Here is a common vegetable preparation method in U.S. suburban homes.
Step 1: cut it up
Step 2: boil them in water until the flavor and texture is gone.
Step 3: Serve them without any kind of seasoning, or mixed with another food that could provide flavor and texture. Alternatively, put salt and pepper on them so that all vegetables just taste like salt and pepper.
Step 4: Tell the kids that eating a pile of bland mush with each meal is needed for being healthy.
In high school, me and several other people made the surprising discovery that if you eat vegetables raw, they actually taste alright, and some (like celery) even taste good enough to just snack on plain. Plus, there are things like stir-fry that make vegetables taste great.
I know this was common where I grew up. Do enough other people have similar experiences that raising knowledge of this is a great way to increase healthy eating?
Edit: after viewing the comments, this does not seem like the main reason.
Your description of flavorless mush reminds me of my childhood in Eastern Europe. You would have seemingly randomly chosen vegetables boiled and combined into a mucky whole that tasted weird. Salt, pepper, sometimes sour cream or white vinegar were added.
Only in my early 20s did I discover how great raw vegetables like carrots or cucumbers taste. Then I discovered hummus, then mustard/balsamic/nuts/cranberries/raisins. Just recently I rediscovered lettuce - who knew it tastes so good when it's fresh and crisp?
My pet theory is that most parents don't pay a lot of attention to cooking. It's something they must do to deliver nutrition to their offspring. This establishes defaults which don't work well for everyone and doesn't leave room for experimenting. I'm sure there are some people who love mush, but if you're a crispy-vegetable person in a family of mush-fans, you're out of luck.
In former Czechoslovakia, there was an official list of recipes that restaurants were allowed to cook, during socialism. (To legally cook anything else, you had to ask for an official exception and get it approved.) That explains why some meals were not just horrible, but identically horrible across restaurants. The only tasty vegetable I remember from my childhood was fried cauliflower -- probably not very healthy.
Here is a common vegetable preparation method in U.S. suburban homes.
Step 1: cut it up
Step 2: boil them in water until the flavor and texture is gone.
Step 3: Serve them without any kind of seasoning, or mixed with another food that could provide flavor and texture. Alternatively, put salt and pepper on them so that all vegetables just taste like salt and pepper.
Step 4: Tell the kids that eating a pile of bland mush with each meal is needed for being healthy.
In high school, me and several other people made the surprising discovery that if you eat vegetables raw, they actually taste alright, and some (like celery) even taste good enough to just snack on plain. Plus, there are things like stir-fry that make vegetables taste great.
I know this was common where I grew up. Do enough other people have similar experiences that raising knowledge of this is a great way to increase healthy eating?
Edit: after viewing the comments, this does not seem like the main reason.