to worry about my teenage daughter going vegan?

[Meechimoo]

She's 14.
She decided to go veggie about a month ago.
She now wants to cut out all animal products and be vegan.
I've had long long conversations about this with her and told her that I'm very concerned about it. I'm worried she'll end up with poor nutrition and get rickets or something. I'm worried she won't get enough calories from a vegan diet.
But she's 14, almost 15, and hellbent on being vegan. The way I look at it, I can't force feed her dairy, can I?

My husband, her Dad, is dead against it because he thinks this is a control thing and we shouldn't allow her to dictate this sort of thing. And he's worried at additional cost to our food bill if we have to get her supplements, soya milk, vegan cheese etc.
Are there any vegan mumsnetters with vegan teens out there? How do you do it? Is it ok? Are they healthy and enough energy? Should I just go with it and support her or put our feet down and say she can remain veggie but we're not supporting her going vegan??

I don't expect you to justify yourself, cakedcrusader. My point, in the context of this thread, is that this is a subtle issue and my advice is that anyone looking after a 14 year old would do well to see it as such, treat it is such, avoid black and white thinking, and entrenched polarised positions.

The individual sub-points that I have made are broadly in three categories

• nutrition of individuals

• ecological issues

-ethical issues around the ontological status of animals

And these are the ones that you don't seem to have read, rather arguing along the usual rails. It doesn't matter though because I have absolutely no desire to challenge you, or anyone, on being vegan, so please do not feel the need to justify yourself.

My overall point is only: it's not that simple so please make sure, OP, that your 14 year old has somewhere (intellectually and ethically) to go if this doesn't work out for her, and the intellectual and emotional resources to balance the very nuanced issues packed up in all this

I am almost vegan (still not quite sure if I can make the leap away from yoghurt )

I don't eat eggs, haven't drunk milk since I was about 10.

I don't eat any grains or cashews for that matter, just because you don't eat meat, it doesn't automatically follow that you will rely on lots of grain.

thread has moved on somewhat since I last posted, but CoteDAzur please educate yourself.
"what do you think happens to the male chicks born from the egg layers...?"

“Some cocks and kept around to impregnate the chicken. The rest get roasted and eaten, I presume. “

No, no the farmer does NOT grown the male chick for food FFS. The egg laying chickens and the chicken breast chickens are not the same type.

Check this out – someone is trying to develop a chicken where the females are good for laying, and the makes are good for eating. Consumer resistance to it is mentioned.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2014/feb/27/how-ethical-are-your-eggs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling

Honestly, I eat all kinds of meat and eggs and fish and I love them all, but you need to open your eyes and stop being so ignorant of farming practices CoteDAzur.

I think an astonishing amount of people would rather remain in happy ignorance as to where their food comes from when it comes to animals suffering.

I really really really don;t get the vitriol towards vegans. Towards annoying people who shove their life choices in everyone else's face, yes, but not 'vegans' as a group!

Just because they are trying to do one thing more ethically in their life. and going against the status quo it seems to get people's backs up and they get told that if they can't deal with ALL the worlds ethical problems (food miles, food scarcity, fair trade, environment etc) then they shouldn't bother with not eating animal products because they are not being virtuous in other areas.

If we all tried to do ONE thing more ethically (towards fellow humans, animals or the environment) the world would be a much better place.

GobblersKnob I often thing there should be a mandatory week in Y7 or something on food. Couple of days at a farm, couple of days at an abattoir, day at a butchers.

We need to understand where that extremely tasty steak comes from and the effort involved in getting it to our plates. Mmmmm steak (sorry vegans...)

whois - I don't know what happens in the UK, but that was the case in the couple of farms that I have visited, included one in which my family had a stake.

Male chicks were kept for about two months iirc and then turned into delicious roast chicken.

In the UK, in commercial farming, most chicks come from hatcheries. In the hatcheries, make chicks are culled after birth via several methods. They can be used for fertiliser, or if gassed while they can be fed to reptiles.

It is absolutely not common practice to keep male chicks from egg layers in the UK and grow them to feed to humans.

I am not exactly against make chicks being culled, I have reconciled it within my ethical framework. But everyone has a duty to understand the implications of their food choices.

Btw, almost 3/4 of male calves from dairy cows are actually kept for meat. I am surprised, thought it would be much less than that.

I really really really don't get the vitriol towards vegans

Those who enjoy a particular food (in this case meat) may sometimes be unable to comprehend that others dislike it, perhaps feeling that it is unnatural or weird not to like something which to them is self evidently highly palatable?

Or cant understand how other people can bear to resist something that they find compelling?
What is perceived as self denial in others makes them feel weak willed by comparison

I find meat very unappetizing, no desire to eat it at all, being vegetarian for me has nothing to do with self denial, my 'gut instinct' is to not eat flesh.

Some people seem to regard it as a personal affront that other people make different life choices. Vegans aren't actually exempt from that phenomenon - there are a very small number of irritating confrontational twats who berate meat eaters for their choices. There are however far more people 'on the other side' (not that there are sides) just by virtue of the numbers game. And they can make life unbearable. I've just come back from a conference where 3 or 4 people (out of over 300) saw it as their mission to seek me out at every meal and make my life a misery. Not only did they cause me actual distress, they hugely embarrassed many of the other meat eaters there. I don't think they are representational of meat eaters as a whole though, and I just hope that any meat eaters who encounter a similarly twatty vegan in the future remember that that person doesn't represent all vegans.

In my last job, toward the end I chose to sit out of work all-day-conference lunches. I pretended I had an appointment or I wasn't hungry (and ate my own food in the car).

The reason being, I got really, really exasperated with meat eaters mulling over my plate , saying 'Eeew that looks gross' 'What do you normally eat', one even put his fork into my food wriggled it about and said 'Look, It's alive!' and another picked up a slab of meat from their plate and waved it under my nose.
(All happened over time at different business lunches).

I am not a preachy vegan. It just comes up in conversation and people I worked with knew-and they took it upon themselves to be rude and make fun out of it. I resisted saying things like 'Can you all just fuck off and let me eat my fucking lunch?!' but I did get fed up with it.

Vegan/vegetarians have a reputation for being preachy and annoying, but in my experience there's very few who are, and there's just as many meat eaters who are proportionally. But as rabbit says, there are many more of them.

I'm rather close to 50 and have been vegetarian all my life, as a child I was regarded as an oddity, I don't think there were any other vegetarians in my school until I was say 15 or 16.
I dont recall anyone every being horrid about it, mostly just the incredulous 'but what do you eat for christmas/sunday dinner'

I suppose if anything I've tended to be apologetic about it, as in 'sorry for being awkward & fussy', I think mostly people who know me see me as a bit peculiar and just leave me to get on with it.
Overwhelmingly family, friends, partners have all been meat eaters, one of my children is vege, the other isnt, I tried not to influence them either way

I've never ever tried to convert anyone or been remotely critical of meat eating (internet discussion aside) I regard meat as toxic and polluting on a physical and spiritual level, I'm very careful with my diet and there is no way I'd poison myself with it.

But if other people want to eat it I don't much care, their health is not my concern

If she wants to be vegan then she can do her own shopping and prepare her own food. She'll probaby soon get fed up with this. It's a very restrictive diet.

vivienne veganism is much more than a diet in many cases, including the OP's one.

And even as a diet, it isn't restrictive.

I went vegan at 16, I didn't get fed up of it and that was back when there were far fewer options.

I have to say I don't understand why "you have to control" this, she's almost 15, another 1-3 years and you'll have little visibility let alone control. My daughter (3.5!) is a a natural vegetarian, she hates all meat, has already worked out the link between things with faces and meat and declared it "mean' to eat animals. Some well meaning family and friends have said I should take control but I disagree, she eats a very healthy balanced and calorificaly plentiful diet. She currently eats eggs because she can't see them (cakes etc) and only recently started eating dairy due to a baby allergy but I'm fully prepared for her to go full vegan as soon as she develops the requisite understanding and that's fine. Of course if your dd shows any sign of an eating disorder then that's another matter but I would say vegan ism is not a reason to suspect disordered eating!

No it's not restrictive at all. Most vegans eat a far wider variety of food than most meat eaters.

I guess it is restrictive in the sense of not being 'mainstream' it can be difficult to fit in because veganism is seen as unconventional.

The majority base their menu's around meat, it's often seen as the natural centerpiece or main 'point' of a meal.

In terms of the variety of food that can be eaten, as Rabbit says, it's not at all restrictive

I would advise teaching her to have a thick skin! Like other vegans have mentioned on here, I regularly feel humiliated at work lunches and dinners when I get questioned about things such as defleeing my pet, sitting on a leather chair at the table or eating unsuspecting spiders in my sleep, to the general amusement of the group. I now eat vegetarian at weddings and conferences to avoid the hassle.

Sounds a bit pathetic right? I eat what I don't want to eat and go against my beliefs to keep meat eaters happy. But it's because I am actually very shy and hate being the centre of attention and butt of jokes.

Equip her with the confidence she needs to stick up for her views and beliefs and you've won half the battle, the nutritional side can be learnt from a bit of in-depth research and common sense.

But I understood it was quite a restrictive diet but I think it is a commendable choice for an adult who makes it in view of the all the farming issues. So I replied as I did not because I didn't approve but because it's all very well for 14 year olds to make such choices but the burden usually falls on the parent to prepare and plan the meals and shop for the different food and then worry the child is getting all the vitamins and minerals they need.

Ooh p.s. In terms of cost, because many dairy replacements are longlife you can often get them really cheap on approved foods when they are short dated (best before not use by) or the packaging had changed! Between that and the fact dd's favourite meal on earth is either dhal with chapatti or chickpea bean burgers with wedges (both of which i craftily hide loads of veg in) I find her diet to be the cheapest in the family!

I often thing there should be a mandatory week in Y7 or something on food.

Yep. There is at the minute. It's called food to fork and it's sponsored by Tesco. Look out for a bunch of DCs near you wearing high-ves vests staring mournfully at the deli counter... Oh and also advertising on a popular parenting website