to think this has made my vegetarian daughter ill?

[musicposy]

and should I be cross with my BIL over this?

Most Saturday nights we go down to my sisters house and my BIL, who is a very good cook, makes dinner for us. They come to us regularly too, but it's usually pizza at ours!

Anyhow, DD2 (11) has been vegetarian for nearly 4 years now and also eats virtually no dairy, only eggs. This was her choice entirely and I've always respected that; she's growing well, thriving and is never ill - until today.

Sis and Bro-in-law have always made no bones about the fact that if she was theirs, she wouldn't be "allowed" to be veggie and they think I pander terribly to her. I have to remind BIL to keep vegetables/ potatoes etc separate for her. I know he thinks I am making a terrible fuss and gets a bit huffy about my requests.

Anyway, DD2 has been quite ill today with diarrhoea and stomach cramps. We couldn't think what it is and then DD1, who helped BIL cook, says she thinks that BIL cooked the veggies/ fried/ griddled stuff in the fat and pan he'd cooked the chicken in. DD2 told me she'd thought it had a horrible taste but didn't like to be rude - I don't think it occurred to her it wouldn't be vegetarian (she just has the veg without the meat there normally).

I suspect it is this which has made her ill - does this sound crazy?

Also, I don't know whether to mention it to BIL (who could have just forgotten, I guess, though it seems unlikely), or whether to just take a LindaMcCartney meal each time now and microwave it. I don't want to fall out with them but I am a bit cross if he took it upon himself to decide it wouldn't matter. AIBU?

Scholes34 Some people love roasties in chicken fat, including my OH. So yes people do cook veg in meat fat

And lots and lots of people use butter in cooking. Animal fat all over the place.

Scholes34 And "believing in eating meat" in easy enough to do, as we have the teeth for it.

Oh do f**k off will you?! How many ignorant narrow minded comments can one person come out with. Next you'll be saying "yeah but it's the food chain init!"

Exactly the same as the comments I used to get about being vegetarian 15 years ago. Funnily enough those people who made those comments were always the thickest people I had ever come across in my life, with no independent thinking processes, no openmindedness, no prospects, and they have done nothing with their lives since.

That's not something new and clever you've thought up there, you're just turning out cliches.

Oh dear, eyebrows. Is this handbags at dawn, or teatime? I love vegetarian food. I also like eating meat. We're omnivores and have the ability to eat and digest meat. That's all I'm saying. I think the rather militant approach you're adopting is the kind of thing that could result in chicken fat in your roast potatoes . . . though not at my house.

Well all the medical websites I can find say an 11 yr old girl should be having 1300mg of calcium per week but the vegan website says 800 mg (hmmmm)She'd have to eat 8 cups of broccoli per day or 26 oranges to met her daily calcium requirement

sorry obviously meant per day not per week !!

Spiderpeg, she could always pop a calcium supplement!

OP, Well done for respecting your daughter's opinion.

I'm not joining in with the arguement as it's pointless. Some people get so upset at the suggestion that others do not share their opinions.

I really hoped that as a thinking, accepting society being vegetarian was not A Big Thing but on MN it is made clear that we are totally unreasonable, even if we rarely ask anyone else to cook for us but often cook vegetarian meals that no-one of our aquaintance turns their noses up at.
OH, I did join in!!

Er really Spiderpig8 800mg here. I've not seen 1300 mentioned.

Soy milk has as much calcium as cow's milk. I'd imagine that a lot of children don't have sufficient calcium in their diets, but the OP's daughter won't be one of them, as her mother is aware that she needs to be careful to get enough.

spiderpig8 The OP said that her daughter drinks fortified soya milk. How much calcium is in a glass of that?

I also wanted to be vegetarian when I was 7, growing up in the country I knew exacly where meat came from. It bemused me that 'pigs' became 'pork' and 'animals' become 'meat', 'cows' 'beef' etc etc.

I couldn't then get my head round that fact that someone would see an animal, kill it, skin it, cut it up, cook it (because we cannot digest raw meat) and then put it in their mouths and swallow it.

I imagine if many meat eaters were offered a plate of dog, or eyeballs, or kangaroo testicles, they might gag. This is exactly how I felt about chops or sausages etc etc. Most would not appreciate being forced to swallow it down.

My parents were old skool who thought children should be seen and not heard, obey their parents and eat what was on their plate. All it did was make me feel sick, dislike eating and not respect my parents very much!

And I became veggie when I was 15

So I understand where your daughter is coming from, and well done to you for actually respecting her thought-out decision, and even if she changes her mind later on you have given her a good grounding in how to have a balanced diet and where food comes from. I could cook for myself at school when other kids had no clue.

Bearing in mind there are kids out there that don't know what a vegetable is never mind where it might come from.

Vast countries have vegetarian populations. It is as much a valid 'normal' choice for parents as meat eating is for non-veggie parents. Nowhere else but on MN do I see so many people with such a hostile attitude towards it . Even my parents have come to terms with it now

1200 mg

1200mg

Ok well if you think it's ok to get your nutrition from supplements then why bother with a healthy diet ...

TigersEye hurrah and huzzah for the 'vast countries have vegetarian populations' comment. (Although with my picky pants, I think I'd have put 'vast' elsewhere in the phrase. Or even used it a second time...)

THANK YOU for making such a good point. I get so utterly fucked off with having to justify being hardcore vegetarian to my friends and family. We operate a kosher kitchen, to be honest, I will have nothing with meat or fish or derived products in the kitchen - nor the scullery. A fork from the school kitchen came home inadvertently in my bag (don't ask...) - it didn't even get washed up, it went straight back into work.

Why people get such bug up their bloody ass about somebody else's food choices is just beyond me. Mind your own biz, say I, if they come out with all the usual blah and blether about it all. Couldn't agree with you more about the whole shebang. Well done!

I refuse to have a charnel house in my guts. My decision. Difference is (unlike on MN, where all people throw a hissy fit at everything - even I? you decide...) in RL, I seldom give the slightest shit about 'why do you eat meat?', when people DO think it's alright to ask me why I don't. Bah!

Thank you Lost I was also unsure about the 'vast' thing and it should read that Many countries have vast vegetarian populations....

My favourite restaurant was a Nepalese one where they would never dream of eating meat themselves. They were one of the few that 'got' it, it was revered as much as religious beliefs because, after all, beliefs are beliefs and they spent a lot of time talking to me about it because they also would not have eaten meat.

I am not making sense, sorry, because I am eating nut roast with ne hand and typing with the other

Spiderpig8 - the op's daughter is vegetarian, not vegan; did you miss that bit? Therefore I imagine she's not trying to get her daily calcium requirements solely from oranges and broccoli (not that vegans do either!). A vegetarian really isn't going to find it difficult to meet these nutritional 'targets'.

Re: ham in Tunisia (sorry to divert from thread topic) - tourist hotels and restaurants in Gambia also serve ham/bacon/pork as they are catering for the predominantly non-muslim tourists. It doesn't mean that the muslim Gambians actually eat it just because they serve it .

Likewise, a vegetarian chef can cook meat & a meat-eating chef can cook nut roast .

scholes34 - you also have an appendix. Do you eat plenty of grass to keep it in full working order?

Not so much grass, but plenty of lettuce.

Mmmmm.

Lettuce.

Drools.

(I'm nearly 40. Can I still post shit like this and get away with it?)

I get ill if I accidentally eat meat products or much dairy, have been a veggie since I was about five (17 years :)). I never am sick, but will spend a lot of time on the toilet for a day or two until it's out of my system!

spiderpig, those aren't really great sources of info. The first website advocates pudding as a source of calcium.

I've been vegetarian since I was 4/5 (so that's over 35 years ago!), and didn't really eat a lot of meat before that either. Some people just don't need meat, and some do. I've seen a lot of people turn vegetarian and get anaemic very quickly, and I've also seen a lot of people become vegetarian and thrive on it. I suspect it's something to do with blood type or genes (my great grand-father and great uncle were also vegetarian, something I only found out a few years ago). So to all those questioning about whether a young child can make a rational decision about it, the answer is yes they can.

I'm not sure that 4 years is long enough for the digestive changes to have occured but who knows? I doubt that just eating a tiny amount of chicken fat would trigger a serious stomach upset, whereas eating a steak or other heavy meat might. I suspect that it is just a stomach bug that could have been picked up anywhere and it's just coincidence.

musicposy it sounds as if your daughter has a better and more balanced diet than many of her peers because of her awareness of nutrition and where it comes from.

I think if I invited people over for a meal and then they started to tell me how to cook it as one of their kids was a vegetarian ( and then went on to complain that said food had made said kid Ill when everyone else was fine) they wouldn't be invited ever again.