I’m glad you posted … I had thought that on a responsible lacto-ovo diet (i.e. not living on Cheetos 
), there really were no issues at all with missing nutrients.
look here for the difference between intensive and ethical
The majority of chicken in the UK is still produced intensively, but you can buy ethical meat and the additional cost is not great. It also tastes far better because the chickens aren’t killed as young and they have a varied diet because they can scratch about in the grass.
Does she like soy (tofu, etc.)? I can’t stand the stuff myself*, but it is a common supplement** for people worried about potentially not eating enough protein through the normal sources like milk, cheese, and such.
*except edamame. mmmmm…
**as in, not actually required.
I agree, but still : you have to explain to your kid that the animal was still killed to end up as food on her plate.
I don’t think most kids will accept this as a reason to start eating meat when they have already decided it is unethical to kill them for your needs.
I would never force a child of mine to eat meat if they wanted to go vegetarian.
I would make sure they were getting a well-balanced diet, and would try to incorporate more vegetarian meals into the overall household.
I would not remove meat from the house entirely, and I would expect the kid to not complain about that. Being vegetarian is OK; lecturing your siblings/parents is not.
I would make sure to leave the kid a graceful exit: no “You will grow out of it” or calling it a whim. Also, don’t go to the other extreme: “I am so proud of you! It’s so difficult to make a choice like this!”. Pride is a very funny thing at that age.
Sheesh, I was a veg for 10 years. I’d love it if my kids wanted to give up meat. Of course, you need to be careful that they get a balanced diet with the amino acids, protean (sp?), etc but it’s not difficult nor should be a show stopper.
Maybe your kid can learn some dishes that Dad would like such as veggie burgers.
I would not go to much extra effort/expense to buy and cook different things for my kid just because they decided to eat something different that the rest of the family.
If a kid doesn’t like something we are cooking for dinner, then they either go without, or see what else they can find in the kitchen that is healthy and will satisfy them. But my wife and I do not go the the store with itemized lists to satisfy each of our kids’ special orders. And we are not short order cooks who will cook up multiple meals to satisfy each kid’s whims.
If it is a matter of keeping some veggie burgers in the freezer and tossing a couple of the grill when I feel like burning some flesh, that’s okay. But I’m not going to prepare a non-meat alternative for every main dish or ensure that the side dishes contain appropriate nutrition for someone who wishes to eschew meat. And if a kid wanted to be assured that their non-meat preference was available, that would be their obligation. I’d pay the bill if they did the shopping or wished to accompany me to the store, but I wouldn’t be responsible for stocking the larder for them.
IMO, vegetarianism one of many lifestyle choices a kid can have plenty of opportunity to indulge themselves in when they are responsible for their own food purchasing/preparation.
I can second Risha’s post. I married a veggie, we’ve got 3 kids who have been raised veggie. Some of the strongest, healthiest & brightest kids I know.
Lots of dairy, banana muffins, almond butter instead of peanut butter, etc.
I’d just call your child’s doctor to discuss this. My cousin’s child has decided she wants to be a vegetarian recently, and they visited the pediatrician. Her doctor has seen other child on vegetarian diets and even had literature about proper nutrition for children with meatless diets. This is neither a new nor a taboo concept. Now my cousin has a much better understanding of vegetarianism and she’s no longer afraid her child will be malnourished. If your son’s doctor can get behind the idea, then your husband may follow.
So?
I saw a TV programme last week and they took Veal calves (ethical rose veal, not crated veal) to a primary school. The kids (around 7 or 8yo) seemed to quickly get over the idea that these cute calves were going to be killed and eaten. Kids should be told that meat is dead animals and that it comes from the farm via the abbatoir and doesn’t magically appear shrinkwrapped on the supermarket shelves.
QKid is 6. He’s been vegetarian most of his life as I’m a vegetarian and the person who is responsible for feeding him most of the time. However, he has recently discovered the joys of a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Now I’m not at all thrilled about that, of course, but he doesn’t have the opportunity to eat fast food more than about once a month. My philosophy is that people have to be responsible for their own food choices, and since he’s his own person, he gets to make those choices (within limits - the all Cheetos diet is right out). However, I do have to give myself a brief lecture on that philosophy pretty much everytime he says, “I love McDonalds!”
So my answer is a whole-hearted thumbs up for letting a kid go veggie.
Soy is a legume, and she has tested out as medium-allergic to it. Not as bad as lentils or peas, but not good.
I did the lacto-ovo vegetarian thing when I was about 11, and it probably lasted for maybe two years? I’m a hopeless foodie and in the end that won out. But I’m glad I did it, and I think I learned a lot from it.
My mom felt that at that age, I was okay making my own meal if I didn’t wish to eat the family dinner. Many of those foods were uncooked (peanut butter, cereal, etc) but some required simple cooking (eggs, mac and cheese). I know your oven sounds tricky, but if CairoSon gets plenty of practice making his own eggs when Mom is with him in the kitchen, he will be just fine when Mom is away.
The other concern my mother addressed was how to be polite in other peoples’ homes when offered food. We did some practice scenarios.
I’d let a kid make his/her own decisions about vegetarianism as long as the diet was reasonably varied, and the covert reason for the diet wasn’t to support an eating disorder. I’ve known a reasonable number of vegetarian children and they have seemed to do fine. Some stuck with it; some did not. I’ve known many adults who ate terribly unbalanced vegetarian diets; childhood/early adolescence seems like a good time to provide guidance about healthy eating.
If a child wanted to go on a vegan diet I’d want to do more research to be sure it was constructed o support a growing person’s needs.
:smack: Duh, of course! Sorry.
Still, there’s protein available in any number of other vegetarian food sources. In your situation I would probably actually do some research about that if my kid wanted to go vegetarian, but I’m assuming you do that anyway to work around her allergies so… I doubt it would be a problem, but YMMV.
Honestly on the nutrition front - I’m not sure a kid who is a vegetarian is going to get a worse diet than 80% of kids out there. I’d rather have a vegetarian than one that gets the majority of their food from a fast food window. Or one that is so picky it eats nothing but Skippy peanut butter on Wonderbread with Smuckers HFCS grape jelly.
Even when my five year old did it, what it meant is she had to eat far more fruits and vegetables to fill her tummy than she did before. I’m not seeing that as a bad thing. And with a lacto-ovo diet with soy or beans a few times a week, I wasn’t worried about protein. But our house is a low meat house to start with (and generally free range chickens who really are free range chickens, cows who live cow lives out in pastures and not in feed lots - at least more and more of our food arrives from small ethical farms - not all of it, but more and more of it).
Had she stuck with it, I don’t think I’d have been disappointed at all. If you aren’t making meat the centerpoint of all your meals to start with, it isn’t that hard to deal with a vegetarian in the house. And with kids, there are plenty of “well, make yourself a pb&j sandwich so you don’t wake up hungry” meals in our house anyway.
It you WANT to eat ethically raised meat, in the U.S. its possible to do so - probably neither cheap or convenient, but possible. Of course, you are still killing an animal to eat it, and not everyone finds that acceptable (especially the cute furry ones like bunnies), but you don’t need to eat “chicken raised in a space where they can’t walk” or “beef from a cow that spent six months standing in manure up to his hindquarters eating corn from a trough.”
I would have no problem with it. And just like I’d make sure my kid ate healthy on an omnivore’s diet, I’d make sure the same thing happened as a vegetarian. No big whoop to me.
You know, this isn’t a problem in lots of places, as the language reflects the fact that what you’re eating as “meat” is the flesh of the animal described. It’s also important for kids to know where their food is coming from at an early age. There’s a reason why there are still people out there that think pineapples grow on trees and that chicken eggs are embryos, and it’s because people have become too squeamish to talk about how food comes about; many of their ancestors either did the growing/killing themselves or had a neighbor who did. We’re really not that many generations away from most of us knowing exactly where our food came from.
I think that, as long as you’re teaching your kid to be able to prepare his own healthy meals and to politely decline foods that he does not wish to eat, it won’t be much of an issue for him to go veg. Vegetarianism and an omnivore’s diet aren’t that different in nature throughout most parts of the world, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.
I happen to live across the street from a cattle farm, and the animals are well cared for and docile. They hang out in the pasture, eat grass, poop, socialize, and occasionally hop the fence to check out our neighborhood. Not one of them is suffering from living on a pasture, and most of them are meat cattle; I’m sure they eventually go off to the slaughterhouse, but they do tend to stick around for quite a while beforehand. Most of the cows I’ve seen in pasture have not disappeared in the year that I’ve lived near them, and those who have were all full-grown adults when I first moved here. They’re not the only cattle farm in the area, and they’re certainly not unique in their practices in this region.