Why does healthy food taste so disgusting? Unless you are a health guru, you probably prefer cake over kale. Learn how to train yourself to love the taste of healthy food.
Why does healthy food taste so disgusting? Unless you are a health guru, you probably prefer cake over kale. Learn how to train yourself to love the taste of healthy food.Let’s do a little experiment. Think of a “healthy” food. Visualize this food- it’s color, texture, how it’s prepared/served, even the smell of it in front of your nose. Finally, imagine taking one delicate bite of this food.
Now, think of your favorite dessert.
Which food made you smile?
I know I would much prefer eating a decadent chocolate truffle over a caramelized Brussels sprout. I like both foods, and regularly eat both foods. If I’m being completely honest, I probably eat more Brussels sprouts than truffles.
Yet, the thought of rich creamy chocolate makes me smile more than a green vegetable. At least, on most days.
And, the evidence shows that most Americans have a natural bias towards foods that we perceive to be “unhealthy”. In this article from It’s Not about Nutrition, researchers found that Americans intuitively chose words such as “delicious” and “tasty” quicker and more frequently when paired with images of unhealthy foods.
What’s even more startling- people who said they believed healthy food is tasty still classified unhealthy foods as more enjoyable.
You see this play out all the time.
- In the office, you might hear people say, “I’m being good” when refusing donuts or cookies.
- In the home, you might see your husband curl his lip at your steamed broccoli.
- In the restaurant, you see dinner plates returned with just the lonely vegetables left. And, a dessert order being placed.
We know that unhealthy food TASTES good. After all, unhealthy food is loaded with everything our bodies crave for survival- fat, salt, and sugar.
And, then you see health gurus or fitness trainers munching on kale chips and sipping on green garden in a glass, and you wonder what’s wrong with you.
Why can THEY appear to love these healthy foods while you gag at the sight or smell? Before I learned to appreciate the taste of healthy foods, I even thought these people were pretending!
Elizabeth Phillips, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, says that our taste preferences can be partially influenced by our genetics.
Before you get all, “Hah! I was born this way” let’s refine that understanding.
Genetics is only a small portion of our preferences. A bigger part of our taste is impacted by what our parents fed us, including in utero.
Biopsychologist Gary Beauchamp, emeritus director and president of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, revealed in his research that infants whose mothers drank carrot juice late in their pregnancies or while breast-feeding like carrot-flavored cereal more than those who have never before tasted carrots.
(No wonder I still dislike the taste of raw carrots. Mom doesn’t touch the things).
Maybe this is one instance where bottle fed babies have an advantage in terms of their early eating preferences?
Ultimately, the idea is not just that we eat what we like, but we tend to like what we eat.
If you have ever dealt with a picky eater, you know that there appears to be an age cut-off where exploring new foods is ridiculously hard. That age is around 2 or 3.
After this tender age, introducing foods that typically taste bitter (which our tongues reject from an evolutionary standpoint), may be a lesson in frustration.
As most green and cruciferous vegetables taste bitter for first time eaters, does that mean there’s no hope?
Not at all.
In addition to the genetically gifted folks whose parents typically ate healthy foods and regularly introduced their families to these foods before preschool, there are millions of other folks in our society who eat healthy foods.
And appear to enjoy eating them.
I know, because I am one of them. I went from eating loaded chili cheese nachos followed by a Mister Goodbar to eating balsamic tempeh with roasted sweet potatoes and quinoa chased with gluten-free brownies.
I’m not gonna lie- I still detest most raw salads, and refuse to drink my greens. Yet, healthy foods don’t have the same bias for me as they once did.
However, I much prefer the taste of vegetables to fruit. And, I rarely eat food that I don’t enjoy eating.
Want to learn my special tricks to get there yourself?
Here 3 steps to train yourself to loving the taste of healthy foods.
- Step 1: Stop focusing on good and bad foods.
Here is why this a huge disservice to you and your taste buds.
The more you tell yourself that a food is good or bad, the more you will attract or avoid that food. Going back to the American bias study, people who were told to sample a mango lassi (a delicious mango milkshake) that was healthy did not enjoy the same lassi that was described as unhealthy.
I LOVE mango lassis, which can have more sugar than a can of Coke. Plus, mango is a delicious, underrepresented fruit in most American households. Yet, simply describing this delicious drink as healthy makes people enjoy it LESS.
On the other hand, if you describe pizza as unhealthy or “bad”, you tend to believe it will be more enjoyable to eat it.
Food can be absolutely enjoyable, whether it comes from the earth or a plant. Be aware that how you view food can automatically make the experience of eating it better or worse for you.
Note: this first step can take months to master, especially if you have a history of diving from one diet to another. Most diets choose to focus on certain isolated aspects of nutrition, but few give you a balanced big picture. Therefore, moving from one diet to another can confuse you in terms of what foods are “good” or “bad”.
Consequently, you associate being on a diet as “good”, even if the foods you are eating might be considered “bad” on a previous diet you tried. Unfortunately, that could make you feel “bad” by association if you are not currently dieting.
Want to escape this situation? I am enrolling for February’s 30 Days, which helps you achieve one major milestone over the course of the month. Rather than focusing on what hasn’t worked for you before, we will focus on loving yourself on this health journey of yours.
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Wait, what? What kind of health coach tells people to use more sugar, salt and fat?
Biologically, we crave the taste of sugar, salt and fat (which can also be called umami). Rather than fighting AGAINST your body, give it what it wants!
In small doses, that is.
I am not suggesting that you dump a load of MSG on your snap peas, soak your kale in bacon fat, or slather your salad in Ranch.
What I am suggesting is training your body to appreciate a slightly different approach to dressing up healthy foods.
- For example, if you really cannot tolerate peas, but absolutely adore the taste of wasabi, why not try a bit of wasabi mayonnaise on top of your steamed peas?
- Not feeling the broccoli? Put some gooey, melted cheese on top and see if that makes it more interesting.
- Terrified of parsnips? Try roasting them in the oven with a light drizzle of maple to bring out their natural sweetness.
This is a technique known as flavor-flavor learning. After five to seven attempts at this dressed up food, the taste of the main event will become less bitter.
Even a small dash of salt could go a long way (for homemade food only- processed foods are already loaded with this stuff!). Salt can actually block receptors in your body that detect bitterness.
I like Himalayan sea salt- my daughters are tickled pink by the fun hue, too!
- Step 3: Don’t give up
When I was a kid, I once threw a HUGE tantrum because my bean burrito from Taco Bell had raw onions in it. In my mind, the raw crunchy onions completely RUINED the smooth texture of my favorite food. Mouth feel is very important in enjoying foods- and my default as a kid was the smooth texture of soft foods.
If you are more comfortable and familiar with processed, boxed, or fast foods, then you might also default to soft and smooth textures. There is nothing wrong with this- but it will take time to retrain your default preferences.
I now salivate at the thought of raw onions (really any form of onion- crunchy, carmelized, dried, etc).
It didn’t happen overnight. Depending on the food, it took me anywhere from weeks to years!
In some cases, I am still working on enjoying foods that violate my default preferences (like crunchy crustaceans, salty sardines, and slimy chia seeds).
Realistically, there are some foods you may never enjoy.
Yet, give yourself enough time and technique to experiment with the food before calling it quits.
I would say that a minimum amount of time would be 3 months. Luckily, there literally thousands of techniques you could try!
A good way to try the technique piece without wasting a bunch of failed recipes and food is to identify your favorite restaurant foods, and see if you can recreate those at home. Or you could also check out my weekly meal plans HERE.
This is the fun part. You could explore different cuisines, such as Indian, African, or Mediterranean, different tools such as spiralizers, Instapots, blenders, and different techniques such as braising, baking, or roasting.
For each new or desired healthy food.
In order to make this process less overwhelming, I would encourage you to focus on one food per week, and play with the cuisines, tools and techniques throughout the week.
Hate sweet potatoes?
- Try mashing them into pancakes for breakfast.
- Try roasting them with some chili and cumin for a snack.
- Try blending them into a creamy soup.
Despise cauliflower?
- Puree and shape into a fritter (for the waffle maker).
- Press into a flatbread.
- Pan-fry with some bacon or pancetta.
Your future is impossibly bright, especially when you utilize these ways to shift your most despised healthy foods from yuck to yum. From disgusting to delicious. From nefarious to noom-noom.
How did you go from hating certain foods to loving them? And how long, on average, did it take you? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!