Daughter wants to become vegetarian? WWYD ?
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Re: Daughter wants to become vegetarian? WWYD ?
DS became vegan (a week before he travelled to China!) at Easter. After a couple of weeks of trying to manage two diets, we decided to go 'vegan' for week day meals as a family. It probably matters more to be aware of diet as a vegan and so I found it easier to cook a vegan diet for us all so that we covering all the vitamin/mineral bases. For other meals, we follow two routes - he has non-dairy milk and cheese for breakfast and on top of pizzas, etc.; we stay dairy, for instance. On a Sunday, we will roast a piece of meat and have it with a range of Ottolenghi style mezze style dishes - perfect for a week of packed lunches!
I'm really proud of him for having such clear principles - he thinks vegetarian is hypocritical because baby male chicks are killed to produce female chicks for eggs and ditto for male calves to enable milk. And, I've really enjoyed how much more interesting our diets have become as a result - full of flavour and spice - and how adventurous all the children have become. We used to exist on a rotation of spag Bol, cottage pie, etc but our range is now much broader.
I say go for it - and consider making it the main diet for everyone in the week to make it easier to manage.
Stokers
I'm really proud of him for having such clear principles - he thinks vegetarian is hypocritical because baby male chicks are killed to produce female chicks for eggs and ditto for male calves to enable milk. And, I've really enjoyed how much more interesting our diets have become as a result - full of flavour and spice - and how adventurous all the children have become. We used to exist on a rotation of spag Bol, cottage pie, etc but our range is now much broader.
I say go for it - and consider making it the main diet for everyone in the week to make it easier to manage.
Stokers
Re: Daughter wants to become vegetarian? WWYD ?
Ds2 was a pescatarian from about age 6 until about two years ago (age 13) and we are a meat eating family. He hated meat and mealtimes were becoming traumatic so I conceded and found him alternatives. Interestingly when he stopped eating meat he became much happier and his eczema improved significantly, whether the two things were linked I don't know. Although he has now come back to eating meat he will only eat the leanest meat and only chicken, beef and "proper" pork ie not sausages, ham etc. When we eat out he still usually opts for the vegetarian or fish choice.
I cook virtually all our meals from scratch and although it took some thinking about initially it wasn't too much of a pain. I used to supplement with quorn or like wherever possible and would give him a fish fillet if this wasn't possible. As a family we started to eat more vegetarian food which was probably good for all of us and is something that we have continued.
I did keep an eye on his diet but because he was that much younger than OP it was probably easier to do this than with a 12 yo.
I cook virtually all our meals from scratch and although it took some thinking about initially it wasn't too much of a pain. I used to supplement with quorn or like wherever possible and would give him a fish fillet if this wasn't possible. As a family we started to eat more vegetarian food which was probably good for all of us and is something that we have continued.
I did keep an eye on his diet but because he was that much younger than OP it was probably easier to do this than with a 12 yo.
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad !
