinking “I can’t eat X, but I need to eat right so I can be happy and healthy”. And it’s like “what are you even doing? You’re just forcing yourself to do what others tell you instead of listening to your body! You’re going to make your relationship with food even worse!”.

And lastly, I cannot stand the notion that “you’ll eat healthy if the foods you don’t like are cooked PROPERLY”. It treats us like we’re stupid and we’re just being picky, like I’m the type of person that WILL notice something tastes different if you put a little something to change up the flavor and my taste buds are very sensitive and they WILL tell me what’s in it.

If you like eating fruits and veggies, you do you, but don’t expect other people to eat the same things you do even if you don’t understand our struggles. Rant over.