Hi, Deborah,
I have to commend you for being so faithful with your diet if your partner
believes it tastes like dirt - that is true commitment! <wink>
I sympathize with you - I have a teenage son who is addicted to anything
deep-fried and vitamin-depleted. Since you didn't give us any examples of
your usual menu, we don't know exactly what he is objecting to. My son hates
almost all fruits and vegetables other than underripe bananas (ick!!!),
apples, grapes, tomatoes, raw carrots and corn and an occasional green bean,
which makes me insane. What I try to do for him - it doesn't always work,
mind you - is use a lot of texture and spice (fatfree tortilla chips can go
with a lot of different foods when you're fourteen, lol, and fortunately he
likes spicy food such as chili), combine something healthy with a somewhat
acceptable commercial food (such as brown/wild rice mixed with soy sauce,
garlic, a package of frozen spinach and Progresso Lentil Soup) or make a meal
that is similar to one he would normally find acceptable elsewhere -
spaghetti or any pasta works as long as the veggies in the sauce aren't
chunky or at all assertive, Morningstar Farms Veggie Patties on whole wheat
(they don't really taste like meat but he will eat them smothered in ketchup,
so I'm dealing with it) with V8 juice, tacos using BEEF NOT!, taco seasoning,
onion, lettuce and soy cheddar, or burritos. I had to laugh because the last
time I made burritos (so easy - fatfree refried beans, salsa, corn, couscous
to soak up the excess juice and pickled hot pepper rings on whole wheat pita
halves - he ate seven of them) I was talking about the, um, aftermath and he
said, "Beans? I thought it was meat. Man, if you can make beans taste like
meat I wonder what ELSE you're doing!"