Are you a veg dodger?
We all have a relationship with food and our food choices are shaped by many factors including, culture, religion, ethics, cost and lifestyle. When it comes to losing weight and adopting a healthy diet, one of the challenges we face along with all the usual barriers to change, such as fear of failure, is that we often have to address our cultural & learned attitudes to food before we can move forward and change how we eat for the better.
Many of us for instance have not so fond memories of soggy overcooked vegetables served to us as children and having to clean our plates before enjoying a treat or desert. We should of course eat our veg, but I have two concerns with this policy. Firstly this can create food aversions, so when we’re offered a beautifully cooked vegetable, your first response is to say no immediately. We remember the overcooked vegetables of our youth and don’t want to eat it again. To this day I still recoil at the thought of carrots, because I’ve eaten one too many which was boiled to within an inch of its life.
My second problem with the policy is it can build up the lifetime habit of using food as a reward. I know of adults who to this day still crave a treat just for eating vegetables. In their mind, the vegetables are a struggle and when they eat them, they feel they deserve a reward. But healthy eating is tasty and rewarding in and of itself and this behaviour is not healthy.
Anyway, I’m getting carried away with the first cultural problem we can face when trying to eat healthily, I haven’t even gotten to the real issue that I wanted to mention. And this is how in our culture we refer to healthy food, specifically vegetables and salad, in negative and disparaging terms. At the forefront of this is the widespread use of the term rabbit food to described salads and fresh, healthy vegetables. Other terms that spring to mind in this category include the terms hippy food to describe beans and lentils, diet food, again to describe fresh vegetables and fruit and finally man food, used to generally describe meat and lots of it.
I’ll set the record straight, there is no such thing as diet food, rabbit food, man food or hippy food. There are just tasty, delicious healthy foods that everybody can benefit from enjoying in their diet. These phrases are very negative and I believe that these terms are used as an avoidance tactic to not address some of our worst eating habits. By belittling fruit and vegetables in your diet and dismissing whole food groups, such as pulses and beans, you can hide behind humour and not take the simple steps to improve your diet and ultimately your weight and health.
But by making a joke of our diets however, the last laugh will be at our expense. Studies show that we are not eating our 5 a day and this can have serious health implications. Eating a healthy diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables can have a protective effect on your gut health and can reduce your risk of developing bowel cancer. Fruit and vegetables provide fibre, also important for improving gut health and can help lower cholesterol. Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption is a great way to get your vitamins and minerals. And finally fruit and vegetables add colour, flavour and texture to meals.
We all have food preferences, these can be formed from past experiences, such as with my overcooked carrot example. But likewise, there are some foods we just don’t like the taste or texture of. This is fine, because even with our own personal food likes and dislikes, we can enjoy a wide range of flavours and tastes. We can even out grow them. I now eat carrots and have been known to even boil them. But dismissing whole food groups by belittling them is not a quirk or food preference, its stubborn and actually makes me very sad. This is a short-sighted barrier which we create ourselves and ultimately we are the poorer for it.
The reverse also applies when 'labelling' foods (like the negative 'rabbit food' category). My husband believes that a big fat pizza and a big fat bottle of Coka Cola, followed by a big fat spongecake, covered in butter icing, is 'treat' food. So long as he views this type of menu (and Burger King, and KFC) as a 'treat', he's going to find it tastes wonderful, whatever it tastes like in reality and however stodged-out he feels afterwards.
Comment by BOBBIECOLE -
Hi VIVIAN42 & ISSYDIMPLES - It is true that children in general aren't eating enough fruit and veg, but then so many people aren't. I'm not sure it's that they don't like them but if they don't see their parents eating them, they won't either. If fruit and veg are part of your families diet, then the easier it is to get children to eat and enjoy them.
Claire
Comment by CLAIRE@EDIETS -
Hi KATE2012 - I'm not familiar with that poster, but it's absolutely true. I wouldn't call a silverback a whimp - especially if I didn't have my trainers on:-)
Claire
Comment by CLAIRE@EDIETS -
excellent!
Comment by JONATRU48 -
My two year old would rather eat fruit and veg than sweets any day, its just in her nature, and i am very thankful for that
Comment by ISSYDIMPLES -
I keep reading that children don't like veg. My own children and my grandchildren must therefore be very unusual. From babies they were introduced to veg in some form as soon as they started to eat solids. As with all children they had times when they went off various foods but got their 5 a day even before we knew that was what we were supposed to eat. Fruit and veg make up the main part of their diets even now,maybe starting at an early age is the answer, it worked for my family.
Comment by VIVIAN42 -
For me, the best dietry educational poster was that of the silverback gorilla with the slogan: try calling him a whimp for eating fruit and veg.
Comment by CATHERINEMEESON -