h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

australian research published last week confirmed what we have been told for ages: that aussies don't eat enough lean meat, nuts, fish, fruit or vegetables.

i assume the same dietary problems exist in other developed countries.

one of the more striking findings was how vegetable consumption has fallen. peculiarly, one of the worst groups were vegetarians, who as a demographic, eat very few vegetables, preferring instead to eat pasta, grains and pulses.

i love my veggies and it drives me nuts how some of my kids will eat them no probs and the others it is as if i am trying to poison them. i know about the genetic thing with bitterness and broccoli for example, but what else is it that makes some people not like veggies?

I'm not sure. I guess one reason may be the way veggies are presented to them when they're children. The way my mother cooked and served cauliflower and nearly all other cabbages made me dislike them until today. It took me a very long time to even try to cook them differently, and now, I can eat them, but I'm still not a fan.
Add to that that we were forced to eat whatever food was on the table, and it's hardly a surprise that I disliked most food I had to eat.

Tastes seem to change, too: my sons used to eat broccoli and courgette when they were smaller - then sudddenly, they told me they didn't like these veggies.
Hmmm, and I never forced them to eat things they didn't want to eat, so apperently, there's more to it than what I mentioned before.

we have got our kids calling broccoli "trees" and as a result they love the stuff

they also consume large amounts of peas, sprouts, green beans and corn on the cob

some of my kids do and the others don't. they all ate lots of veggies as little ones. since they were all raised pretty much the same my assumption is that there is something genetic in there.

a similar thing happens with fish and seafood. some will eat it and some won't.

are people hard wired for food preferences?

You may have a point with there being something genetic in there, after all, my sons are very different in most ways, despite being raised pretty much the same way.

My personal theory is, that the food preferences may have something to do with what mothers eat during pregnancy (don't shoot me, it's just my very personal theory, not science). While pregnant with my first child, I ate lots of fruit and vegetables - because I felt like it, and because it was the season for most fruits. My son was born in autumn. He still eats lots of fruits and veggies.
My second son was born in summer, well before it was the season for fresh, regional fruit and veggies. He now eats them, but wouldn't go out of his way to do so.

my only problem with that is that i have twins in the mix. fraternal, not identical. one adores fruit and veggies, the other is specific about which they will eat.

WEll, there goes my theory, eh?
Or maybe your twins are just the exception from the rule?

There is this other theory, that siblings occupy niches which are not filled by the other siblings.

If you eat alot of processed foods and sugar and probably white flour then your taste sense is affected and appreciation of other kinds of tastes changes (lessens). Probably coffee too. If you don't eat like that then the subtlety of vegetables is amazing. I do agree with the other reasons as well (genetics, taste changing with age, what the mother ate while pregnant etc).

Sometimes liking a vegetable is an aquired taste. I eat things now that I had to teach myself to like. That can be hard to do with kids, especially if sweet is associated with feeling good or high.

Things can be a mix of genetics and environment though. Also genes express through the environment, so I don't think your pregnancy theory is invalid.

now that one, which is new to me, is plausible. but it wouldn't explain why across entire populations vegetables are unpopular, or why vegetarians don't eat many vegetables.... some of them must be singletons.

I do think that the season during which a child is born plays a role, too. When I stopped breastfeeding son #1 it was again the season for fresh, regional fruits and veggies, so he got a lot of those. The very first word he was able to pronounce clearly was 'Gurke' (cucumber), and he loved tomatoes.
I kept him form sweets and sweetened food for sveral years, and he still hardly ever eats sweets.

It was different with my second son, and he's the one who has a 'sweet tooth'.

If it's true that some vegetarians don't eat many vegetables then that is a cultural phenomenon I think and probably a recent one. I've been vege for 20 years and known alot of different kinds of vegetarians and many eat alot of vegetables.

the researchers were surprised by it.

>>but it wouldn't explain why across entire populations vegetables are unpopular, or why vegetarians don't eat many vegetables<<

It does sound odd. Maybe one reason is, that vegetarians ahve to make sure they get enough vitamins of the B group and ferrum, so that they eat food that contains those, rather than vegetables? After all, being vegetarian doesn't mean that you have to like eating veggies, it just means that you dislike eating meat, so I can't really see a reason why they should eat more veggies than non-vegetarians.

my initial gut reaction was that it was a cost thing. veggies are much more expensive than grains, pasta and such. and there is at least an anecdotal correlation between poorer young people and vegetarianism. but then i thought of all those people who like italian food, or at least the sort of italian food that many people like to eat, which is bereft of green and root vegetables. i once had a boss who took us to italian restaurants every time i went to melbourne. all those rich sweet sauces and no fresh veggies except the salads. i figure the same mind set was in operation.

Alot of the vegetarians I know are old hippies so they eat a wholefood diet. It's not about eating like omnivores except without the meat, it's about eating in a completely different way. Meals have a different structure entirely. Those veges eat veges.

But I also know ethical vegetarians who stop eating meat but don't pay much attention to diet at all. They seem to think that you can just eat any old thing minus the meat. So if they had low vege diets before that probably won't change.

There is also a big thing, mainly in the US I would have thought, where vegetarians eat alot of processed foods. So you get alot of meat substitutes and semi-prepared meals. I think that probably means less veges for some too.


AG, can you say more about the research, I'd like to look it up.

Hmmm, but salads consist of veggies, so if you eat some salad every day, you take in a certain amount of veggies.

And as I said before, I think it is a common misconception that vegetarians have to like veggies, because that's not the point of them being vegetarians.

Traditional Italian food contains greens for sure. I would have thought root veges too

i couldn't find the story i originally read, nor the actual research. but this covers the same ground. http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23287695-5006301,00.html

seems the survey was only of 100 people tho, which probably doesn't mean much. so the implied criticism by the authors of vegetarians is probably unjustified.

my actual question btw is why so many people don't like vegetables. while i am happy enough for folks to discuss the merits of various cuisines and diets, what i really wanted was some input from people who DON'T like veggies.

i ask as someone who really loves his brussels sprouts and bok choy and cabbage and all the other lovely stuff, and doesn't get why there are vegetable haters out there.

I can't stand brussel sprouts or bok choy, and don't even like cabbage that much. They all taste horrible to me (Brussel Sprouts make me gag).

So that's one reason.