to think that if you tell someone that your child is vegetarian...

[Tollund]

that they should respect this and not then try to feed them meat?!

At a birthday party with DS1 who is four and a parent there offered my DS a sausage. DS took one (as he didn't know is it was veggie or not) and I politely said to the man "thank you, but he's vegetarian."

He said "yes, I know, they told me that. But I thought I'd see if he wanted one, and he took one, so let him have it."

I ignored him and told DS not to eat it.

THe man then started on at me about how I should let him make his own choices and to let him eat it which I refused to be drawn into, politely telling him no and then walking away.

He then went up to the mother of the child whose party it was (about 10 feet away from me) and starts banging on about me not letting him eat meat!

I think this man was monumentally ignorant - why does he think he is in a position to make food choices for my four year old child? What if DS was Jewish? Or had allergies? I'm now loathe to let my DS anywhere near this man's child or to go to parties where this man might be - IABU? (I don't think I'm BU in terms of making dietary decisions for my son at this time in his life, but whether am BU in wanting to keep my DS very far away from that tool!)

Doh, meant discussion of the day, not active convos!

Im sure I also read somewhere that our intenstines and stuff show we weren't designed to process meat. We have a long process from mouth to pooping thats designed to get every last nutrient out of a vegetarian diet. Where as meat eating animals like lions etc have a shorter process as its designed to get the nutrients and then get rid of the meat before it starts decomposing while still in the body.

Also the fact we don't have claws and fangs or the abilty to bring down and kill an animal with our bare hands or a powerful jaw (like lions, tigers etc) suggests we weren't designed to eat meat. Yeah we have thumbs and can make tools, but that was a learned process, not evolution.

Who knows how much truth there is in those points but its just stuff I've read and found interesting.

wordfactory, in all seriousness I completely agree with you. Most meateaters couldn't give a shit IMHO. That the body parts they consume were not so long ago living, breathing creatures who felt immense fear and pain before dying to satisfy the meat-eater's bloodlust is something which troubles them not one jot.
:(

And I don't like the way one of DS's schoolfrioends mothers was busy trying to indoctrinate ds that meat was bad. She is allegedly vegetarian but eats that welkl known vegetable the fish.

"I was under the impression that back in the days when we were all living in caves that meat formed a major part of the diet."

I imagine it would vary enormously depending on the environment - i.e. what was available to them. Where fruit and veg are available they would form the main part of the diet. Hunting and killing animals is risky, and best not to be done every day if at all possible!

However in areas where the soil isn't great but there are animals I would guess they'd eat more animals.

Humans are very adaptable, I think the idea of a "natural" state of being is a bit misleading really. And anyway we're not cave people. We've changed the land, and ourselves, through farming.

Incidentally there's evidence that it was very possibly the desire for beer which encouraged people to drop the nomadic hunting/gathering lifestyle, and take up farming instead.

Quote from article: "A main motivation for settling down and domesticating crops was probably to make an alcoholic beverage of some kind"

But I digress, again!

Yes I guess guinea pig isn't really different to rabbit, but then the idea of eating rabbit is awful too. Also I don't know if it's really fair to say it's more acceptable to eat a less intelligent animal than a clever one, there would be one or two in danger of being eaten on this thread

"bunbaker - read the whole sentence - nice try."

D'oh!

I can't believe how long this thread has become.

I think we need to agree that whatever diet one follows it is going to be a lifestyle choice. Obviously a diet that includes meat will offend some hard line vegans and vegetarians, but lecturing about the evils of killing animals to eat isn't going to convert many people I'm afraid.

*Incidentally there's evidence that it was very possibly the desire for beer which encouraged people to drop the nomadic hunting/gathering lifestyle, and take up farming instead.

Quote from article: "A main motivation for settling down and domesticating crops was probably to make an alcoholic beverage of some kind"*

Er... No.

That came later on.

"Er... No.

That came later on."

What do you mean?

I can see a problem with a sausage emoticon. Before I worked out how to enlarge the screen size on my laptop, the biscuit looked like a bum. It took me ages to work out why we had a new bum symbol on MN. Imagine what a sausage could look like

Dogs no sauce, just veggie gravy - yum

whose better not say exactly but its the bit between Forest Rd and The Billet. The unfashionable bit in other words.

I like it though. The Co-op is nearly always open and I like 1940s council houses (which is lucky)

Eggy! Sosmix - bluegggh.

Sorry being geeky.

I mean later on in the the neolithic.

Please don't apologise Line Runner, geeky is good

Are you saying my timescale is wrong?

I've read that there's evidence that points to people becoming farmers because they wanted to make beer.

I was trying to make the point that people saying "but cave people ate meat" is irrelevant because we've changed the environment and ourselves.

And I mentioned the beer bit because it makes me smile (although not as much as the )

What was there between being hunting and gathering and farming / beer drinking then, have I missed something?

YANBU.

You may have made the decision for him but that's because he is four, not fourteen.

If he were older and decided he wanted to eat meat then you would be unreasonable to stop him. At four, every parent is making choices for their child for just about everything.

It's not teh same as allergy, that's mighty obvious tbh. There is nor isk of death or even physical trauma that can accompany a severe intolerance.

But it'ss still IMO damned rude to feed meat to a non meat eater and I am quite happy to ask parents about any special dietary needs when having anyone over, if it's a large group it just goes on the invite.

Not a vegie btw but have a asevere casein intolerance as do 3 of my 4 kids so always appreciate someone asking (there are plenty who think intolerrance = choice anyway so can be put on same level for non informed people).

I do offer to provide options for the boys to eat though, esp. when ds1 was gluten free.

DogsBestFriend what is so hard to understand about OP's child not knowing if the sausage was vegetarian OR NOT? What she has written is that he did not know one way or the other, but he still accepted it. That's totally different from accepting it in the mistaken belief that it was vegetarian.

HeadFirstForHalos the reason that you have never been able to recreate your Cuban black bean soup is that it was almost certainly made with pork fat ;-)

As to travel, of course it's possible to follow broadly vegetarian principles while outside the UK. But travel is made a hell of a lot more difficult if you don't speak the language and need to check every ingredient in every meal you are served because the prospect of inadvertently ingesting any animal derivative is a fate worse than death (the OP's view hence the sausage drama).

Come back LineRunner, that's not geeky, it's fascinating and I want to know more!

PS the guinea pig is eaten in Peru and Bolivia. It's tasty.

bunbaker i have missed out the whole middle and just piled in at the end...

Nice try :) The thing about being veggie for umteen years is that you can't mistake the taste of animal fats/meat. I was given the wrong order in a pub once (same meal but I'd ordered veg sausages instead of pork), I didn't notice visually as it had mustard sauce on, but I still remember the taste

I have bought cakes at school fairs and after one bite realised it has some type of animal fat in and discretely discarded them. It's hard to say how but you can just tell.

I think the fresh black beans helped :)

I'm sure the guinea pig is tasty, apparently so is human flesh but I'm loathe to try either.

OP YANBU! Sausage man is clearly a cock with control and personality issues. I am shocked at the whole "let them make their own choices" points of view, the child is 4. And anyway there is a clear moral argument for not eating animals. And anyway, meat eaters smell. Seriously they do. Of decomposing flesh on their breath.

"I have bought cakes at school fairs and after one bite realised it has some type of animal fat in and discretely discarded them. It's hard to say how but you can just tell."

What do you expect? I would always assume that home made cakes have some kind of animal fat in them. A bog standard sponge cake recipe has eggs in it. Even if they were made with margarine, most of them aren't vegan. I use Stork which contains buttermilk. As for buttercream, the clue is in the name. IMO buttercream made with margarine is vile.

Even a fairy cake with glace icing will be made with eggs and a non vegan margarine.

I'm not a vegan :) The majority of cake recipes are vegetarian.

YANBU deciding to raise your children as vegetarians is one of millions of parenting choices, unfortunately, like most other parental decisions, its also one that others feel they have a right to comment on and judge.

All three of my dcs are vegetarian. Yes I made my parenting choices according to my own morals/ethics - call it what you want, because they weren't in a position to choose for themselves - being babies/young children. This is no different than another parent choosing to feed their child meat - either way, the child has no choice.

If, when my children are old enough to make a sensible considered decision on what they want to eat, they do decide to eat meat then it will be their choice and I won't stop them or try to put them off. That said, at the ages of 7 and 9 both my boys have already been put off meat for life by reading a book in their year 1 classroom all about meat farming and whereas I never presume to force my choices on other people, or try to covert other people to vegetarianism, the pair of them can be quite militant about it since reading that book.

The man was an arsewipe. Seeing as he wants to take over as parent to your child, perhaps he'd like to open a savings account for him?