To have asked her not to tell dcs?

[Edenviolet]

Dsis has recently become a vegetarian after apparently seeing some horrific films about animals not stunned before slaughter. She is also very vocal about standards being high for animals etc ( eg she won't eat barn eggs only free range-more on that later...)

She started today to tell my dcs that she is vegetarian and I had to stop her explaining why as I don't want them saying they want to be as well (hard enough to get them to eat as it is and I don't want another food issue or have to cook different meals).
I also didnt want them upset about the stunning/slaughtering that she was just about to mention.

As far as I'm concerned all they need to know is that auntie doesn't eat meat, not the exact reasons why.
She started talking about chickens and how only free range eggs will do and dd1 checked our ones and said they were barn eggs and dsis shook her head and explained how unhappy the chickens would have been.

I have no issue with dsis being vegetarian, if she comes to our house I'm happy to provide the right food for her and I understand what led her to make her decision but I don't want her 'lecturing' my dcs about it, and it really does seem like a lecture when she starts talking about it .
She even went through the cupboard to see which sweets have gelatine in and ds1 asked why and she started to explain but I stopped her again as I didn't want dd2 put off any of them.

mother the child dictating was in response to a previous poster who said if a DC wanted to be veggie the whole family should.

And my point is that if one member of the family wants to be veggie it's a very valid option for everyone to eat veggie!

Then it would be the child dictating the family's diet! Why should everyone become vegetarian?

Fifi because just because somebody likes something doesn't mean they have to eat it. Meat is an extra addition. There is no other food that you would insist on eating if someone else in the group didn't eat it.
It's not to say the family have to become vegetarian but it's not an absurd idea!

I'm not at all apologetic but I just will not cook for vegetarians. If they are lucky the best they can expect is a jacket potato and cheese. All our meals are meat based. Organic free range meat only though. Vegans I think would starve!

itsbetterthanabox - Just because someone DOESN'T like something doesn't mean no one else in the family can eat it. You cannot force your ethic views on others - and that is what you are suggesting a child does to it's family. I have no problem with people being veggie and indeed my ex was a veggie and I regularly eat meals without meat BUT no child of mine is dictating what we all eat, same as if OH decided to be veggie.

jane, how sad that you're not even willing to give it a try.

Is it because you don't feel confident enough to cook without meat or are you of the "if it hasn't got meat in, it isn't a meal" school of cooking?

What would you do if a friend or family member were vegetarian? Would you try to cater for them or would you still put refuse even then?

Not sure where the stray "put" came from

no child of mine

Only on a thread about vegetarianism

Cooking for vegetarians really isn't that hard, particularly not if it's just an occasional thing.

I'd probably have to get a bit more inventive were I to live with one or become one myself but I can do enough to cater on an occasional basis, or when I just don't fancy eating meat myself.

Cooking for a vegan with a nut allergy was hard mind.

What is your problem Suburban? Do you allow your children to dictate what goes on then? No problem cooking a separate veggie meal when needed but why should someone else, even a child, force their ethical views on everyone else.

I live in a farming community - I see the baby lambs being born through to them being turned into sausage. I know how it works but have personally chosen simply to buy ethical meat which is locally sourced. I don't see why I or anyone else who have decided they want to include meat in their diet should be forced to change this.

meant pigs = sausage
lambs = chops

long day.

intheend, the clue was in the

Many years ago, I fell out with a long standing friend who was going through an evangelical phase, trying to convert us to vegetarianism. I didn't want to be preached to.
Fortunately we are friends again as she calmed down, but our friendship is not quite the same as it was.

I don't have a problem debating issues, but I do have a problem being preached at.

I love this "why should someone force their ethical views on everyone else". Because that's how ethics works?

You shouldn't talk about morality in case it makes other people feel immoral. You shouldn't talk about not doing bad things in case it makes someone who enjoys doing bad things feel bad. Where are the boundaries of this drawn?

I'm a meat eater but I have friends who are veggy and vegan. They sometimes want to talk to me about how I shouldn't eat meat. That's an issue which is really important to them although we disagree- for a start, they have helped me make better choices about more ethical farming and eating less meat. I would much rather they talked to me and there was dialogue than they just shut up in case they infringed my personal ethics in some way.

Or a blunter example. I'm a union shop steward. I tell members not to cross a picket line. If they try to cross the line when I am on it, I will remonstrate with them and ask them not to do it. I am not going to beat them up, hit them or whatever but will say "I'm going to ask you to respect the democratic decision of the union and not cross the picket line." Is that "pushing my ethics on them" and "getting on my soapbox"? If so, what's the point asking anyone not to do anything ever?

I think it us the 'preached at' element. I am still childish enough to want to do the absolute opposite of whatever they are preaching - even if they might have a point!

Excellent point, teacher.

If you look through this thread, you will find very little preaching, if any. I think someone said their vegetarianism is a moral choice, and another said their child wondered why his grandparents ate dead animals, but otherwise, nothing. I myself have said it's factory farming that convinced me to be vegetarian, but also that none of the vegetarians I know preach, or even care much about others eat.

The most goady and humourless posts have come on this thread have come from meat-eaters who have constantly tried to pick holes in the vegetarian argument, by saying we are wasting our time being vegetarian and should either be vegan or not bother, by linking to videos to show how deluded we are, by repeatedly demanding to know what we would feed a meat-eater meat when they visited, the list is endless.

It seems the only preachy vegetarian on this thread is the OP's DSis, and she's not even part of the discussion.

Intheend. I don't see it is as dictating. And it's weird that you think children's moral choices are lesser than adults. I was saying it's a possibility and a reasonable but not that the family have to do it! What works for one family doesn't for another but for some it may be better to all eat veggie and that's a perfectly valid idea!

YABU.

I don't think deliberately hiding the realities of the meat industry from children is right. Everyone should know where their meat comes from.

Also, if you buy eggs please don't buy barn eggs. The hens suffer terribly. Even then, there is a huge amount of suffering; male chicks are put in a mincer or gassed when only a few hours old.

I can't see why vegan is any harder to cater for than vegetarian. I have tons of recipes for both and often cook them- because I like them. (But apparently liking a food isn't a reason for eating it!)

Well I would personally find it harder - suppose it depends how militant you're being? There is a lot of hidden dairy in food. Really tricky to eat out too as most places chuck cheese into the veggie option. And for a meat-eating family catering for a vegan child it would mean a lot more changes than just swapping the meat for something non-meat eg can't use eggs as a binding agent if making veggie burgers, can't use butter to fry stuff, can't pull out some ice cream for pudding etc

Oh, I wouldn't exclusively cook and eat veggie food if a DC wanted to be veggie - but I would cook mainly veggie and a couple of meals where I could have meat and they could have a veggie option instead. I cook mainly veggie at home anyway for DP.

Yes, that's broadly what we do.

I think it's completely unreasonable to forbid all discussion of vegetarianism simply because you want your children to eat meat. The grown-up thing to do would be to allow them to explore the ethical ideas on both sides and make up their own minds. Or do you want to raise your kinds to be robotic automatons who just do whatever they are told?

Ok, so, disclaimer first. I always buy free-range eggs, usually organic and from named farms (ie those posh ones from the supermarket that have a little story about the farm on the side of the box). I used to buy eggs from farmers' markets, but then realised that of course you have no guarantees at all. Plus I'm pregnant at the moment, so I want to ensure the chickens have been vaccinated against salmonella, and many farmers' market eggs aren't lion marked.

While it would be nice to believe that all eggs labelled "free-range" come from happy hens who have loads of room to roam and peck and roost etc, I know that in many cases, free-range just means they are raised in a massive barn with some access to the outdoors through a couple of hatches in the walls. So can someone tell me please a) what is the real difference between these free-range eggs and eggs from barn hens, and b) how can I ensure I buy the most ethically produced eggs? What should I be looking for? I have looked at the RSPCA etc websites and to be honest they're not that much help. Thanks!

Please don't tell me not to eat eggs... I love them too much.

alis, fair play to you managing to cook for a vegan with nut allergy!