Why Does Healthy Food Taste Bad? Advice from a Nutritionist

We’d all like to eat a little bit cleaner.

Whether your goal is to lose weight, maximize health, or have great workouts, a proper diet can help you get there.

There’s just one problem —

— healthy food tastes bad!

At least, that’s what a lot of us think when we first switch to eating more salads, vegetables, whole grains, and whole unprocessed foods.


But does healthy food really taste bad, or is our brain playing tricks on us?

And either way — what are we supposed to do about it?

I interviewed a professional nutritionist, Certified Elite Trainer & Nutritionist Aimée Ricca and here’s what she had to say on the topic.

Watch the interview below:

Long story short, she says it’s not so much that healthy food tastes disgusting.

It’s that processed foods and junk taste unnaturally good!

They’re meticulously engineered by food scientists to activate our brain’s pleasure centers with the perfect combo of salt, sugar, and fat.

Then they leave us wanting more.


How to make healthy food taste good, according to a nutritionist

Ricca gives a couple of excellent tips in the interview above to get yourself on the right track eating clean.

First, she says, if you don’t bring it home — you won’t eat it!

Stop packing the pantry with boxed and bagged food choices, and bring home healthier snacks instead.

A few treats now and then are fine, of course, so she also recommends to “market” healthier options to yourself by giving them prime pantry space.

(If you really want that junk snack, you should have to go digging for it!)

And finally, if you’re ever craving something fatty, sugary, or overly salty — just wait it out.

Drink some water and be patient (plus, try a healthy snack first), she says, and junk cravings often dissipate on their own.

Watch the entire video above for more great tips for eating cleaner and fighting admittedly-delicious junk cravings.

And see more from Aimée Ricca:

And find more ideas for making healthy food tastier here, like recipes and techniques for making salad taste good or whipping up delicious quinoa.

Hope this helps!