Why does healthy food taste bad?

That’s a general question I come across often.

Mind you, I don’t mean “health food” as in junk like microwave meals, and processed refined “diet” foods.  I mean the real food, the less processed options.

Why does it taste bad? Why does it taste bland? Where is all the flavor?

Truth is, it doesn’t actually taste bad, it’s not bland, and it has lots of flavor.   Have you ever been drinking a soda, or sweet tea, anything very sugary, and then tried to eat something sweet? Piece of candy, bite of ice cream?  For a lot of people who frequently indulge in such things, it’s fairly common knowledge that one is going to over power the other.  One of them is going to end up not tasting right, because suddenly the soda is not going to taste as sweet compared to how sweet the ice cream is.  (I know a lot of people don’t go for ice cream and soda together in the first place, but it’s just an example)

In that same respect, if you’re eating a lot of fried food, or a lot of processed food with fillers, loaded with carbs and sugars, whole food is not going to taste as good to you at first.  You’re going to crave those carby surgary things.

You have to give it time.  It will get better, but only if you keep at it.  It’s not so much that you’ll just get used to the blandness.  It’s more that once you stop eating the processed foods, you’ll start noticing the flavors that were hidden before.

Now this doesn’t necessarily apply to things you just don’t like.  If you’ve never even remotely enjoyed broccoli ever in your life, then I’m not suggesting you start torturing your self by choking it down anyway.  Stick with things you can actually tolerate, things that are edible and just maybe don’t give you that mental enjoyment you get from more processed options.

If you’re in that boat, I would suggest a gradual shift to “clean eating.”   The clean eating method has a big emphasis on just knowing where your food came from and what’s in it.  It’s not so much about “hey don’t eat ice cream, hey don’t eat french fries”  It’s more about “Does your ice cream really need 20 ingredients?”  “Do you really need to eat crackers with high fructose corn syrup in them?”  It does have a large focus on eating more fruits and veggies, but it doesn’t have as many “rules” as trying to go Paleo.   It’s also something more easily eased into.  It’s hard to quit a diet of carbs and sugar, if it wasn’t hard, there wouldn’t be so many methods and support groups out there.  Clean eating doesn’t necessarily demand you give up those things, but it will ease you into the realm of fresher food if you feel like you might need an extra step between your current diet and your goal diet/lifestyle.

As always, you should speak with your doctor about any major diet changes you may be considering.  There may be underlying conditions that will have to be taken into consideration when altering your diet/lifestyle.