i hate veg

Hi Martyn, at 48 you're all growed up, what veg have you tried? You do need to eat the green stuff, try bits of it.
You may now realise that you can't get bored with what you eat, low carb is the way you will have to eat, no more junk food (if you ever had any).
There are loads of low carb recipes out on the web, just google it.

Hi Martyn ... and welcome to the forum.

I thought I hated veg too, but I recently discovered that it wasn't so much that I hated veg it was more than I went straight for the carbs on my plate and then didn't have room for the veg so they seemed unappealing. Since cutting the carbs out ... WOW! have I started enjoying my veggies again. I don't eat loads of them, I don't eat double veg cos I no longer eat carbs, I just eat the normal amount and SLIGHTLY MORE PROTEIN than before.

Any veg that grows ABOVE the ground seems to be fine whereas the root veggies like spuds, parsnip, carrots, beets tend to be more carby so I don't eat them, can't eat them.

But I CAN eat as much protein and veg as I WANT.

We all need SOME carbs and we get them in veggies - they're called complex carbs and don't give us a BS spike, but we definitely DON'T need the BAD carbs or simple carbs like - white bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits, sweets, fizzy drinks, - they're the monsters that do us the damage.

You can disguise your veggies in sauces and creams remember and believe me once you stop eating carbs with your meal you'll find you develop a taste for veggies like you never had before.

I know how you feel I don't like much veg either I only eat some once a week with a roast dinner, I certainly couldn't eat it every day!!

Another easy way to get some veg down yourself if you really, truly, madly, deeply HATE the stuff is to buy some V8 vegetable juice and drink it chilled. I promise you, it's delicious, it has 8 vegetables in it and it has the consistency of tomato juice and once you start drinking you can't stop.

If ever I don't feel like veggies that's what I have. It's veggies without all the hassle and without that 'boiled veg' smell that puts so many people off veggies.

Hi Martyn,

If you have a few bob, look into those "Vitamix machines" you can make fruit smoothies and add spinach etc; Then you would never know.

You can mix some raw veg which should be even more healthy.

You do not have to buy just look at their recipes to get some ideas.

Good Luck,


Roy.

I'm sure you don't NEED to eat vegetables everyday though.

Sarah69 said:

I'm sure you don't NEED to eat vegetables everyday though.

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What would you have with your protein though? And how would you get your complex carbs without additional fruit? :think:

Hmmn, I suppose I now eat quite a lot of veg but it doesn't feel like I do.

Suppose you have a normal roast dinner - roast chicken, roast spuds, half a parsnip, cabbage and gravy.

There's too much carb in that so we need to forget the spuds. The parsnip is nice but depending on your levels you might be better off changing it for something else. How about you slice a red pepper in half and drop a couple of cherry tomatoes in it and drop it in next to the chicken for the last half hour of cooking. Have a chicken leg as well as breast meat and you'll probably eat enough.

Now for pudding.. obviously sticky toffee pudding is out. But how about a generous handful of raspberries. Throw in a dollop of greek yoghurt and pour in a bit of double cream. If you have them, sprinkle with almonds - ideally roasted at the same time as the chicken.

Have it with a glass of wine.

There's not a lot of cooking in all that - more assembly and if others are eating with you then they just have spuds too and they're not forced on to your diet.

It's not all green veg you know - though I love cabbage, cauli, beans, peas and brocolli.

GraceK said:

Sarah69 said:

I'm sure you don't NEED to eat vegetables everyday though.

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What would you have with your protein though? And how would you get your complex carbs without additional fruit? :think:

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Sorry I don't understand either what protein or complex carbs are.

Sarah69 said:

GraceK said:

Sarah69 said:

I'm sure you don't NEED to eat vegetables everyday though.

Click to expand...

What would you have with your protein though? And how would you get your complex carbs without additional fruit? :think:

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Sorry I don't understand either what protein or complex carbs are.

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Protein = meat, fish, eggs, cheese

Complex carbs = the carbs we get from veggies and fruit which take longer to convert to glucose = good

Simple carbs = bread, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits, sweets which are quick to convert to glucose but which give our BS a spike followed by a dip = bad

To keep it simple for myself I stick to simple meals of steak, chicken, fish, egg with veggies - I don't eat any of the simple carbs above because I've seen by my test meter what they do to my BS. If I want a snack it's a protein snack - cheese or sliced meat with a tomato.

Sarah69 said:

GraceK said:

Sarah69 said:

I'm sure you don't NEED to eat vegetables everyday though.

Click to expand...

What would you have with your protein though? And how would you get your complex carbs without additional fruit? :think:

Click to expand...

Sorry I don't understand either what protein or complex carbs are.

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Sarah I think it's fair that you should make it clear to Martyn who is a new member and only takes Metformin that you are an insulin using diabetic who can cover your diet choices by injecting enough insulin to match what you are eating. If Martyn is fine about becoming insulin dependent then that's great but it sounds like he wants to start to take his condition seriously without choosing that option.

Welcome Martyn by the way!

The bottom line is if you want to take things seriously who need to make some permanent lifestyle changes. What the majority of us would recommend is to get hold of a blood meter so that you can measure the effect that foods have on you. If you can't get one from the doc then you can get an SD Codefree meter off eBay or Amazon for under £20 and then strips are £5 per 50. When you get the meter yyour aim should be to get under 8 2 hours after a meal. If you are regularly exceeding 8 then you putting yourself at risk of blindness and amputations.

As for diet then the key things to cut out are any thing which is pure sugar based so cakes, biscuits, sugar in tea and coffee and even pure fruit juices. Next at least halve your intake of rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, cereals and flour based foods. Replace with extra meat, cheese, eggs, fish and yes I'm afraid green veg.

If you don't want to change to that kind of diet then you will probably find that over time you will need to take more and more medication until the only option is to go on insulin. If you don't mind that route then still get a meter as you should be taking enough meds to keep you under the magic safe 8 number two hours after eating.

Good luck and keep asking questions.

Have you tried roasting veg? Works with all sorts of things, I particularly like Cauliflower - chop it fairly small. You can also do carrots, onions, peppers, Aubergine, courgettes, garlic or any mixture you like. Add herbs (dried are fine) chilli or spices etc to give lots of variety - add some olive oil and salt. It doesn't take very long and you might find it more interesting?

Roast butternut sqyash is nice too. I combine it with onion, peppers, coutgettes garlic etc, have it with my meat, then turn the remainder into soup. Or you could skip it with the meat and just go for the soup, it doesn't even look like a bowl of veg then.

Complex carbs = the carbs we get from veggies and fruit which take longer to convert to glucose = good

Simple carbs = bread, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits, sweets which are quick to convert to glucose but which give our BS a spike followed by a dip = bad

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Grace: just a technical point and off topic.
The carbs found in flour (hence bread and pasta etc) are complex. Simple carbs include sucrose (sugar) (ie sweets, desserts but but fruit, many vegetables and milk also contain simple sugars (along with vitamins and minerals).
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency ... 002469.htm
It's a term from their chemistry and often, not that useful; some foods containing complex carbs take a long time to absorb (ie in some types of lentils whilst others are very quickly absorbed( sticky rice)

With the flour issue. Flour is a simple carbohydrate when refined. Wholegrain bread rather than white would be nearer to being defined as complex.

Mushroom said:

With the flour issue. Flour is a simple carbohydrate when refined. Wholegrain bread rather than white would be nearer to being defined as complex.

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Um?
I think the terms aren't useful in a nutritional context; refined and unrefined, over processed/minimally processed are more useful.
I'll appeal to authority and use Harvard as a reference.

Dividing carbohydrates into simple and complex makes sense on a chemical level. But it doesn't do much to explain what happens to different kinds of carbohydrates inside the body. For example, the starch in white bread and French-fried potatoes clearly qualifies as a complex carbohydrate. Yet the body converts this starch to blood sugar nearly as fast as it processes pure glucose.

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http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionso ... ull-story/

Back to veggies.
If you don't like them plain mix them in with other dishes. You can get a lot of veg into casseroles and other dishes.
Stir fry them with ginger/soy/garlic. (my father loves a stir fry but 'hates' veg)
Sprinkle cauli/broccoli with a bit of parmesan.
part cook french beans and then finish the cooking in a little olive oil and garlic (or if you are not worried about the fat do the same thing in with lardons , using the fat that has run out of them in frying.)
For salads always dress the leaves in a dressing (lots of types based on different oils/vinegars and various seasoning)
Roast courgettes, aubergine, peppers, onions (sprinkle with a bit of olive oil/ balsamic vinegar + herbs or smoked paprika). They taste very different cooked this way. Stick some chicken or a piece of fish on later in cooking (sprinkle that with seasoning or parmesan) and you have a filling one 'pot' dish.
Have you tried endive?a French favourite all through the winter.
Heres a typical recipe (translated by google: the ham is just that slices of the normal type of ham sold in the UK )
http://madame.lefigaro.fr/recettes/grat ... 201-201263
(low carbers should love this as a lunchtime dish if they can ignore the 12g of flour per person

Try curries martyn, prawn, chicken etc, with green beans, cauli etc.