Vegetarian adopter

[Mylobsterteapot]

I’m in the early stages of starting the adoption process. One question I still have is about food. I am vegetarian, and have been for a long time. I’ve forgotten how to cook meat TBH! I would really rather not cook meat at home, especially not for myself. My plan would be that any prospective child could eat meat/fish outside the home if they wanted to, and possibly some easy meat like chicken nuggets in the early days at home, but to carry on being a meat-free household long term. Would this work? Or would social workers prefer that the child ate meat long term if that’s what they were used to? I’m assuming they couldn’t insist that I do?!

I feel it would be better that we all ate the same at home, rather than me eating a different meal. I wouldn’t want to trick a child into eating Quorn nuggets instead of chicken, that feels like a good way to break down trust.

I don’t have specific knowledge of this as an issue but suspect you may be overthinking it! I am sure there would be discussions around the need for a healthy balanced diet and ensuring children get all the major food groups but that’s perfectly possible with a vegetarian diet.

If you adopted an older child (opposed to a baby) you’d have to respect their likes & dislikes and they are likely to need familiar food to help them settle and you’d need to commit to that in their best interests and accept that their needs will trump yours at this point!! If you’re ok with that then I can’t see it being an issue.

over time depending on the child you'll naturally adapt what they eat to more in line with what you naturally cook depending of course on their likes & dislikes.

with regard to easy things like chicken nuggets many are high in salt and stir frying or popping a chicken breast into oven is just as easy & much healthier so worth exploring what you would be prepared to do, maybe friends or family who eat meat could give you some tips or left overs to freeze which may help while you adjust to a world of major change where food may be the least of your worries!!!

Vegan adopter here - it was never really questioned during process other than in the context of allowing and encouraging a child, as they grow older, to make life choices for themselves and supporting their decision. Our SW was absolutely fine with quorn based alternatives to foods LO might already like being used immediately and like you, I was fine with freedom of choice outside the home - it works absolutely fine. Both LOs are now vegan by choice but have full support to change their minds anytime x

Vegetarian adopter here - agree with pp dont worry atall! You just always say you will put the childs needs first. Our DD was raised in a foster family that was heavily meat based, dodnt eat cheese when she arrived and as we transitioned we gave her a mix of what she was used to, knowing we would be slowly transitioning her to a plant base diet as we have. With foster carer she ate with foster carer ate but with us even though at the start we offered meat that she was used to she only wanted what we had and wanted to try what we had -shes a toddler so will be different depending on age but same kind of thing, I would envisage a slow transition to your family way as with everything else, you want to have things shes used to so she eats, but long term no need at all. Weve found that vegan fishfingers have higher protein than fish fish fingers for example, and it was the protein that foster carer was worried about so no reason not to swap atall.
We were worried about it too, I know everything is a worry during the application & matching, so we even asked the medical advisor during our medical advisor meeting on matching and she was very clear that yes clearly a vegetarian diet is completely healthy and normal and not a concern atall, which was lovely to hear as we were worried about social worker/foster carer opinions so good to hear it so definitely there! We were respectful of foster carers culture/lifestyle and didnt say we would be transitioning in future but have done completely and has been no issue atall.
Dont think you need to learn how to cook meat, our DD transitioned with me knowing no knowledge of how to cook meat, just used some stuff she was used that didnt involve proper cooking (fish fingers/ham etc). i know this may be different for an older child but would be the same kind of thing, transition slowly and in your acceptable levels.

I shouldn't imagine it would be a problem as long as you could show you would accomodate a child's needs particularly early on in placement. For example, our therapist has said food is not a battle that is worth the fight early on for our two, and so we fed them fish fingers and chips for dinner every night because we had bigger fish to (ahem) fry. The youngest shouted "dinners ready" every time the airfryer beeped....

Tbh, I doubt many children are only eating steak tartare as their preferred choice of safe food, it is more likely to be crisps, pasta, chips, nuggets etc, all of which I assume you could or would accomodate within reason. I suspect there would be plenty of alternative veggie options, and it sounds like you can be flexible in how this is delivered, so if they really need chicken nuggets or whatever, you can do that.

You might want to give a nod to any thoughts of cultural dishes and accessing or normalising those if you are considering adopting transracially, or how you will prepare your child to eat out with friends to avoid social circle thinning as they get older (the cult of Friday chicken and chips looms large in our area, its a big deal) just so that you can show the depth of your consideration about the impact it may have on them.

Our social worker was a vegetarian and would have been delighted to meet another vegetarian I think! Alas, we did not fit the bill, but she was enthusiastic when we said we did meat free Mondays.

You might also find that foster carers are veggie or vegan anyway- one of our sons came from a plant based household anyway, so we had to gently introduce meat and dairy. I guess it can go both ways!

Good luck with your application!

I'm a vegetarian adopter. Your thinking is reasonably sound for a younger child, but as others have said, might pose problems for an older child who is already established in their likes and dislikes, and possibly with some issues around food already. I adopted a baby so it was fairly easy to bring him up on a vegetarian diet. However, I don't insist on him being vegetarian outside the home. He generally will go for the vegetarian option at school, but I want him to be able to make his own choices. He would probably tell you that he doesn't like meat, but at the same time he doesn't count ham sandwiches as being meat.

I shouldn't imagine it would be a problem as long as you could show you would accomodate a child's needs particularly early on in placement. For example, our therapist has said food is not a battle that is worth the fight early on for our two, and so we fed them fish fingers and chips for dinner every night because we had bigger fish to (ahem) fry.

This. As long as you are clear that you are flexible and will put the child's nutritional needs first you will be fine.

I knew a couple who were turned down becuase of their veganism but the problem was that they were adamant that an adopted child would be vegan no matter what. They couldn't accept that sometimes kids can be difficult to feed and instead responded to concerns by going to battle with their SW using 'expert data' to show that meat wasn't needed in toddler's diets.

I'm a vegetarian adopter. Your thinking is reasonably sound for a younger child, but as others have said, might pose problems for an older child who is already established in their likes and dislikes, and possibly with some issues around food already.

This too. If you do adopt an older kid you will need to start with whatever diet they already eat.

But it sounds like you realise this.

I’m a veggie adopter too in early days of placement. I went into this with a similar idea to you. We’ve switched a few bits over without any fuss (nuggets, oat milk, sausages etc etc) but for certain things i just suck it up and give him the real thing because frankly there are so many other things to think about in the early days that it became a lot less important than I thought it would be. Still hopeful we will get there one day though.

There’s no problem as long as you are able to accommodate your child’s needs. Some children can be very particular about foods, textures etc in some cases down to only eating particular brands of nuggets for example. You may find they don’t transition to your way of eating easily, or at all. Assuming you can accept this and support a child without shaming them
or making food a battle, it’s fine.

My DS came from foster care only eating a particular chocolate cereal for breakfast - not at all something I’d chose to give him. The reality was he ate that for a long time (ie counted in years, not months), until he was able to try something else. In amidst all the other change and loss, I wasn’t going to impose my healthier choice of breakfast on him - I just packed in nutrients elsewhere.