DD eating healthily

[user1489189598]

Hello Beautiful S&B people.

My 15yr old DD has decided to go veggie. We were hoping it would be a very brief fad, but she seems to be sticking to it. (good for her curses on her head).

Her reasons are ethical rather than caring about fluffy animals (she's never had any problems woolfing those down). She's describing herself as "not one of THOSE vegetarians) because she has a VERY faddy cousin, who demands that meat dishes on the table are removed from her line of vision so as not to upset her. So DD doesn't care if (for example) her vegetarian roast potatoes are cooked in goose fat. (they aren't, that's just an example)

She's always been a big fruit eater. But has never really liked vegetables. For example, she won't go near a mushroom. Never been a problem previously, but we've warned her that if she goes out to restaurants as a vegetarian, she's likely to get a mushroom-heavy choice of options.
Carrots, broccoli, potatoes, avocados, celery, tomatoes, cucumber, chillies all good. She's trying spinach, cauliflower, aubergine and peppers.
She eats a lots of cheese and drinks milk.

Reading this, are there any big gaps in her nutrition, and what can you recommend so we can plug them?

Are there any supplements we should be giving her?

She's never really eaten fish except tuna, and she's not eating even that now.

Any advice gratefully received, and thank you in advance.

What are your gaps in your diet if you're a vegetarian?

[Brillenbar]

She needs to eat some protein that is not cheese and milk ideally - so eggs are very easy, and pulses and nuts and seeds. You can get these packs of pre cooked mixed grains and pulses merchant gourmet started it but all the supermarket own brands do them. Very easy to mix with whatever bits you have god a quick salad

[VeryPunny]

Lifelong vegetarian here. I would recommend a good b vitamin and iron supplement even if she did eat meat! Does she like tofu? Asian cuisines are good places to look for inspiration.

[Iamastonished]

Some excellent advice from Brillenbar. DD is veggie and her main problem is that many restaurant veggie options contain spinach, which she loathes. You need to be aware that not all cheeses are veggie, Parmesan being one.

[Equimum]

I was a bit like you DD when I went veggie, and thought I hated most veg. I found many were more tolerable when cooked into dishes rather than served on the side.

Lentils, beans, nuts etc are all great sources of protein. Meat substitutes like 'Quorn' are processed and not exactly great, but you might find them helpful on ocassion to make veggie equivalents of whatever you are cooking. Lentils, however, make a fab substitute for mince.

[pinkyredrose]

So she isn't vegetarian she just doesn't eat meat?

[user1489189598]

Excellent advice all round, and many thanks. Equimum she's already discovering vegetables she didn't think she liked she actually does (so, for me, there's life skills being built into this thing right there!)

We've already made a "bolognese" out of lentils, and she loved it. I'm a bit worried about nuts, because she's just never really eaten them, and thinks she doesn't like them.

Punny she's never eaten tofu as me and DH loathe it, but there's a recipe (which looks nice) which contains it, which we're planning to make in the next week or so. I'll look into vitamin D and Iron. I have warned her that since her age, I know when I'm premenstrual because I start craving MEAT, so I guess I need to up the iron when I know she's 3rd week into her cycle. I have warned her about those cravings.

Brill eggs are good, and she's always eaten those, so that's a good one.

Thank you all for your advice, and I'll take in on board. Seeds are also a good idea!

pinky, yes, you can certainly pick at her labels. But our take on it is that the only rules she is following are the ones imposed by herself, and she can choose to follow or break them at any time, and only she herself will judge her. In fact, we urged her not to describe herself as "vegetarian" but more "I'm cutting back on meat" as we thought this would allow her the life-choices she's currently choosing but with flexibility. She's chosen NOT to go that route, and to describe herself as currently veggie, even though she technically isn't. [she feels that if she describes herself as we recommended, other mums will expect her to eat meat if she goes there for a meal, but with her label will happily provide a non-meat dish which she's currently more comfortable with)
If it helps you/makes you feel better to pick apart a 15 year old who will never see this thread, please continue. But any criticism you have should really be levelled at me. I'm the one who's facilitating this. But thank you for your comment. If you have any advice as well, that would be great.

[specialsubject]

Meat is not essential for human survival. She is eating other animal sources and can get her b12 from there.

Lots of online info from the vegetarian society and so on. Part of the education is learning who to ignore - bloggers, idiotic actresses etc.

[pinkyredrose]

Well OP my advice to you is to make sure your daughter knows she's misrepresenting herself. Speaking as one of *those' vegetarians (aka a real one) I can't tell you how frustrating it is when someone tries to feed you goose fat potatoes, stock with chicken etc saying 'oh x eats it and they're vegetarian'.

Also what happens if she goes to a friends house and the hosts cooks a separate veggie meal and then finds out that she could've eaten the goose fat anyway so the efforts of extra cooking have been totally wasted.

If she's worried about being made to eat meat then she could do with learning a few phrases to repeat such as 'no thank you' or 'I don't eat meat' because if she's going to be a 'vegetarian' she'll have plenty of enquiries in the future believe me.