Keep It Simple!

When it comes to food, I think that the simpler you eat, the better it is.

Granted, I'm not a great cook, but I've never liked to spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking and preparing meals either.
I've always been amazed by the people who can spend HOURS with food preparation.

I can enjoy more complex or gourmet recipes if someone else prepares them, but I can enjoy simpler meals just as much.
If I'm the one who is cooking (as it's 99.9999% of the time) I feel like it's not worth it to be 3 hours in the kitchen so I can eat a meal in 10 or 20 minutes.

I've learned to enjoy the foods for their real taste. This took quite a bit of time, but I've been taking steps towards that direction for years.

I can't remember when exactly was that I stopped adding salt to my food, but I guess it was when I was 16 or 17 years old (about 10-11 years ago).
At that time, I used to be into weight lifting and bodybuilding and my diet included a lot of animal products like eggs, chicken and fish. I was eating those foods plain, without salt, oil or seasonings. Sometimes only with some spices like oregano, or with squeezed lemon juice.
Granted, those foods ARE pretty bland and boring eaten plain (now I know we shouldn't be eating them, anyways!), but with my current diet, I don't have such a problem anymore.

FRUITS. How much preparation do they need? None! You just grab a apple and eat it. It takes seconds, and the taste is always great without anything added!
That's definitely what I love the most about fruits. I can just take it and eat it, and that's a big advantage when you're on the go or if you get hungry and don't have anything prepared at home and can't wait to eat!

RAW VEGETABLES. Sometimes I do the same as with fruit. I just take a couple of carrots, peel them and eat them like that.
Celery, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers (ok, last 3 are technically fruits!), you just chop them up or eat them like that if you desire.
For big salads, I may spend some more time in their preparation. Sometimes half an hour or even close to an hour to wash and cut up all the vegetables. I don't make fancy salads everyday, though!

TUBERS. With things like potatoes and sweet potatoes I just put them whole in the oven and eat them plain when ready. I enjoy them so much, and feel that they don't need anything added. You could add some spices to them as well (sweet potatoes w/ cinnamon or regular potatoes w/ oregano and/or lemon juice are classics!).
With these foods, it's just the time that it takes for them to be cooked. For me that's generally between an hour to an hour and a half, and while that's a pretty long time to me, I don't have to spend that time in the kitchen. I go to do something else and just go to check them every now and then until they are ready.

GRAINS AND PSEUDOGRAINS. Rice. Oatmeal. Quinoa. Buckwheat. Amaranth. They all take very little time to cook (from 10 minutes to ~30 minutes). I like to cook brown rice in big batches (like a whole 1 kg bag at a time) and put it in a big plastic container in the fridge, so I don't have to cook it every time I want to eat it.
That's also a good trick for those who tend to "fall of the diet wagon" often. If you always have food ready to eat, you can resort to them instead of going for the bad stuff.
I enjoy the taste of all of them plain (some more than others), but sometimes I just throw some chopped up tomatoes or vegetables in there too. You can also add any grain to a raw salad!

LEGUMES. These ones may need a lot more time to prepare and cook, so I don't eat them very often. I don't have the patience to let the dried beans soak for 8-12+ hours, so whenever I eat legumes is either lentils or green split peas. These two don't need to be soaked and cook almost as fast as brown rice.


If you start to eat simpler foods, your taste buds will readjust and you'll also learn to enjoy them.

Besides, having a simple diet makes it easier to stick to it. Give it a try!