Woman almost overcomes lachanophobia

A woman who claims to have been terrified of vegetables for more than 40 years declared herself on the way to being cured yesterday.

Krissie Palmer-Howarth, 61, a cabaret singer from Newhaven, East Sussex, has not been able to handle vegetables or even say their names since developing her phobia at the age of 17. Just their smell made her feel sick.

Now, after a session of hypnotherapy, Miss Palmer-Howarth says that she can stand to be close to vegetables, even broccoli, which she detests most of all, though she is not yet at the stage where she can handle them.

Fear of vegetables is not unknown to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the condition is called lachanophobia.

Miss Palmer-Howarth puts her condition down to the awful smells in her uncle's "dark, dingy and dirty" greengrocer's shop when she was a child. "It's a stupid thing to be scared of," she said.