I have always loved getting advice. From relationships to tough decisions, every little opinion matters to me. The only advice I hate to take is simple and came from my parents.

Eat your veggies!

Those three words held me from taking the cake.

No dessert until no veggies are left on the plate.

I can remember all of the ways my parents used to try to sell me those greens.

“Lydia, eat your carrots; they will give you pretty eyes.”

“Lydia, eat your spinach; it will help you grow.”

Sometimes my parents would even try to disguise the greens.

They would mix the peas in a mountain of mashed potatoes or put the green beans in a casserole.

I always took Mom’s advice, made a face, and then shoved the veggies in my mouth.

Over time I came to enjoy vegetables. Thanks to the carrots my eyes turned out OK; thanks to the spinach I grew up. Vegetables were turning out to not be so bad until one day I met my match - the beet.

My father loves beets, so my mother would always get a can of beets for dinner.

Beets from a can are easy to make.

Open the can, heat those puppies up, then serve.

I have gotten out of eating beets almost every time my mother has served them. Thanks to potato skins, big napkins and Ralph (the dog) I was mostly beet-less throughout my childhood years.

But I have eaten my fair share of beets.

To me beets look and taste undesirable. If a beet happens to drop on, say, white carpet, it will leave a mark that is all but impossible to scrub out.

Beet juice stains everything.

Maybe it is just how my mother has always made the beets.

Although I think beets should not exist, they do have some positives. Beets have lots of potassium, which will help fight different kinds of cancer.

The world needs beets.

Without beets I would have never gotten to experience a new vegetable.

Without beets I would have never spent those extra hours glaring over a plate full of juicy beets at the table with my parents.

Without beets I would have never written this column.

Thank goodness for beets. I can’t help but think that being urged to eat beets when I was little was good advice.

Accepting good advice on a problem may not always be the easiest thing or the tastiest thing to do, but often you will find that it will help in the long run.

When a problem comes a long, you must … beet it!

 

Lydia Earhart is a junior journalism major from Baton Rouge and serves as a news editor for The Tech Talk. E-mail comments to lee003@latech.edu.