Yesterday, we talked about what it was like to date someone with really restrictive diet, or conversely, what it was like to date someone with a very broad palate when you were the one with a restricted eating habits. Some shared that the felt it gave them new perspective and forced them to become more creative in the kitchen, while others were of the mindset that "if you are a picky eater, that is remarkably unsexy and you are gone." This all leads us into today's question, which is whether or not you would change your eating habits to impress?

Small things are easy to change and it isn't uncommon for us to be more aware of our eating quirks when we're out on a first date and want to make a good impression. For example, even if you don't particularly care for broccoli, you might find yourself taking a few bites if it is served with your dinner on a first date with a girl you really like. Or perhaps you are a chicken-and-fish kind of girl, but decide to share in an order of beef chili fries at a big football game, since you know your date loves them. The more restrictive the diet, however, the more difficult the change, but there are some dedicated meat-lovers who are willing to go vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, to try and impress a vegan or vegetarian significant other.

The interesting thing about these types of dietary changes is that they are not permanent. Meat-lovers go back to eating meat and broccoli-haters continue to avoid broccoli, which makes you wonder whether the change is worthwhile in the first place, since there is minimal intention of changing your overall inclinations.

All this being said, one of the researchers behind a Italy study says that it is still possible that those who eat onion and garlic-heavy diets may just have healthier diets and lifestyle habits in general, and just about everyone involved still recommends maintaining a vegetable-heavy diet.

I agree with Deborah Madison's sentiment that soups are "almost universally popular." In fact, I can only think of a handful of people who don't like soups and, since their reason is that they don't really like vegetables, they're willing to eat meat-based soups and chilis. But I digress, as Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen is certainly a book for vegetable lovers, as well as those who don't limit themselves purely to meat-based soups. The recipes are vegetarian and most manage to make the vegetables that they feature even brighter and more flavorful than that would be in most other applications. Some of the recipes are very updated takes on classics and others are entirely innovative, so experienced cooks will have no problem picking out a few very original recipes. The instructions, however, are quite clear and as long as you are willing to be more involved in your cooking than is required by canned soup, even soup neophytes should be fine. Recipes include Senegalese-style peanut soup, Golden Turnip Soup with Fontina Cheese, Roasted Squash, Pear and Ginger Soup (sounds like a good choice for Thanksgiving) and Potato and Green Chile Stew with Cilantro Cream.

Here's an interesting question to ponder this afternoon. Do you know what this vegetable is? The WOW Report found this in the produce department at Whole Foods. The produce manager either did not know or did not say what they were, and gave several away. You can see that they are relatively small, judging by the chilis nearby, and even though they look vaguely like sweet potatoes, they are not.

Read on for the answer - but no peeking until you've taken a guess!

Potatoes are the most popular vegetable in the US and most of them are eaten in some fried form, such as potato chips or french fries. One medium potato represents one of the five servings of vegetables that you are supposed to eat every day, and it doesn't take many french fries to reach the size of a single potato. Because of this, it is not impressive to hear that companies like Frito-Lay and Kraft want to add vegetable-based chips and snacks to their product lines. The potato chips are already vegetable-based!

Adding dehydrated vegetables to snacks like Roasted Vegetable Ritz Crackers is just a way of getting consumers to buy more by capitalizing on a trend for an increased awareness for healthy eating. This doesn't mean that people are necessarily eating healthier, but they think that they are/should be. They will opt for the chip that has some additional "vegetables" in it because it sounds like it might be healthier, regardless of whether it actually is. One trend tracking company said "this may replace the whole-grain fad."

Depending on how you look at it, the Nation Trust's ugly vegetable competition is either a good idea or a bad one. On one hand, it gets kids involved in growing their own fruits and vegetables, which could start them with good habits for later in life. On the other hand, the sight of some of the "winners" could put them off veggies for quite some time.

The contest isn't just for children, though. It started as a way to cultivate some appreciation for ugly fruits and vegetables, most of which are underappreciated in the kitchen. There are multiple age categories: under 5, 5-7, 8-11, 11-16, 25-65 and over 65 years old. In each range there was a winner and this parsnip, grown by Mrs Hilary Nellist in the 25-65 group, took home the grand prize for the ugliest vegetable of the year.

There were no winners for the 16-25 category, which either means that they are all exceptional gardeners and can't grow ugly veggies or that gardening isn't exactly a cool past-time for that age group.

[via growabrain]

A woman in the UK who claims to have "been terrified of vegetables for more than 40 years" is now saying that she is on the path to curing her fear. The fear, known as lachanophobia, had been with 61-year old Krissie Palmer-Howarth since she was just 17. Since its onset, she says that she has not been capable of smelling vegetables or even speaking their names aloud without feeling sick. After a session of hypnotherapy, she can now stand near them without incident.

This treatment could be applied to others with food phobias, or even to picky eaters. Children aren't eating their broccoli? Stop by the hypnotherapy clinic on the way home from school.

And perhaps a similar treatment could help the poor people we saw earlier this year, whose fear of mustard and pickles was ruining their lives. Maury would probably air it as a followup episode, though it's hard to imagine more captivating TV than the original.

While the name gets thrown around a lot, especially with the ever-increasing discussion of shopping at local farmers markets and avoiding conventionally grown, mass produced produce, many consumers still wonder what heirloom tomatoes really are.

While some feel that a set, defined time limit of 50 or 100 years must be included in the definition of an heirloom plant, the short definition of an heirloom tomato is that it is an open-pollinated tomato plant, meaning that it is naturally pollinated by exposure to birds, insects and animals. Hybrid plants, the commercially grown tomatoes, do not always produce reliable, viable seeds due to the fact that some (if not most) of the crosses used to generate the plants were done artificially.

The more traditional tomatoes, those that are often seen in supermarkets and the majority of restaurants, have been bred to enhance certain characteristics besides flavor. For example, many have been selected for disease resistance or for having a slightly thicker skin, which makes them hold up better during shipping. Most of these conventional tomatoes are close to spherical and very red in color. Their flavor is ordinary, with little "wow" factor.