I’m just curious if people have strong feelings about this. My 10 year old has been strikingly fond of animals since he was 5 months old (to a highly unusual degree - his pre school and kindergarten teachers frequently commented on his remarkable concern for class pets, bugs in the school yard, etc.). Logically enough, he has now decided to become vegetarian.
This is fine by me. I know he is sincere and I think it is good for him to make a commitment and follow it through. Plus, we frequently eat a vegetarian diet anyway so it is not a huge adjustment for our household (he can have easy-to-fix bean and cheese quesadillas on the occasional nights we’re chowing down on beef stew). Finally, I see this as an opportunity to help him take responsibility for eating a healthy diet (by healthy I don’t mean “meat free,” I mean “more vegetables and fruits, less junk food,” but if he’s analyzing his overall diet, it’s a good opportunity to try to make that happen).
CairoSon’s dad is less thrilled. He’s not arguing about it, but has stated that when he and our son are alone together for a couple of weeks, he (Dad) is not going to prepare vegetarian food, he’s going to expect CairoSon to eat meat or go hungry (or more likely, subsist on mangos, carrot sticks, whole grain bread, yogurt - the usual snack food/side dishes generally available in our house - and the junk food I know they will gobble obscene amounts of in my absence).
So is it overindulging a child to support this kind of thing? Should I be forcing meat down him? I’m not doubting my decision, in fact I’m quite comfortable with it, but my husband’s skepticism (and he’s usually a pretty relaxed parent) makes me curious about how others may perceive this.
What is your husband’s rational for forcing your son to eat meat?
If anything it would be better to teach the kid healthy habits while he is young. I’m not saying that meat can’t be healthy, but healthy eating habits are hard to develop once you get older. If not eating any meat is what it takes to get your kid to try and eat healthy, then I wouldn’t discourage it.
I’d be concerned about meeting the nourishment needs of a child. If you look up a “vegetarian diet” on the internet or something, I’d be decently sure that it’s writing about a diet for adults. Quesadillas may be vegetarian, but they’re not a substitute for a full meal, and for all that people might say that you just throw in some beans to the meal and you’re good to go, I wouldn’t rely on that without having specifically studied it.
Now as to your specific question:
I would recommend that you tell CairoHubby that he doesn’t need to make your son vegetarian meals, he just needs to help CairoSon to make his own meals. Then, you sit down with CairoSon and you teach him how to get his full nutritional needs while maintaining a vegetarian diet. Make a full test (paper and pencil, ideally) which he has to pass, and practice making a few healthy recipes until he can do themself (with reasonable tall person aid.)
Dad can’t complain. CairoSon will be able to see why it’s not just as easy as saying, “Oh I don’t like meat” to go vegetarian since we need particular nutrients. And it’s in CairoSon’s corner to carry it on or not as he is or isn’t too lazy to do on his own.
My husband and I eat a largely vegetarian diet as is (meat once or twice a week), so it would not be a hardship if our kid wanted to go full-on vegetarian. I don’t think it’s overindulging a child to support him in this. It’s not like he’s refusing to do his homework or lying to you. He’s trying, in his ten-year-old way, to live up to his principle that people shouldn’t hurt animals.
I definitely agree that **CairoSon ** should be involved with preparing his own meals, though. Ten is a great age to learn to start cooking. On meaty nights, I wouldn’t have a problem with a kid making his own scrambled eggs or veggie sandwich for dinner, as long as he eats with the rest of the family.
My WAG? CairoSpouse doesn’t know how to cook a healthy, well-rounded vegetarian meal (or perhaps not enough different meals to sustain appropriate variety over a couple weeks’ time) and so he thinks it is too much of a pain in the butt. Which is not completely irrational; I don’t think kids should be allowed to establish any set of principles to live by that they please, if it is going to be unreasonably disruptive for everyone else in the household. I do think Dad should be able to manage for a couple of weeks, however.
I don’t see anything nutritionally unsound about a meal of bean and cheese quesadillas on a whole grain wrapper accompanied by carrot sticks, broccoli or tomatoes, and rice, with milk or mango juice to drink (which would be a typical meal at our house). IANA scientist, but I do try to keep a handle on what’s nutritious and I know all about complementary protein, having come of age in the era when France Moore Lappe was considered a goddess. Also we are in Indonesia, land of soy, and CairoSon adores tempe. So, the complete nutrition aspect of it doesn’t worry me - I know he needs his B vitamins and his amino acids and I know where he can get them without eating meat. I’m also happy to teach CairoSon what he needs to know, and he’s interested in that sort of thing, fortunately.
**Sage Rat **and Burundi, thanks for the comments that CairoSon needs to be involved in his own food preparation. Agreed - and he enjoys cooking so that’s not too hard. Except now overprotective mom just has to get over being convinced he’s going to burn himself on our cast-iron pan and poor-quality oven (the door falls open when it gets hot, and the handles/knobs get so hot you burn yourself if you touch them, how’s THAT for workmanship?).
Oh, and it may be obvious, but … we’re talking lacto-ovo vegetarianism here, not the vegan and/or raw-food-only type of vegetarianism. That’s a whole other situation.
I would share this concern. All sorts of stuff is still growing and developing at the age of 10 - a vegetarian diet suitable for adults may lack specific components necessary or important for growth and proper development.
That’s not necessarily a reason not to do it, but it is certainly a reason to make sure to do it properly.
And of course, these days we know that you don’t have to mix “complementary proteins” in the same meal - just get a variety of foods during your day and that should take care of it.
The only parents I know of (so far) who had a really good reason for forbidding their child to go vegetarian were the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes and celiac disease. Two dietary limitations were tough enough for them, and they were justifiably worried about their daughter having decent food options if they cut out meat too.
I would absolutely NOT force the child to eat meat. IME vegetarians and vegans don’t take up the lifestyle on a whim. They may love hamburgers till they found out it was once a cow but if they’re willing to sit with friends at McD’s and not partake of a burger, you know have deep ethical problems with killing and eating animals. I would never force that on his conscience. The only exception would be if your pediatrician says it isn’t a good idea.
If I understand correctly, it’s difficult but not impossible to eat foods that replace the protein etc. from animal sources. And more than ever there are soy products available. If you haven’t already found them, there are lots in your frozen food section…Boca, Morning Star are brands I find here. I’m not a vegan/vegetarian but you give me some o’ that Boca lasagne and I’m a happy camper. Last I tried some of the faux chicken patties, they were okay but not great.
And they have “crumbles,” which are like browned and drained ground beef so you can use it in your recipes as such. In something like spaghetti sauce, you might not be able to tell much difference.
Does the kid object to eating meat at all, or just the treatment of the animals (which for your average chickens and pigs is absolutely disgusting). Substituting the intensively raised meat for ethically raised meat (free-range, etc) may be a good compromise. You get to tell him that the beef, chicken or pork he’s munching led a happy life, and he gets to have all the nutrients a growing boy needs.
You’d have to avoid processed convenience foods though.
At five my daughter discovered people eat bunnies. And I had a five year old ethical vegetarian on my hands.
We are co-op shoppers anyway, and not HUGE meat eaters, so adapting a five year olds diet (heavy in Mac and Cheese, fruit and peanut butter to start with) wasn’t hard. I had to bring some nut butters that weren’t peanut into daycare. I bought a few veggie “chicken” nuggets and soy dogs.
She lasted two weeks. We figured bacon would do her in, but it was chicken nuggets at daycare.
So apparently my bar is low - I’ll let a five year old do it if they want to give it a try for no other reason than “I don’t want to eat cute animals.” Which is as much justification as a lot of adult vegetarians I know have (ok, there is generally a little knowledge on factory farming, etc.)
You’d be lying though, as free-range chicken also live a miserable existence that is nothing like the packaging tries to convince you of.
As long as you make sure the kid gets decent nutrition I don’t see a problem in it.
Oh, and dad needs to get over himself.
Chicken welfare is a hot-button topic here in the UK, and although it’s true that packaging will always tend to present the rose-tinted view of the product, we are being told (not by the supermarkets, but by the pro-chicken campaigners) that there are such things as well-treated, ethically-raised chickens, and we should buy them.
What kind of miserable existence are you actually referring to?
Well, freerange basically means they aren’t caged, but usually instead they live in tens of thousands on a piece of property just large enough, leaving them no room to move around.
And of course it all ends by them getting killed of course.
They don’t serve up chicken that died of old age.
You know, my gut instinct when reading the title of the thread was that I’d let a teenager do it, but I’d make a small child continue to try a variety of foods.
And then I read your post in which a smallish child became an ethical vegetarian for two weeks. I think I could accommodate a vegetarian form of picky eater for a couple of weeks, in the expectation that the whim would not last.
Although, undoubtably somewhere in the world is someone who used to be a five year old ethical vegetarian and is still vegetarian.
Aside from the concern about the child getting a balanced diet without meat or significant inconvenience to the parent/cook, I’d want to talk to my child about appropriate ways to interact with other people about vegetarianism. I mean, if your child is invited to a sleep over, will the parents provide vegetarian-friendly meals? How do you handle being served steak? When is it appropriate to tell people how horrible it is to eat Mary’s little lamb? Is he going to just avoid chunks of meat? Or will he need to become an obsessive label reader?
You don’t neccessarily need to discuss all these issues upfront, but they are issues that your son will need to address in time.
With all due respect, you’re dead wrong. Quesadillas, especially with beans and additional vegetables are a perfectly good “full meal” for both children and adults.
And the issue HAS been “specifically studied” up and down and left and right and over and over for well over a century, and even more so in the last 40 years.
It’s not at all difficult to replace the protein from animal sources. On a lacto-ovo diet, it’s very easy. And you don’t have to resort to highly processed meat analogues like Boca Burgers, either.
I’m really surprised that so much ignorance about vegetarian diets persists!!
n.b. I’m not a vegetarian, nor do I play one on TV.
The difference between an RSPCA approved free-range chicken and an intensively reared broiler chicken is unbelievable. For one thing, the free-range chickens aren’t standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their own shit, they also have things to peck, other than each other.
To equate the two, as you’re doing, is disingenuous.
Why do people trot out this old wives’ tale every time this topic comes up?
People, a vegetarian diet is NOT COMPLICATED. You eat FOOD, just minus the meat. No one, including a child, is going to become malnourished from going vegetarian unless they eat iceberg lettuce salads three meals a day. The poorer parts of the world are filled with entire villages where no one can afford to eat meat more than a couple of times a year.
Veganism requires maybe some extra thought, but a kid who likes soy has already poof made that potential problem disappear, and it’s not hard to work around even if they didn’t (see said bean and cheese quesadilla mentioned above for plenty of protein and calcium).
Just… just stop making my head ache, please? whimper
(For the record, I’m not a vegetarian, just the daughter of one who grew up on such a diet during her time with him.)
Okay, but in my neck of the woods we don’t have RSPCA approved free-range chicken, heck, we don’t even have RSPCA.
Of course there are chicken farms where the chickens are reared in paradise but these are the exception to the rule.
In the Netherlands these are called biological chickens and will cost about 3 times as much as a caged chicken.
Most free-range chicken farms WILL have chickens standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their own shit pecking at each other.
And in the end, they are still killed before they end up on your plate, aren’t they?
To imply they are living a live of milk and honey is quite disingenuous.
For your kid I think it would be fine as long as he does his homework and learns to cook a lot himself! Great opportunity.
My kid is allergic to all nuts and legumes, and I can’t see how she could really get along without some meat. We don’t eat a ton of meat around here, but she’s got to have some.
