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Woman declared peas the 'nastiest' vegetable, and people chimed in with their veggie beefs

Brussels sprouts are really just misunderstood.

Dean Xavier/Unsplash/@DestiniUmajje/Twitter

A Twitter thread declared peas to be the "nastiest vegetable."

Everyone has that one vegetable that turns them into a sneering 3-year-old. You know what I mean. The one you straight-up refuse to eat and if it was the only food available to you, you'd rather starve then let it touch your lips. Some people just can't get behind spinach and apparently a lot of people dislike turnips, others will say Brussels sprouts are the absolute worst. One woman on Twitter declared that peas are the "nastiest" vegetable, and while some people agreed with her, others chimed in to give their opinions.

For some of us, our distaste for certain veggies is something concrete, like a traumatic memory. Maybe when you were a kid, you had them prepared a particular way and it soured you on the veggie for the rest of your life. Or it could be an aesthetic choice—some vegetables taste delicious but don't look it. You do eat with your eyes first, after all. For others, there's the issue of taste. Some people simply can't eat a vegetable because it tastes terrible to them.


In 2019, scientists revealed that there are people called "super-tasters" who have a genetic predisposition to taste food differently than others. For super-tasters, leafy dark green veggies like broccoli, Brussels and cabbage taste extremely bitter and unappetizing. According to a CNN article on the subject, people with this "bitter" gene are 2.6 times more likely to not eat as many vegetables in general because of the bitter taste of others.

“So that [bitter] vegetable is disliked, and because people generalize, soon all vegetables are disliked,” Valerie Duffy, a University of Connecticut professor and expert in the study of food and taste, told CNN. “If you ask people, ‘Do you like vegetables?’ They don’t usually say, ‘Oh yeah, I don’t like this, but I like these others.’ People tend to either like vegetables or not.”

When user DES made her declaration, the responses were swift.

But for all the veggie haters out there, there are people who'll come to their defense as well.

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15 delicious ways to reduce food waste.

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Ad Council - Save The Food

I wouldn’t claim to be an environmental whiz kid, but I do the best I can.

I truly believe that even the smallest effort can make a huge difference. I read the numbers on the bottom of my plastic containers to make sure they can be recycled. I use empty bottles of wine to help water my plants — that’s really a win-win because I no longer have to remember to water them! But, I fall short in a few areas. I rarely finish a plate of food and have been guilty of tossing everything in my fridge in search of the one item that’s causing a funk.

Then I learned about food waste. And it’s no joke.

Food is the single largest contributor to landfills, and 40% of food in the U.S. is never eaten. That's a whole lot! But food waste isn't just about what winds up in our trash cans. Producing all of that wasted food uses over 20% of the U.S. supply of freshwater — that's more water than is used by California, Texas, and Ohio combined — and creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as 33 million passenger cars.

Trash on trash on trash. And it doesn't all have to be! Image via Petrr/Flickr.

And food is a tricky issue in general. At the same time all of this food is being wasted, there are so many places, in the U.S. and abroad, where families simply do not have access to the nutritious foods that are out there.

Given all this, it seemed worth taking a look at ways to reduce food waste — or, at the very least, our individual food waste. These tips aren't a cure-all, but doing just a little bit can help to make these very big issues just a bit smaller. Here are a few of my favorites.

First things first: In an ideal world, our food wouldn't go bad.

Sometimes we can’t avoid it. We put a pear at the bottom of a bowl, and by the time we get to it, it’s becoming pear cider. But that’s what refrigerators are for! Did you know that those drawers at the bottom serve a specific purpose? I didn’t. Turns out, it's called a crisper for a reason. Want to become an expert at storing your fruits and veggies? Here are a few tips:

  • Potatoes, onions, and tomatoes don't need to be kept in the fridge. It's actually better if they aren't.
  • Salad greens should be stored in bags filled with a little air and sealed tightly. As someone who tries to remove all air from ziplock bags, this was an interesting tip.
  • Not all fruits can be stored together: Avocados, bananas, and kiwis produce ethylene as they ripen, so they need to be separated from fruits like apples to prevent the latter from going bad.  

Those two drawers? They aren't just for top shelf overflow. Image via LaraLove/Wikimedia Commons.

Now, if you have a few food items that are already past their prime, there’s still time! These recipes are for you.

Full disclosure: I tried a few of these myself, but most of the delicious goodness you’re about to see is courtesy of the DIY mavens online.

Bruised fruit just ... isn’t cute. But it’s still delicious.

Bananas look downright unappealing when they’re brown and spotty on the outside, but did you know that’s actually when they’re at the best for a few recipes?

I had a very unattractive banana lying around and decided to put it to good use.

Not looking so good, banana. Image by Mae Cromwell/Upworthy.

1. Meet banana fritters.

I made these myself. And they were delicious. Image by Mae Cromwell/Upworthy.

2. And banana bread is another great way to get rid of your spotted bananas!

3. Do you have overripe peaches, strawberries, or really any fruit you find irresistible? Turn it into jam! It’s surprisingly easy.

These jars of home-canned peaches look SO good. Image via Rachel Tayse/Flickr.

4. Love breakfast foods? Your bruised fruit can play a role there, too. Those fruit-filled pancakes aren’t just for a fancy brunch. Smash your overripe fruit in a bowl, and make your own pancakes at home.

*Drooling.* Image via Matheus Swanson/Flickr.

5. And how about popsicles? Did you know you could make those with overripe fruit? Your bruised peaches never looked so good.

And then there’s stale bread — it still has its uses!

6. Confession: I’m not much of a bread eater. Too often, I’d buy a loaf of gluten-free bread, forget about it, and toss it. But now I know that dried out bread can be transformed and used for something I really do like: breading things! Fried catfish is going to be perfect from now on.

I'm absurdly proud of these bread crumbs! Image by Mae Cromwell/Upworthy.

7. And if you eat a lot of salads, spice them up with homemade croutons.

Croutons have never looked so good. Image via Tasha/Flickr.

A lot of us have fallen victim to wasting parts of a whole rotisserie chicken. But not anymore.

After that first meal, there’s often so much chicken left that next steps can be confusing. Do you eat the same meal for a few days or toss the leftovers? Do neither! There are tons of ways to reuse leftover chicken.

8. Tacos

A Taco Tuesday staple. Image via Larry Hoffman/Flickr.

9. Chicken salad

Image via Lara604/Flickr.

10. BBQ it! Yes, you can take the same chicken, slather some BBQ sauce all over it, and voilà! A new meal. You can eat it as-is or shred it and make a sandwich. The world is yours.

Mouth-watering leftovers. Image via jeffreyw/Flickr.

11. As we head into winter, you can't go wrong with some comforting chicken soup.

Perfect for a chilly day. Or any day, really. Image via Carol VanHook/Flickr.

12. And as a new West Coast resident, I can vouch for chicken quesadillas. Shred or chop up your leftovers and make them part of this meal. You won’t regret it.

Image via Andy Melton/Flickr.

And — this is mind-blowing — you can revive some of that produce you wrote off as goners. Yes, you read that right.

13. Carrots?

14. Lettuce?  

15. Parsley?

As certain vegetables wilt and start to lose their texture, they can be revived with some good ol’ water. Seriously. This is like a magic trick that we can all pull off.

So, you get it: Food waste sucks, but there are (delicious) ways to contribute to the solution.

Try some of these tips at home, and post your own tips! You never know which one of your tips can save someone else a ton of time and money while helping us all to treat this planet a little bit better.

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A marketing campaign to get people in Africa to eat sweet potatoes? It's working.

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Gates Foundation: The Story of Food

Random thoughts I have while looking at sweet potatoes:

"You'd look great as a plate of fries."

"Honestly, who was the first to decide to put marshmallows all over you?"

"Wait. Are these yams?"

A thought I have never had: This type of potato saves lives.

As it turns out, they might actually do just that.

Image via iStock.

Welsy Anena's mother is convinced that orange sweet potatoes saved her daughter's life.  

Not in a "thanks for the side dish, I was so hungry!" kind of way. In an actual life-saving way.

Her daughter, Welsy, had been so sick as a baby, and in and out of a Ugandan hospital — sometimes in such serious condition, her mom didn't know if she'd even make it. But when her baby started being fed orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, her health turned around and now she's a vibrant, healthier kid. Whoa.

Her mom's story isn't the only one that depicts sweet potatoes as an edible hero.

You see, Welsy suffered from Vitamin A deficiency — the leading cause of preventable blindness in developing countries. In Uganda, 1 out of every 3 kids under 5 suffers from Vitamin A deficiency, resulting in almost 30,000 child deaths every year. And that's just in one country.

Orange sweet potatoes can help.

Image via International Potato Center, used with permission.

While orange sweet potatoes are common in the United States, they are very new in Africa.

For hundreds of years, Africans have had their own version of a sweet potato: white and yellow in color, very starchy and firm, and frankly, a terrible source of vitamin A.

That's a heavy contrast from the type of sweet potatoes we find in our grocery stores in the U.S., where they are carrot-colored and known for their vitamins and nutrients, especially their vitamin A.

Researchers had an idea: If orange sweet potatoes combat vitamin A deficiency, what would happen if they could get communities to eat them instead?

Maybe it could help prevent blindness and death in kids. They're finding out.

For the past 15 years, the International Potato Center (CIP) has been leading the way on introducing the orange-fleshed sweet potato in Africa.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

It's been an adventure and easier said than done. Africans initially scoffed at the idea of orange sweet potatoes. No way. The potatoes had a weird texture and weren't what they were used to eating. They were also grown differently from their traditional type of sweet potatoes. All signs pointed to no. Can you blame them?

The research team from CIP took note and developed a starchier version of the orange sweet potato that still contained more vitamin A than other potatoes, but tasted more in line with what Africans were accustomed to.

Once they had the potato how they wanted it, they had to get people to want to eat it.

They created widespread marketing campaigns that, according to Smithsonian magazine, included radio advertisements and visits to villages in vehicles with sweet potatoes painted on the side.

They traveled around the region teaching about the sweet potato's nutrition.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

And showed the power of eating them through pictures and words.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

They made sure to have a big presence at exhibitions and community-wide events.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

Children's songs were written and performed about the potatoes.

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

The campaign worked. And it's still working today.

Today, the orange-fleshed sweet potato has reached 2.2 million households, which amounts to roughly 10 million people in Africa.

Scientists are super optimistic at the ability to reduce vitamin A deficiency through this new exposure to the potato. They project that by 2023, 30 million children could be saved from blindness and death because of it.

"We have evidence that  eating 125g of orange-flesh sweet potato provides a child the amount of vitamin A required to prevent blindness from vitamin A deficiency," wrote Joel Ranck, head of communications for the CIP, in an email."125g is about the size of one small sweetpotato."

It's no wonder the research team, comprised of Dr. Jan Low, Maria Andrade, and Robert Mwanga from the CIP, and Howarth Bouis of Harvest Plus, just won the 2016 World Food Prize for their work on this initiative. Bravo!

Image via the International Potato Center, used with permission.

Together they have built new excitement and hope surrounding child nutrition and preventable blindness in the 14 countries where the orange-flesh sweet potato is now available, with more countries to come.

Agnes Amony, a Ugandan farmer told Harvest Plus, "I began feeding my child on these nutritious foods following the knowledge I attained in the recommended feeding practices for children under five. My child began gaining weight steadily and I am in no doubt that these foods have saved my child’s life. I am forever grateful and will never stop feeding my child on these food crops."

Every step counts. Or, in this case, every bite.

See more on how the orange-flesh sweet potato could, in fact, change the world:

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How a 'wonky' version of Mr. Potato Head is raising awareness for food waste.

Picture this. You're at a grocery store and there are only two tomatoes left.

One of them is perfect. It's shiny and totally round. It has a perfect little green stem coming out the top. It looks like it belongs in a Caravaggio painting.

The other one is ... well ... weird. It doesn't have that perfectly round shape you love, and it doesn't look quite as shiny. Maybe it has a little crack on one side. You know it's perfectly fine to eat, but ... you buy the other one. The "perfect" one.

I'll admit those are some sexy tomatoes. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images.

We've all done it. But have you ever wondered what will happen to that "ugly" tomato you leave behind?

In all likelihood, it will be thrown out.

In the U.S. alone, around 6 billion pounds of fruits and vegetables go unharvested or unsold.

Because of strict aesthetic standards placed on food manufacturers, as well as consumer behavior in the grocery store, "ugly" fruits and vegetables barely have a chance. They're either cast aside as soon as they come out of the ground, or left behind to be discarded.

Photo by Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images.

That is why toy maker Hasbro decided to pull off a fun PR stunt for ugly foods, which involved a familiar face.

Specifically, the face of a familiar potato.

Photo via Geri Cleveland/Pixabay.

Hasbro decided to make it a little more "wonky."

That's right. Mr. Potato Head has gotten a makeover (or maybe the opposite of a makeover?) to raise awareness about food waste.

Toymaker Hasbro created this special item, which is for sale exclusively on eBay until July 3. And, as of this writing, it is sitting at 235 pounds (about $315), with over 40 bids. Proceeds from the sale of the wonky Mr. Potato Head will go to FareShare, a U.K.-based organization tackling food waste.

"We are very grateful that the proceeds from this unique Wonky Mr Potato Head auction will enable us to help those charities feed more people, and we’d encourage people to bid big," said Daniel Nicholls, FareShare's corporate development officer. "Every £1 we raise will mean we can provide enough food to make four meals for vulnerable and hungry men, women and children here in the U.K.”

Changing the face of a toy might seem like a silly thing to do, but it makes you think.

After all, he's not even that silly looking. I've seen a lot of potatoes that look just like that. I mean, you know, besides the bowler hat, eyes, and mustache.

Maybe next time you're at the grocery store, and you're faced with the choice of an "ugly" vegetable and a "perfect" one — you'll give the ugly one a chance.

Let's face it. Beauty standards are dumb and what matters is on the inside.

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