Most people don't dislike vegetables. They dislike badly cooked vegetables, and that's mostly what they've been served.
Vegetables: the low-effort playbook
Roast by default. Chop, toss with olive oil and salt, 200°C for 25–35 minutes. Works on broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, zucchini, sweet potato, onions. Roasting turns vegetables from obligation into the best thing on the plate.
Frozen is not cheating. Frozen peas, spinach, and mixed veg are frozen at peak freshness, nutritionally on par with fresh, pre-chopped, and incapable of rotting in a drawer.
Smuggle, don't showcase. A handful of spinach into the pasta sauce, peas into the rice, grated carrot into the bolognese. You don't need a vegetable dish — you need vegetables in your dishes.
Fat and salt are allowed. A vegetable eaten with olive oil beats a virtuous one left on the plate.
Fruit: a placement problem
Fruit doesn't have a taste problem, it has a visibility problem. Fruit in a drawer dies in the drawer.
Bowl on the counter, in the spot where your keys land.
Buy the fruit you actually eat, not the fruit you aspire to eat.
Frozen berries plus yogurt is a thirty-second dessert that holds its own against most desserts.
Snacks: rig the game
Hunger between meals is normal; the outcome is decided by what's within arm's reach when it hits.Snacks that end hunger: nuts, yogurt, fruit, boiled eggs made in advance, cheese, hummus with carrots, bread with peanut butter. Protein, fat, or fiber — these actually close the loop.Snacks that reopen it: chips, cookies, candy. Refined carbs spike and drop you, and an hour later you're hungrier than you started. That's not weak character — that's the product working as designed.The fix isn't discipline at 9pm. It's what you allowed into the house in the first place.Next: Grains, protein & portions
