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Originally Posted by Gstout
Agreed, but don't you think thats a prime illustration of 'programming'?? Girls are 'trained' to be much social and if the 'gospel' is to eat veggies, then most of them will. Like or dislike really doesn't play into it, they're just being social and following the 'rules.' Nice girls.  |
It has nothing to do with socialization. Veggies just taste good to me. The bitterness is not anymore overpowering or unpleasant than other pleasantly bitter foods like chocolate or good coffee with cream. Because I eat a natural diet I am not desensitized to taste; the subtle flavors and sweetness of veggies are very perceptable. For example, the "veggie fruits" like peppers, squashes, and tomatoes all have very rich vivid sweetness to me; I regard them the way a regular-diet person might regard high sugar fruit (as "sweet but not too sweet"). Even non-fruit veggies have very perceptable sweet tastes to me. For example, carrots and cabbage tastes very sweet, as does iceberg lettuce and peas.
I propose those who do not like veggies fall into two categories:
1) Very sensitive to bitter tastes/fibrous textures
2) Very desensitized to sweet tastes/smooth textures.
The reason most people don't like veggies is because they belong to group 2. They eat so many predigested starches, cookies and sodas that it takes a heaping spoonful of refined white stuff for their brains and tongues to register sweet. As a result, veggies taste bland or overly bitter (sweet taste being overactive means bitter taste of veggies registers relatively abnormally high).
Furthermore, because they eat so many "soft processed foods", the course and "real" texture of earthy food is unappealing to them. Processed food is over cooked, over processed, milled, cut really small, etc. They aren't used to really "eating their food" so the appearance and texture of a veggie puts them off.
Far less common is group 1... those who just by genetics have an abnormally high concentration of bitter taste bud receptors relative to sweet, or, are very tactile-sensitive and adverse to roughage in meals.
Perhaps there could be a biologically coded gender difference. Supposedly men prefer to eat the same things over and over. It is also conclusively proven females perceive sensations such as pain more vividly than men due to more nerve endings.
It might be possible women, as a gender, relatively perceive "more flavor" in veggies because our nervous system can better detect the subtle flavors and sweet taste that men cannot perceive. This also might be why men prefer to eat the same things over and over, and generally speaking, do not tend to be such pleasure eaters (I do notice women are more likely to eat for pleasure than men, who seem to just eat the same thing over and over without caring). It also might account for the reason women tend to favor sweet foods over meat foods; foods that are sweet typically have more flavors and sensations going on. Meat on the other hand does not and is much more "basic" (I believe it is called "umami taste"?). Nothing has a more basic flavor than plain protein. Lack of taste stimulation is probably a big reason the LC diet is so effective to control apetite (psychologically and physiologically).
Although, I love both veggies and meat. The one thing I can say I really do not care for are heavy, gummy starches like bagels and potatoes. I was born with a caveman's palate - meat , veggies. I liked sugar, of course, but I wasn't obsessed.
I loathed being forced to eat starches, hated sunday pasta night, hated those stupid big round zitis, hated rice, and ESPECIALLY potatoes and bread. I ate these things only because they were common, because I was encouraged to, because my mom thought they were healthy, and later on because I was becoming obese and thought if I ate those it was better than eating more meat and fat (which I LOVED). As I became fatter and more addicted to carbs and junkfood, I developed a taste for starches. I favored starches in a heirarchy of their ability to carry the flavor of sauce and meat, meaning, the more granulated = the better. The first starch I loved was cous cous (lots of butter please). After coos coos was rice, followed by fine grades of pasta (angel hair was my fav), then larger grades. I could not, and still cannot tolerate disgusting potatoes unless they are deep fried somehow, and thus, chemically saturated with fat.
Even today, I marvel at how people go gaga over sacks of dough (bagels), potatoes, and bread (that isn't infused with garlic, butter, herbs, peanut butter, berries, or other actual flavorful things). Some people actually just really like starch. I don't get it. It's like bland, chewy, flavorless gum. Blech.
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