Besides teaching children to read and loving it, teaching them to love the garden is something that will always stay with them. Things really do taste better when you grow them your self and enjoy them outside with your kids, they will never forget these fun times.

Society gives veggies short shrift. Most people do not care, and it shows. Grow it fast and go for size and weight: NOT TASTE. That is the commercial creed. Have I changed? No. What I grew up hating is not really what I am eating now at all.

Anyone eaten a commercially canned green bean lately? I used to hate asparagus and spinach intensely. Now I know that it is because nobody knows how to prepare them. Has anyone else had limp stringy soft asparagus? Know what I mean? And who decided that spinach had to be boiled to grayness before it becomes edible? Salad bars are choked with 30 or more ingredients because the lettuce is always so bland and HARD. And WHITE! Not blanched white, but hard white cores of iceberg.

I have access to a better standard of food now, grown to my own preferences, but I also experiment with things I would never have eaten as a child: mustard greens, scallions, garlic leaves, sweet potato greens, chilis, chives, and flowers.

Growing has made me a better cook. I am certainly inspired. My garden is my muse. Thanks to her, I save up to go to expensive restaurants rather than to movies because the former is performance art, and I appreciate it. It emboldens me. My cooking is not great, but I know that the best chef in the world, if she is not a gardener, is still trying to paint a masterpiece on someone else's canvas. With vegetables and McLuhan, the medium is the message.

Not me but my kids (who are adults now). Limas. In a school cafeteria they truly are barf-making. Garden-grown and cooked immediately, they are delicious.

And yes, canned asparagus and canned green beans don't remotely resemble the garden-grown versions in texture or taste.

And lettuce! I'd be happy if I never had to buy another bit of it in the grocery store, head or leaf. It's tough, stringy, goes bad quickly, and I'm always afraid it hasn't been washed. Home-grown lettuce is tender and crunchy, pure heaven in the mouth!

Certainly we all know there is no comparison between home-grown and bought. That's why we garden, at least a main reason. But I think that's not the reason kids mostly hate veggies.

There is a joke in the vegetarian community that nobody hates veggies like vegetarian kids (or "pasta-tarian", some call it). I well remember my youngest daughter, probably at about eighteen months or so, eating steamed rutabaga greens as fast as I could shovel them in her mouth. Since 3 or 4 years of age she will not eat any sort of cooked greens, or onions. Strictly peas, carrots, lettuce (preferably iceberg, which I wouldn't grow if you paid me), green beans, etc. This with garden produce in the house since she was a baby. The older kids were similar. I was raised by a health-conscious mom, always the salads with non-iceberg, shredded carrots and turnips, sunflower seeds, sprouts, the whole deal. Hated it. Couldn't wait to get those mcdonald's fries.

It seems to me that at around 3 or 4 years of age (probably about when children would have stopped nursing back through most of evolution), the child's body craves fat and protein over all else. Which makes sense. Greenery in the nature-immersed environment was always at hand. No shortage of vitamins and minerals, potentially big shortage of fat for the growing body. No doubt the kids were spending most of their time searching out calorie-rich grubs and nuts and whatnot, and ate shoots and roots when they couldn't find other stuff. Full-grown adults could afford the luxury of spending time eating fruit and tasty greenery but has less nutrient value.

So that's my explanation for why all kinds of "gross" veggies seem much more appealing when we get older.....

pnbrown

Interesting take on it. Since protein is a basic building block need during growth spurts, and animal fats usually make meats taste better and more satisfying (horror to vegetarians, I know!), it's rather easy to see why a growing child's food preferences would change a great deal.

But it can be spotty. My grandson will eat vegetable sticks of almost anything if he can dip it in buttermilk dressing, carrots, cukes, zucchini, broccoli, and even romaine lettuce spears. He makes rude vomiting noises if the same vegetables are presented to him cooked.

And I knew of a child who at one stage in his life wouldn't eat anything "round"! No peas, no raw carrots sliced into rounds but yes to raw carrot sticks, no cherry tomatoes, etc. Sometimes there's no accounting for a child's preferences!

I know a man who hasn't eaten a vegetable in more than 20 years!

Still, I think that institutional foods, at least in the past, sure contributed to many children's aversion to vegetables. Big cans of vegetables, overcooked on steam tables, you know the deal. All you can do is offer a kid a wide array of foods and hope they choose the ones that answer their growing nutrition needs. Many people believe this is true, and I do, too. People are also beginning to recognize that fruits have pretty much the same nutritional value as vegetables and offer more of them as well. No law says a kid HAS to eat vegetables!

I grew up in a household that always had a garden...but the truth is...I even like canned veg's....I love spinach...just barely cooked and sauteed with a little garlic or in a salad etc but wanna hear this...I love spinach from a can...it's something else entirely but I still like it...same with green beans, I like them canned, fresh and fresh frozen...they all taste different but I still like them. I never forced my child to eat anything...she ate what she wanted to....I encouraged her to try new things but if she didn't like it, she didn't have to eat it and by the time she was in school she would eat most any vegetable...raw or cooked. My husband and I were eating squash from the garden and she turned up her nose...so no one said a word about it and just kept talking about how good it was and eventually she ate every bite and hasn't had any left on her plate since.

Beets.

Mom served them from a jar. Pickled i guess. Always tasted like dirt with sugar sprinkled on top. Never any hesitation when asked if there was anything i wouldn't eat, 'Beets' became my standard blurted response.

Last spring a friend served me a few sliced Chiogga's from her garden. They were gorgeous and besides, she has reliably good taste. i tried them. Delicious! Crisp and sweet with just the right amount of beetiness. i am growing them now.

Got a few golden beet seeds to try too-if they're good i might work my way up to the red ones. Heck, by next year i may throw caution to the wind and try them cooked! i hear they are delicious braised in butter with a few of the baby greens still attached.

Trouble is i need to think up a new answer for folks who want to know what my least favorite food is. Oh well, there's always liver i guess...

If you really want a great way of eating beets try this!

BenaventeÂs Roasted Beet Salad

Roast whole, unpeeled beets wrapped in aluminum foil at 350-400F until fork tender (45-60 mins.). At the same time roast some whole, unpeeled red onions, but not in foil. Let them both cool, then remove the beet skins and chop into 1-2" cubes. Remove skins from onions and cut into eighths.

Make a vinaigrette with red wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar, a mild olive oil, salt and pepper. A typical ratio is 1 part vinegar(s) to 2 parts oil. You can also add orange juice to sweeten it a bit if you choose. Toss the beets & onions in the vinaigrette and marinate at room temperature for several hours.

Just before serving add some crumbled blue cheese, coarsely chopped, toasted walnuts (3-5 mins. In oven or sauté pan  watch the heat carefully!) and a little fresh, chopped mint. Serve at room temperature.

The beet salad doesnÂt keep well after the cheese & walnuts are added, so if there are extra beets store them in the vinaigrette and add the extras later, as needed.

Thank you Pepperdude. I am saving that to try with my fall beets. I love to grow them but then I don't know what to do with them. I've always loved the tops, AKA chard, but the roots... not so much.

Probably the one veg I used to despise, but not love, is Brussels sprouts. My dad would steam them and eat them with a pat of margerine, and I still don't think I'd eat them that way. My favorite preparation is sauteed with garlic and shallots, with a nice white wine, honey dijon pan sauce.

I still remember as a three year old declaring loudly (when my parents had guests over of course) that "I hate bikini!", meaning zuchinni, but now I love the stuff. =)

pepperdude that sounds like a keeper, thanks!

Maybe I should try cooked turnips again sometime....

No way on the liver though!!

:+)
Deanna

Pnbrown
Yes, I think you are right about kids needing meat. I think it is a little scary the way they rip into steaks and burgers, but most animal babies are like that, too. Even milk is a lot of fat and protein. A lot of gardeners are older, which would support the idea of meat preference by children and vegetable preference by older people. I would guess that weight and digestive issues drive older people's choices too.

And you are right Anney. Lettuce in salad bars... lettuce in stores. None of it is really lettuce. What is it? How did society come to this? What seems to grow well in my garden is NOTHING like what I see in the real world. Pesticides make it possible to grow market lettuce and marketing and guilt make people buy it. Do people really like it?
Your point about children is on the mark too. The one child I know who prefers vegetables to meat also prefers fruits to vegetables. Vegetables are last in the pecking order of kids foods, it seems. Fat/protein/meat> Sugar/fruits > Vegetables. What do vegetables really have that kids like? Vitamins? HA! That child also prefers sweet vegetables to non-sweet ones. Sweet potatoes, (sweet) peas, cherry tomatoes, etc. So I guess we have the kid/vegetable mystery solved.

I like Ruthie's comment. Yes, canned spinach is something else entirely... I can see how that could be a delicacy. With a little orange and honey! haha Anyway, after watching so many Popeye reruns, kids get the idea that canned spinach is the only spinach, so spinach has gotten a particularly bad rap.

Someday, before I die, I want to know what fresh wax beans taste like... well... non-canned would be enough for me. They have seemed pretty good canned. I liked them when I was younger (the way they squeaked a little), so they must be great fresh.

I am lucky I don't remember not liking any vegs as a child! I even liked school cabbage and was happy to discover hospital resturants cook cabbage into the same white watery mass too, when I entered nursing!! I don't cook it like that at home that said, My 4 yr olds? boy! am I lucky, again they seem to love fruit and veg they have some dislikes but I can deal with that, as they still go on the plate and I don't even mention if they don't eat it, chances are next time they will! I listened to a nutritional program on childrens needs and was shocked to discover that I was making loads of mistakes in my childrens diet, they where not getting enough protein, fats, and sugars and too much fibre! and veg!!! ekk! turns out that what was said above about their growing needs is more or less correct for instance a childs portion of veg is considered to be the size of your childs fist!! it bulks them out and if they have too much and stops them from eating proteins ect which they need, apparently this can cause what they termed alfuent malnutrition! double EKK! so I changed my routine in came cake, and cookies, homemadenot shop brought, twice a day as a snack to provide some empty calories reduced there portion sizes, I still reacon they get about 9 or 10 portions a day now! much reduced, I have stopped using high fibre everything! but still have fibre in their diet, they still get "boring" cereals without "sprinkels" sugar on top, but I have found that they stopped being grumpy mid afternoon and morning after introducing the sweet stuff, they still get fruit as well at this time as a slow release, it was amazing the difference! and to think I thought I was doing the right thing!!! I was doing the right thing for an adult!
oh and they do go to Mcdonalds! they love the sugar, salt and fat, it just doesn't consitute a large part of their diet! all things in moderation.

Just about everything...

From what I was told, you couldnt pay me enough to eat any veggie, when I was very young, which included salads. The very thought of a vegetable, be it frozen, fresh, canned, whatever, made me sick to my stomach. In the spring of 1985 (I was 7), I took an interest in gardening from my grandfather, and began to help him in his 35' x 35' plot every year. I conclude from that year up until my grandfather became unable to do anything in the garden anymore (2005), that he and I at least attempted to grow every vegetable that there is out there.

It wasnt until I was essentially forced to try them fresh ("Go ahead, you'll like it), that I finally realized what I had been missing. The home grown taste just can not compare to that of canned or store bought that has been, in my area, put on a refrigerated truck for a 3-4 day sojourn across the country.

Now, I cant get enough of them. I am growing more than my share of stuff just so I will have plenty for the winter!

I was always the weird kid that actually liked spinach and brussels sprouts. Spinach is still a fave, I use it instead of regular lettuce most of the time, and adore it wilted into soups. That gets grown in large quantities in my garden. (Brussels sprouts I don't like now. Go figure.)

Growing up I really hated tomatoes. The texture was just awful, cherry tomatoes especially, the way they popped in your mouth. Now that I grow my own, I love them. Cherry and grape varieties especially.

I became a vegetarian at 20, after cutting out red meat at 16. I don't recall ever having trouble eating my veggies. My father though is another story. He'll eat broccoli and asparagus, and that's about it. I guess I have to make up for all the veggies he won't eat!

Heather, I think you raised such an interesting point! I think the same thing happened to me growing up-- it was whole grain everything, all the time. We were literally forbidden to eat white bread. To this day, my mother is still pretending that whole wheat bread tastes better than white bread (while, of course, eating white bread whenever she can find an excuse, because refined carbs tasting good when your blood sugar is low is just the way we're built!!) Eating always felt like an incredible chore. I think it was partly because some of the bulk of whole wheat bread is indigestible (fiber), which means, as a child, you may get full (or sick of eating tasteless food) before getting enough calories. We were also raised mostly vegetarian, and the fact is most vegetarian kids don't get as much protein as meat-eating kids. Beans and cheese and such are moderate protein sources, but they are not as protein-dense as meat. Same problem as whole grains, I think, you may be full or feel sick from the fat content before getting a decent amount of protein. As an adult, I think a lot about protein. If I have even one meal without a high protein food, I don't feel very good. If I have two meals in a row without protein, I feel unfocused, a little nauseous, and my head hurts. Some people go years without really getting enough protein! So many people live a high-carb, low-protein lifestyle. I think it's somehow self-perpetuating-- like people get on this blood sugar rollercoaster where they eat all carbs, then their blood sugar drops, and they crave more carbs, and don't want protein. I think a healthy lifestyle is somewhere in between the bad-carb blood sugar rollercoaster and the white-flour-is-the-devil mantra-- where you listen to your body-- drink juice or get another refined-carb fix when your blood sugar is low, but in general, eat a decent amount of whole grains, protein foods, and produce.

I commend you for seeking out more information and being willing to change your ideas! I think your kids are lucky. I also think if you expose them to a good mix of foods-- like if you cook them a protein food, a nice fresh veggie, and a whole grain, and have stuff like juice and fruit easily available to them, they'll be in great shape.

Long ago I concluded that the healthiest way to eat is to eat the widest possible variety of foods prepared in the widest possible variety of ways.

The only food I can recall hating as a kid and enjoying as an adult is corn chips -- though I still loathe even the smell of Fritos. Dry/shell/lima beans I disliked then and dislike now.

My kids eat vegetables (IMO, the key is to not overcook them), and meat, and cheese, and fruit, and the chips/sweet treats we buy/make in moderation.

Some things, are so superior from the garden, that if I didn't grow them my kids would never have tasted them -- fresh tomatoes for one. And I gave up on grocery store cantaloupes years ago.

Salads. Or anything raw, really. I grew up in a home with a big garden, but my mom hated working in it and when she discovered Aldi's, that was that. 10 cents for a can vs. slaving in the garden? Not a contest for her. I loved canned peas and beans and corn and still do, in fact, until recently, I'd never liked fresh - it didn't taste "right". I still like store-bought frozen and canned veggies. I wouldn't eat, and still don't, asparagus and brussels sprouts. But I'm growing brussels sprouts this year, so we'll see about fresh. Asparagus is a smell thing I think, but I haven't even tried it for 35 years or so.

It wasn't until I was 19 and had my wisdom teeth out that I learned to like salads. I couldn't eat solid food for two weeks and when I did I went out for pizza with a friend and we got salads. It was my first bite of solid food and I've liked them ever since. But they're SO much better with my own butterhead lettuce and spinach! My husband actually prefers iceberg...the sick little monkey.

My son is 14 now and lives on pastas, ground meats and fruit. He'll pick the bigger pieces of vegetables out of spaghetti sauce! You can get him to eat green beans and broccoli, if you boil it to death and smother it in cheese. I'd like to say that's new, but he's always been picky...so canned fruit at every meal and a multi-vitamin every day. But hey, he's tall and thin and my husband and I both need to lose 50 lbs, so maybe he's on the right track?

Talking about why kids like fats and protiens, I wrote a term paper for an anthropolgy class in college about Aztec canibalism, my theory being that it was a biolgical urge that developed due to the lack of essential amino acids in thier diet as all big game had been decimated by earlier paleolithic hunting. Corn and beans have the same as meat, but you have to eat them in quantity. I may have been way off base, but it was a cool paper just the same...I got an A+. :)

Alys

I have been ambivalent, bored and uninterested in several vegetables, at different stages of my life, but still ate them. Just like mauirose, the one vegetable that I was just not able to swallow was beets. Beet roots that is, but before I grew them i had no idea one could eat the greens too. I even said to my partner, I did not want to grow them. He said he would eat them, so we grew a few. Low and behold, I found out I liked their leaves quite a bit. Hmmmmm....taste just like chard, both are Beta vulgaris after all, and I never had anything against the mighty chard. Then when the first root was pulled out, it was small, we were harvesting them as babies, so I marinated in balsamic and tony shacharaze and grated them in the salad. I liked it, and have continued to use beets raw in salads. Then the other day I decided to try roasting a few vegetables. We had nice basket of our own potatoes, yummy carrots, and hey, why not, I put some beet roots in there too. I lined the pan with fresh rosemary, oregano, sage, sprinkle some olive oil, salt and pepper, and baked them. Wow! wow wow wow, I was just so wrong about beets. Now we are trying to grow a lot more beets.

A lot more carrots too! I never disliked carrots, but they were rather uneventful, at least the ones from the grocery store. Try growing your own and you will not have enough! This is because they are so delicious you end up eating a lot more of them. This also applies to just about every vegetable, home grown tastes better so you eat more, and then next season plant more, and more, and more....

The only vegetables I DON'T like are anything bitter. I don't know what it is, but my family had a green when I was a kid that was so bitter it was awful. Looked just like spinach - it wasn't rabe or anything like that, but it was horrid.

That's about the only thing I don't like. Well I was not a big eggplant fan and I still only like it prepared certain ways, but when you make it those ways, I love it, so I don't know if that would count!! There are things I won't eat canned - but I love them fresh or frozen. I never had turnips or parsnips until I was an adult, but I loved them as soon as I tasted them.

Oh ya - I just remembered one thing, and funny that farmersteve mentioned it - radishes! I don't know why, but radishes taste like dirt to me. Like I picked up a clod of clay soil and started munching lol!! Maybe I've just never had a good one?

Lisa

broccoli and cabbage was something that I didn't like when I was a kid or as an adult for a long time then I discovered cooking with beer and garlic oh my lord do I love them now I cook almost all veggies this way in the Cole family always loved toms and peppers that was one thing that ma used to have to take away from me is pickled peppers I would eat them till I was sick and in fact I have a jar right in front of me now with a fork sticking out of the top and toms sliced up with salt and pepper and franks hot sauce yum