I think a friend gave my child gelatine in food

[yetanothernamechnager]

I am very upset with him mum thinks I am being unreasonable

I was just musing that I think vegetarians or vegans get a harder time than people who have diet restrictions for religious reasons. I might be wrong, it's just a vague impression...

Meant to say - so why is such a big thing made of the fact that vegan parents having 'chosen' their chikd's diet??

"Interesting" vegetarian bashing going on here tonight

I'd be annoyed too OP, was probably an accident if it was a friend, might be worth giving them a list?

Grr - child, not chikd.

I am ashamed to say that I wouldn't have known that haribos for instance were a no no for vegans or vegetarians

If I have made that mistake with other people's kids, it would've been inadvertent.

If I were in a nice mood, I'd say sorry

If I weren't, which I'm not I would ask you how the actual I'm supposed to know the ins and outs of your child's diet unless you tell me and I might add you could go boil your head

SDTG I think it's because the parents always go mental if the child chooses to eat something that they don't agree with.

I have had to drop calling myself a vegan because of the alcohol that i drink, when i am out, i didn't realise for a long time that animal products are used in the brewing etc process.

I worked with a Sikh family, who had eaten jellys, for years, not realising that they contained gelatin.

It happens.

I'm sure all the vegetarian bashers 'chose' a meat based diet for their children before asking them first.

I think I see it similar to a religion - you inform and expose your dc to a range of them and allow them to maoe the decision as amd when they are ready.

Making the decision for them to force them.down one particular route is unfair to them.

STDG - you say they were "meat eaters" Id say they ate all ranges of foods. Surely having tried them they are better eqipped to decide in time whether they want to take a certain route.

Oi, phantomderegisterer - not seen you before, have you copied my name?

I used to work with lots of diverse groups of kids where say 50% of any given group would be halal eaters. We used to have halal sweets as prizes for those kids, without fail one or two would be really really grateful and the rest would be angling for Haribo, telling you they were allowed big macs on Saturdays so Haribo was fine.

For some this may have been true, for many out and out lies because kids want sweets. We were on the ball with it. I think it's reasonable to believe many friends and other adults might give in to this sort of thing pretty quickly, (particularly in the case of non religious restricted diets).

Don't worry, your child will be happily munching Big Macs by the time they're a teen

BigHairy I don't think it's a case that people are "vegetarian bashers", I'm pretty sure it's more to do with parents forcing their kids to be vegetarian and not allowing them to have foods they don't agree with.

There's a difference between meat based and totally banning certain things.

Was it free range organic gelatine?

I think by the age of nine, your child is either old enough to decide for themselves if they want to eat jelly, haribo etc, or old enough to know to ask.

The family next door are vegan, and when their DCs came trick-or-treating with us a couple of years ago (without their parents), they refused some of the sweets they were offered because they looked like they probably contained gelatine. The DCs were well under nine at the time.

I'd only be upset if your friend deliberately and knowingly gave your DC something non-vegan even after you had explained your feelings about it, but I would not expect a non-vegan friend to automatically know all the implications and origins of minor ingredients in things. Same would apply if you had religious reasons for avoiding certain foods, but it would be different if your child had an allergy and forbidden foods could actually harm them.

(And btw, I say all that as a vegetarian with two vegetarian DC.)

I may be misremembering this entirely, but I'm sure one of the sad CJD cases a long time back was a young vegetarian man who had not excluded gelatine from his diet.
There may be sincere health reasons for wanting to know your child has never been exposed to meat. And I've seen threads on here before where people have said eating meat (when veggie/vegan) had made them ill. If we can read labels to see how many calories something has in it, we can read them to check if they have a V on them. (And if we can't read labels, heaven help the children with nut allergies).

I know a Muslim couple (allegedly - he converted to please the wife, but the wife posts photos of herself in skimpy outfits on Facebook, and I bumped into her with a man she was having an affair with on a train) who cooked exclusively with lard. I said 'you know that is pig fat, right?'. Him 'No, it's beef'. Me: 'No, lard is most definitely pork'. He showed no signs of believing me.

it wouldn't even occur to me to check for gelatine. It might in foods such as jelly but that's it really. I know for instance that polo mints contain gelatine but I only know because I've been told - I wouldn't think to look.

You're vegan, you're bothered. Most people don't give it a second thought and are frankly a bit bored / annoyed with your fad. They will do their best, but if you start kicking off over a tiny bit of gelatine in something, you are going to lose friends pretty fast. Get a bloody grip.

OP you need to say what was given to your child. I agree that offering a child of vegan parents meat would be unfair and disrespectful but if it was just a bowl of jelly, well a lot of people wouldn't associate that with meat or dairy. (I only know because I have a vegan friend who is very strict with his diet)

Oops just realised this was 3 pages long before I posted so mine is probably redundant.

Yabu. Did your child choose this kind of diet. At this age he s o,d enough to make his own choices, and I am sorry they may not be in line with your belifs, it is something you will have to learn to accept

Rather harsh, Musomathsci!

Not nearly enough info OP

What was it?

A bag of jelly babies or something?

My Jewish gran was completely unaware of gelatine being in things and in particular pork gelatine. Lots of people I know are or understand something contains gelatine but not what gelatine is. It's Ann accident, focus on educating your dc as ultimately they will be responsible for this.

I sometimes go through vegan phases, it's always pizza that breaks me, my dc sometimes do the same, but they know what this means so can make informed decisions not tuck into Percy pigs without realising.