DD wants to go vegetarian

[TeenagersDontWearCoats]

DS most definitely does not.

I do not want to be cooking (or planning for) multiple meals as I find it hard enough as it is making sure everyone has the right meal at the right time.

DD is 13 and announced at lunch today she wanted to go veggie. Fine (although she's have saved me a bit if she'd said that before I'd bought the bbq for the weekend!). Except for special occasions. And except for lasagne!

So, for now I won't be e.g. separating pans or whatever, just a gradual increasing of veggie main meals.

Any favourite recipes that are easy to cook parallel to meat dishes? Or is the easy option to do vegetarian main meals and throw DS a meat sandwich every now and again?

Honestly, it's the planning rather than the concept that worries me. Although making sure DD gets enough protein is my initial thought.

My daughter tried to go vegetarian and we still had her eating chicken!
Told her she could eat chicken as chickens were vegetarian as they only eat corn! 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️
she had plain pasta when the others had a meat sauce on it!

Except for special occasions. And except for lasagne!

She won’t be a vegetarian then. Ask her why she wants to be a vegetarian. Obviously not because she cares about animals. Is this an excuse to diet and exclude food?

I personally don't think the labelling of her diet matters - your daughter may well just be thinking she wants to be vegetarian but will miss BBQs and lasagne, and that's perfectly normal. I was the same with chicken when I became vegetarian (at a similar age, and with similar consternation from my mum) and I think gradually stopped eating chicken too. Eating a vegetarian diet is healthier if it's done right - lots of good veggie recipes online - BBC good food is a good starter and completely free. Maybe get her to find recipes, and she may well learn how to cook well too - plenty of good cooking skills to learn with a veggie diet! Have been a vegetarian, vegan and now pescatarian - v good source of protein though that wasn't the reason! Haven't eaten meat for over 30 years

My daughter said she’d still eat bacon and crispy duck when she became vegetarian but only ate both of them once before stopping. She thought she’d miss them but when she actually ate them she found them disgusting.

I find the easiest way to cook for a mixed vegetarian/meat eating household is to cook a vegetarian meal with meat on the side for those that want it. For example bean burritos/veggie curry/veggie stir fry/paella/pasta sauce etc with some meat or fish cooked separately. Other things eg bolognese I cook the sofritto then split it adding meat to one and lentils to the other.
Then sometimes I batch cook eg a butter bean and spinach stew and freeze some so that when I put a stew in the slow cooker to cook while I’m at work I don’t need to cook a vegetarian one as well.

It’s actually not bullshit, it’s one of the things they look out for in the ED clinic. That’s not to say that everyone who becomes vegetarian becomes anorexic however.

I never said they were radical, or that there was anything wrong with eating a vegan diet. A poster said veganism wasn't a healthy diet, someone else asked why and I was saying why i don't think it can be called a healthy diet. It's a diet that people choose for their own reasons, but I think it's naive for anyone to suggest it is entirely healthy as it doesn't provide all the nutrients humans need on it's own.

I suspect, though I can't be bothered to go and check, that the fortification of cereal etc was probably aimed at a population of people with generally poor diets, and cereals/processed bread was a good way of getting those vitamins into them.

To be clear, I'm not criticising a vegan diet. It's not something I would choose, but we are all free to eat whatever and however we choose. But when people are equating a vegan diet with health I think it's important that people are aware that it's a diet that needs supplementing.

I would worry more about someone who ate a lot of processed meat than someone who was a vegan and with a real interest in nutrition. I do agree some people can become obsessed with “clean eating” , but I think it’s very old fashioned to think you have to eat meat and animal products. Personally I started to cut out animal products because of animal welfare, but I started to feel so much better and have so much energy I have continued.

Sorry the thread wasn’t loading properly I see there are lots of more informative posts about this now

I turned (totally) vegetarian when I was 13 (no ED, it was for ethical reasons), it must have been a nightmare for my poor mother 40 years ago especially as I cannot eat mushrooms!

A few receipes which go down well in my house (kids are not veggie);

Burnt Aubergine Chilli - delicious, was recommended to me on here.

Stuffed Peppers - similar to this recipe, I use feta, cheddar, tomatoes, garlic puree, loads of parsley and black pepper, finely chopped red onion. Bake in oven for 25 mins. Serve with couscous, salad, tzatziki.

Aubergine pasta - google Ottolenghi pasta alla norma, very good (and easy) pasta with aubergines.

Because it’s not a balanced diet.

Any diet where you have to use supplements in order to make sure you get the right nutrition is not balanced.

Nobody has to eat meat and dairy all the time, but everyone does need the nutrients they provide, and a vegan diet doesn’t provide those.

Because she doesn’t want to be a vegetarian. She wants to eat less meat. There is a difference.

It would be like saying that you want to only drink half the wine you usually do and then calling yourself teetotal.

If she wants to be vegetarian then be vegetarian, but that’s not what she wants. She just wants to give herself the label, clearly to fit in somewhere. And that is a fad.

Not really, I wanted to be but ate chicken for a year on and off, took me a while and then I had no meat at all so it wasn’t a fad, it was an intention which didn’t begin with completely eating no meat

One of my DDS is veggie and the other is gluten free so meals can be tricky. I've found gousto boxes to be fab as you can select gf and veggie and there's always a few good options. I do find I have to add or slightly change meals to accommodate sometimes as we still like to eat meat, but it's usually only little differences. Maybe worth a look. You could subscribe for a couple of months and save the recipie cards then make versions of your own if you didn't wanna keep it up.

I don’t agree. I take vitamin d during winter months as I don’t get enough sun light. Lots of people might prefer vitamin supplement to eating meat and by taking this supplement view this as having a balanced diet.

The Gousto boxes are brilliant and have so many good vegetarian and plant based options.

@ChiliFiend that will probably be because quorn is a protein derivative of a mushroom!
@thatsawhopperthatlemon she does about 9.5 hours of sport after school a week. I'm not sure they offer any nutritional advice, never heard anything. I can ask.

I don't really believe in the "all or nothing" thing when it comes to vegetarianism; reducing consumption is great, even if she doesn't manage it 100% of the time.

But that's precisely what vegetarianism is! There's nothing wrong with eating less/hardly any meat if you prefer, but that's a decision that you own by correctly acknowledging that you're an occasional meat eater.

You don't describe yourself using a word that expressly means that you never eat any meat at all. Why would you actually choose to use an irrelevant term, rather than an accurate one for you?

I agree. It sounds to me like the equivalent of teenagers who are desperate to label themselves as 'queer', even though they've only ever had 'traditional' vanilla romantic feelings or relationships with people of the opposite sex - because they see 'queer' as exciting and special; whereas 'straight' is boring.

Couldn’t be bothered with this. I would tell her you will cook what you normally have and she can either do her own, or wait until she’s older and can cook her own.