Yuck!  Cooked brocolli and carrots make me literally gag!  Corn is the
only cooked vegetable I can handle.  I can eat raw carrots.  But trust
me... you don't want to be around when I'm eating any other veggie.

Why do they taste so disgusting to me?  Will I ever be able to eat
them?  I like experimenting with new foods, but veggies in general I
have to stay away from.  Yuck!  FYI, I'm a 24 year old male.

Confessions of a fellow veggie hater:

I *had* to answer this question because I spent most of my life as a
veggie hater. Somewhere around the age of nine, my dislike of cooked
veggies turned into a contest of wills with my parents. I was made to
sit at the dinner table and stare at a lima bean until one of us gave
in and swallowed. Needless to say, sleepiness and the lima bean
finally won. Veggies didn't taste good BEFORE the lima bean episode,
now family legend. They didn't taste good after. But I never objected
to medication in the form of pills, having discovered that even a pill
the size of a lima bean could be swallowed without choking. Or
tasting.

I wouldn't touch a cooked veggie, except corn on the cob, for many,
many years. They ALL tasted yucky. I ate only raw lettuce and a few
other raw veggies that could be liberally coated with salad dressing
to disguise the taste long enough to swallow. Over the years, I
steadfastly refused cooked vegetables, substituting vitamin tablets
(usually BIG ones) for all those missed nutrients. I got over worrying
about it. Not eating veggies was simply part of me. No biggie.

In my late 20's, I fell in love. With a gourmet cook. The first
several meals I was served included a number of cooked vegetables. I
didn't have the heart to refuse. I ate, and swallowed. And didn't gag.
They actually went down smoothly. Tasted pretty good, too. Perfectly
cooked buttered asparagus, cauliflower with cheese sauce, grilled
zucchini and summer squash, and brandied carrots. The love affair was
short, but my resistance to cooked veggies melted. I've since learned
to eat most cooked vegetables, though I have to say I'm not terribly
fond of all of them. I've developed my favorites, and favorite
preparation methods. After discovering that I liked split-pea soup, I
tasted cooked peas for the first time at 45, and found I loved them.
They'd been steamed inside a bed of lettuce leaves.

Most of the information about vegetable hating available on the web
involves getting children to eat their veggies. Obviously that didn't
work with us. We managed to resist all those techniques that were
supposed to turn us into veggie eaters. And you know we share that
characteristic with some rather famous people. It can even run in
families. The Georges Bush (both father and son) do not like broccoli.
I don't imagine it's often on the menu at State Dinners.

Haverhill, New Hampshire Eagle Tribune
Broccoli can heal many ills, Wednesday, April 3, 2002
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/20020403/LI_003.htm

The webpages I've located that have been posted by veggie haters,
seem, for the most part, to belong to people under 40. From that, we
can make the logical deduction that veggie haters either a) change
their opinions or b) disappear before reaching that age. Rather than
list personal information about private individuals here, (which is
against our Terms of Service), I suggest you search Google with the
terms "hate" plus any vegetable you care to name. This will produce a
number of sites created by fellow veggie haters.

There's a cookbook for people who hate veggies, entitled Vegetables
You Used to Hate, by Darlene King. I can't imagine buying it if you
truly hate veggies. But maybe a quick peek at a copy at the library,
to jot down a recipe that doesn't sound totally repulsive might be the
ticket.

Amazon.com
Vegetables You Used to Hate
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1552850617/102-4039171-0260968

On the other side of the issue, apparently, some poor veggies just
can't stand the heat. Of being hated, that is. For those poor unloved
vegetables, there's "Veggies Anonymous, where talking heads (of
lettuce) bare their souls about being lowest on the food chain. And
the corn is all ears."

Island Scene Online
Veggies Anonymous
http://www.islandscene.com/food/1998/980805/veg_haters/index.asp?tz=-12

And finally, at least one scientific clue about the dislike for
vegetables.

"Do you hate vegetables? Do you find them bitter, unpleasant and a
waste of time? If so, you could be a super taster. Your aversion to
all things green could be due to your genetics and all you need to
test whether you have the best excuse ever not to eat veg is some blue
food colouring."

Science Net U.K.
Biology and Medical Science
http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Biology/0204/tongue.html

Google search terms
hate vegetables
hating vegetables
hate broccoli
hate carrots

I've enjoyed the opportunity to take a deeper look into this
characteristic we share. No lectures from me about eating those
veggies. Maybe someday they'll taste just fine.

= larre =

Wonderful answer, larre!  I particularly appreciated the "logical
deduction."  Thanks to all that helped.

An extra snippet of information for you, about why veggies taste so
gross: They don't want to be eaten.   Ever see that episode of The
Simpsons where Homer is forced (by Marge) to eat broccoli, and he dies
of broccoli poisoning? And the doctor says "You'd think that it's
disgusting taste would warn you?"  Well, it's true.  Veggies really
are toxic.  They produce unpleasant tasting poisons, to stop us eating
them.  We have evolved ways of dealing with the toxins, so that we can
eat them.
However, developing foetuses cannot deal with the toxins - they can
damage their nervous systems, and this is thought by some people to be
the reason that pregnant women suffer from morning sickness in the
early stages of pregnancy.  For many, it is vegetables (esp. broccoli,
cabbage, onions) that triggers the feelings of nausea.  (See
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/profet.html for more information
on this.)

jeremymiles-ga

I was a broccoli hater too, but there is so much solid reserach to
show the anticancer properties of some vegetables, that I decided to
try. I found that I can eat it easy, if it is only slightly cooked.
Lightly steamed or added to a stirfry. The vegetables I was tormented
by as a child, were all boiled to a revolting pulp, which was the
'traditional' way here in Australia. Incidentally, I have found that
the 'healthier' I eat, the cheaper I eat as well!

Just a quick lesson in chemistry which relates to your question ...

Vegetables contain chemicals called "phytocompounds" Many of these
phytocompounds have a strong odor, mostly due to the presence of
sulfur which gets released when you cook them. Some vegatables that
are high in phytocompounds onions,garlic,cabbage,brussels sprouts and
broccoli.

http://www.chemheritage.org/EducationalServices/pharm/chemo/readings/phyto.htm

-K~