Vegetarian ? Do you intend to bring up your children as vegetarian also?

[KickingScreaming]

Or will you let them decide when they are old enough to make an informed choice themselves?

Oh - and, on a sustainability level. Whilst I accept that healthy vegetarian diets make less impact on the environment. I also know that cows, pigs and sheep etc (some breeds more than others) will become extinct if people cannot farm them for profit, so my own belief is to keep eating small amounts of animal protein but from properly cared for farms rather than intensive methods AND the same applies to grown plants as intensive farming on a plant level isn't good for the planet either

I’m veggie and one of my kids are too, the other one is pescatarian. I don’t cook meat at home, but I do buy the odd tin of tuna for my pescatarian teen, but they sort themselves out most of the time. They both ate meat at school at primary though, it’s when they got a bit older it stopped.

I started out raising our two DC as vegetarians. DD (16) still is but DS (13) decided he wanted to eat meat from around age 3 when he tried a ham sandwich at a party and loved it. Not a problem. I give him chicken or turkey often, and he still loves a ham sandwich 😃

Because they probably eat fish once every 6 months or so? Nor do I want other people feeding them fish so for all intents and purposes, they are vegetarian.

That was in reponse to @Housewife2010

Nope. I'm vegetarian for 12 years now (not counting....) but I still feed my son meat. It's his choice if he chooses to be vegetarian.

Dh is veggie (not me) and while we mostly eat veggie at home we were never insistent that dcs should be veggie

however age 5 ds decided to be veggie as well and still is aged nearly 10. Hopefully he’ll keep it up. I’m 90% veggie, other ds is a committed carnivore. not ideal!

Because your diet lacks essential amino acids and they are likely to be smaller -

Apologies - I've just tried to link and its vegan diets which have been proven to make children shorter.

I’m vegetarian, DH isn’t but we eat a lot of Quorn at home. Both children have always been allowed to eat meat though. DD has never particularly liked meat and has chosen to be veggie, DS loves meat and will try anything. I always figured it was my choice and I didn’t want to impose it on them. I did inadvertently impose it to a certain extent at home because I wasn’t going to cook multiple meals when we all liked the alternative, buy chicken and ham for lunches and stuff like that so not against having it in the house!

I don't buy meat as a default, or cook it. My teens are welcome to eat any meals I've made, or add meat to the shopping list and cook their own. One is mostly happy to eat whatever I've cooked but will occasionally cook up something he's craving. The other couldn't imagine a meal without meat in it.

For the record, I do put a lot of thought into nutrition and am generally cooking high protein meals from fresh ingredients, we're not living on a 'fake nuggets and chips' diet.

The theory trotted out on here that all vegetarians are eating processed fake food and carnivorous diets are superior is absolute bollocks. Putting aside the fact that red meat is generally bad for you, most vegetarians and vegans I know are way more switched on about nutrition than your average person and put a lot of thought into balanced meals. The people who are living off fake nuggets would have been living off equally shit real nuggets before they converted.

I've been vegetarian for over 30 years, dh eats meat. We gave the dc meat until they were old enough to decide for themselves as I didn't want to restrict their diets, or force my opinions on them.
We did make sure they knew where the meat came from though.

I also think that whatever else you waste from a meal, you eat the meat. That animal lived and died to feed you, it was the animals reason for being. You should respect that, and we made sure our dc understood that.

I have been a vegetarian since aged 14 but didn’t restrict my sons diet as my DH ate meat . I wanted my DS to make his own mind up . Irony is my DS still eats meat but my DH is now veggie which I never ever thought he would be .

I bought DS up vegetarian and he's never eaten meat the whole of his 40 years. He's a lot stricter than me. I have been known to eat something cooked for me by people who don't know I'm vegetarian. But haven't done so for the last 10 years or so.
Him and his wife call it the non violent life style. They don't shout or allow violence in their home either. ⁸

@underneaththeash why is being shorter a negative thing, overall well balanced vegan diets are healthier. I’m not a vegan but have family who are and raise children as, some of my child’s favourite and nutritious meals are vegan.

I’m only 5 foot so the meat eating diet as a child fixing help with my height!

That just seems a really odd reason to give for vegan diets being bad???? How tall is tall enough?

As to a pp talking about a mum not letting their child have a chicken nugget at a party, well I wouldn’t let my child have a chicken nugget or a veggie/vegan chicken nugget because that’s just rubbish food all round.

Meat is the slavery, torture and murder of a sentient creature and is not essential to a healthy balanced lifestyle

The quality of the meat in the shops is appalling. Factory farmed rubbish full of water and processed stuff that causes cancer. If people are going to eat meat they should only eat wild hunted meat and only a small amount. Not meat for every sine meal. It wasn't what our bodies were designed for.

But choosing to give your DC meat IS forcing your opinion on them – your opinion happens to be that eating meat is fine/necessary/delicious. My opinion happens to be that a vegetarian diet is kinder/better for the environment/healthier.

You’re going to need a lot of freezer space if you’re going to feed them horse!

What makes meat the default option.

I don’t eat meat and I don’t cook it and I hate smelling it when it is cooking.
To me it smells of a cross between an old peoples home and a dead body and when you have linked those smells then there is no unsmelling it

Already did. In their teens, they decided to eat chicken and fish when out with friends. Though not often.

We don't eat any processed fake food, btw. Never have.