BAD MOM: Vegetables are Overrated

I’m kinda lenient about vegetables. I figure the kids will learn to like them eventually, and if not, there are always vitamins.

My husband, who can eat his weight in radishes and smile about it, disagrees with my philosophy. However, I know from experience that you can’t force a child to like veggies.  

To this day I hate lima beans, and it’s my dad’s fault.

Like a typical kid, I turned my freckled nose up at most vegetables. Nevertheless, Dad insisted I eat a hearty portion of everything my mother served. He’d been raised on a farm in Oklahoma during the depression, and he wasn’t about to allow anyone to let a good meal go to waste.  

So one Friday night we had lima beans with dinner.

I refused to eat them. They made me gag. I put on quite a show for a six-year-old, running to the bathroom to wretch over the toilet.  

Dad wasn’t buying it. “You’ll eat those beans if you have to eat them cold for breakfast.”

I took the deal. Saturday mornings were rife with pancakes, bacon, eggs, and orange juice. Convinced I was his favorite child, I guessed the suggestion to be a face-saving strategy to let me off the hook. I knew he’d conveniently forget about the beans.  

But he didn’t.

So while my family devoured homemade flapjacks dripping with butter and warm syrup, I ate lima beans. Cold. For breakfast.  

I’ve learned to like most vegetables, but never lima beans. Until my father passed away last summer, I never quit ribbing him for ruining lima beans for me. They still make me gag. It’s a shame because I’m sure they must have some redeeming quality.

I’m still not crazy about veggies in general, but I really like the gooey, salty, taste-enhancing add-ins that make them more palatable. You could say I prefer vegetables when they don’t taste like vegetables at all.  

In my opinion, vegetables are overrated anyway. I’m not saying they’re not good for you, or that I don’t eat them. I do. But I totally understood why my young children failed to embrace carrots, green beans, broccoli, and tomatoes. 

I was perplexed over the potatoes, though. My preschool daughter loved them fried, scalloped, and baked, but she started that chicken-neck movement every time she took a bite of mashed potatoes. Something about the texture made her want to throw up. I never forced her to eat them, and she grew out of it.  

I’m not having such luck with my young teenager, though. Lettuce with ranch dressing pretty much sums up his repertoire.

On a recent weekend I made a batch of vegetable soup. “Want some?” I ventured.  

“Ew. No way.”

His dad couldn’t understand. “Why not?”  

“I don’t like hot, moist, ‘sploshy’ vegetables,” our son said with spot-on disdain.

I’m not sure he’ll grow out of that.  

But, really, what difference does it make? Am I a bad mom for not pushing the cauliflower? He has a heart for outsiders, loves animals, is respectful to adults, makes decent grades, and eats fruit.

Which is a good thing, because I’m kind of iffy on fruit, too.  

­Caron Guillo is healthier than one might think. Visit Caron’s A WORK IN PROGRESS blog at http://caronguilloswriting.blogspot.com.

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