For what it's worth, before I became a vegetarian that would have also sounded gross to me. I avoided nearly all vegetables, most sauces (even on dishes like pasta), any kind of salad dressing (and most salads as well). I still only really drink water.
I feel like there's a really big hump to get over with expanding a pallet, where once you have even just one or two new foods under your belt it becomes easier to learn to like other ones. For me, it was (and still is) kind of a snowball effect. I'm eating more variety of food now than I ever ate before, but I'm still a lot more narrow than other people I know.
I spent a relatively large portion of my adult life trying to learn to eat vegetables, and it wasn't until midway through transitioning to a vegetarian that I suddenly discovered the magic of sauteing with a little butter and salt instead of boiling vegetables until they were all soft and waterlogged and horrible, or baking them until they just turned into hot mush. That was honestly kind of surreal -- years of not liking veggies, and occasionally trying them in different recipes to see if something had changed, and not having anything change. And then in the space of a few weeks suddenly very quickly realizing that crunchy string beans with a tiny bit of soy sauce were delicious and that I really wanted more food like that.
That's not to say you would like the same stuff. The point is, learning to eat more things is hard, and being a picky eater is hard, and just in case you're stressed about it, don't stress about it. Just keep trying at your own pace and don't worry too much. As long as you keep occasionally experimenting, eventually you'll find a few things you like, and your pallet will expand from there.
And even if you stay a picky eater, as long as you're still getting a decent nutritional intake, and assuming you're meeting whatever dietary goals you have, then you're fine.
I feel like there's a really big hump to get over with expanding a pallet, where once you have even just one or two new foods under your belt it becomes easier to learn to like other ones. For me, it was (and still is) kind of a snowball effect. I'm eating more variety of food now than I ever ate before, but I'm still a lot more narrow than other people I know.
I spent a relatively large portion of my adult life trying to learn to eat vegetables, and it wasn't until midway through transitioning to a vegetarian that I suddenly discovered the magic of sauteing with a little butter and salt instead of boiling vegetables until they were all soft and waterlogged and horrible, or baking them until they just turned into hot mush. That was honestly kind of surreal -- years of not liking veggies, and occasionally trying them in different recipes to see if something had changed, and not having anything change. And then in the space of a few weeks suddenly very quickly realizing that crunchy string beans with a tiny bit of soy sauce were delicious and that I really wanted more food like that.
That's not to say you would like the same stuff. The point is, learning to eat more things is hard, and being a picky eater is hard, and just in case you're stressed about it, don't stress about it. Just keep trying at your own pace and don't worry too much. As long as you keep occasionally experimenting, eventually you'll find a few things you like, and your pallet will expand from there.
And even if you stay a picky eater, as long as you're still getting a decent nutritional intake, and assuming you're meeting whatever dietary goals you have, then you're fine.