Aibu to think a 2 and 5 year old will be fine being vegan for one lunch?

[mauricesom]

It's my birthday next week and I've booked somewhere nice that does a vegan high tea. I've invited my daughter (veggie) and her two sons 7 and 5.

I've booked us all for the vegan high tea but daughter says the children will need ham and cheese else they won't eat it. As I'm paying for it I don't really want to buy things I'm ethically apposed to.

Aibu to think they will be fine with hummus and carrot sandwiches for one meal? They both eat food like that at my house without any issues.

But it's not ordering for them, it's absolutely not the same as saying 'she'll have the salad', this is a tea, a selection of items, an option that is so absolutely and completely normal a thing to order I just cannot grasp the problem here. The invitation to a meal is a thoroughly separate beast to an invitation to a high tea, so much so as to be a total apples and oranges situation. They aren't being taken out for lunch nor for dinner, they're going for tea...which is absolutely always this, the only difference is that a non vegan one would have animal products in it, it doesn't naturally confer more choice, it doesn't because it's just tea a selection of finger sandwiches and pastries. There is nowhere in the world you can go for tea where you get a selection of roast beef or venison or scones.
Every single high tea ever taken has always restricted the guest's choice to - tea items! That is the bloody choice! One of the many options on offer. Of which you are obliged to have none, but even if you sit there all day being very cross there still isn't going to be a lazy Susan brought out with a chicken Kiev stuck in it.
All the cakes = many options, nobody puts ham in their cakes I presume?
Finger sandwiches for a high tea aren't traditionally guaranteed to have meat in them anyway, nobody is fainting at the cricket club because the cucumber sandwiches and selection of cakes don't have enough meat in them. Announce its vegan though and suddenly meat eaters will get hypoproteinaemia because they haven't sucked down enough animal protein in the preceeding years of their lives to last a 2 hour stretch without it, even if that 2 hours is full of actual food.
I'm not even a vegan so I'm not party to the agenda they have that starts by weakening all right thinking omnivores by stopping the constant infusion of meat we surely need, I just think people are being fucking ridiculous and are refusing to be honest about their prejudices.
High tea is so English that we were doing it before we even let hummus cross the sea. It's a very long established tradition that has always entailed a choice of teatime items. Not a choice of meals.

Thanks theresnonamesleft, that looks delicious.

I stopped eating meat except fish earlier this year and I’ve been surprised how little I’ve missed it. Meatloaf is one thing I haven’t found a good substitute for. Looking forward to trying your recipe.

If it is called the vegan high tea then presumably there is also a non vegan option? Otherwise it would just be high tea if the restaurant was vegan? So the op has ordered vegan for everyone. I'm sure they would be able to accommodate groups with mixed dietary requirements if the place isn't vegan.
It wouldn't be much of a treat for me if someone decided what I had to eat. I guess if you are the kind of person who has no/very few food dislikes it might be ok. But I like to choose my own food when eating out.

There is usually a minimum number for these things, so no, you could not just order 1 vegan high tea.

High tea is basically a set menu. When booking she has to say ok I would like the Vegan set menu. To let every have what they wanted that would mean not only a massive bill, but also a lot of wasted food.

Many high tea menus have a children's option (usually slightly less adventurous). I assume this is what their mother wants.

Even the ads are getting in on the act.

Of course they would be able to accommodate vegans and non vegans in a regular cafe. The op has said herself that she doesn't want the children having cheese and ham for ethical reasons not because it's not possible.

Maybe where you live. Where I am vegan options in cafes are always shit.

But the op isn’t going to a vegan cafe by the sound of it.

Checking in as a whole family of omnivorous hummus and carrot eaters here.

They probably wouldn't notice it was vegan anyway. I was on a course with buffet lunch provided a few weeks ago and only realised halfway through my meal that all the food was vegan, and only then because someone mentioned it. Pastries, mini pies, mini pizzas, chips etc as well as salads, with an assortment of cakes and biscuits too. Didn't hear any of the other adults on the course complaining either.

Pickachew - that's why I have an ad-blocker.

So many people are dictating what others eat at the moment, I mean I've been to wedding receptions, birthday parties, christenings, and all of them put together a buffet without even asking me what I wanted to eat that evening! Outrageous behaviour

Even if OP can choose different types of afternoon tea, and even if her daughter was paying, wouldn't it be nice on her birthday to be able to help herself to anything on the table without double checking whether she can eat it? To be able to allow the GC to eat lots of cake and she will compensate by having more sandwiches, if they all had their own plates then GC get less cake and are likely to go for cake over sandwiches anyway, and there will be more waste because she won't eat their sandwiches.

I treated my ds24 to a vegan lunch for his birthday this year. I brought my 9 and 8 year old too. They both ordered food and tried it but it was much too earthly for their palates and I had to buy them a bag of greasy chips in the chipper next door after the lunch.

I can't think of many ways to make a meal out worse than having someone dictate what I can choose

But that's the whole thing with an afternoon tea - it's a set deal.

Recently we ttavelled 100+ miles for a family member's birthday afternoon tea in a posh hotel. We were told no outside food and there was no kids menu. My DS has ASD and couldn't eat the ham sandwiches as they had mustard. I couldn't get the dairy free option as the teas were for 2 people and no one wanted to share with me. DS found the cakes too sweet. I ate the food and made myself ill as there was no other option (we were at a manor in the middle of nowhere and had only booked for afternoon tea so couldn't get the general menu).

In the end we ate our emergency stash of crisps and fruit in the car on the way home.

We still had a nice time. Our relative had a lovely birthday and enjoyed themselves, which was the main point of the day. It was their day and their choice.

After their birthday it was DS', then mine. We had buffets at home. DS and I knew which things were dairy/gluten free and/or low sugar but we didn't advertise it. Both times the buffet was absolutely demolished. I find that if we say what is dairy/gluten free/low sugar people avoid it like it's poison.

I can't believe how the addition of one word makes such a difference...

Regular OP: What is a good snack for my DC?
Regular MN: Ooh, carrot sticks and hummus is lovely, and healthy!

Vegan OP: So I've ordered a vegan lunch...
MN: OMG how dare you, that's so controlling and sounds gross and the kids will hate it and and and...

In this instance probably the only thing that may be an issue is the sandwiches (can't you or your DD just bring a couple of emergency ones in a coolbag in case they don't like what's offered?). In one of the vegan high teas served in Sydney the sandwiches are filled with:

Grilled zucchini, asparagus and hummus
Avocado, alfalfa sprout and Spanish onion

They also serve:

Spiced lentil pies
Stuffed Moroccan pumpkin flowers
Sweet potato and cashew empanada

For pudding they give you:

Chocolate cake with beetroot frosting
Salted caramel cheese slice
Mango passionfruit cake
Chocolate and hazelnut slice with lychee and raspberry
Tutti-Frutti jelly

And:

Roasted pumpkin and herb scones with soy cream and jam

I think there is plenty there that children would eat and actually the sandwiches would be my least favourite out of all of those! I'd prefer cucumber with cracked black pepper. A few of the high tea places here also offer a children's high tea, is that an option?

Nothing wrong with children being exposed to a vegan meal- it will show them something other people do, and might stop any possibility of being unkind to any they come across at school. Says a hardened meat eater.

Then if they go to a Morrissey gig in later life they are prepared, as there is no meat products on sale at his concerts.

"Nothing wrong with children being exposed to a vegan meal- it will show them something other people do, and might stop any possibility of being unkind to any they come across at school"

What, like a sort of inoculation??

This thread is insane!!!!!!!!!

Are we talking high tea or afternoon tea here?

Afternoon tea: sandwiches, cakes, scones with a pot of tea.

High tea: a meal like fish and chips with bread and butter followed by cakes plus a pot of tea.

I suspect we are talking about afternoon tea. It is vastly more popular as a day out. I don't think I've ever seen an actual High Tea advertised in modern circumstances. It's more something from the Enid Blyton era.

It's just that it's very common for people to incorrectly call Afternoon Tea High Tea, probably because AT is posh and High Tea sounds posh.

I'm vegan, DH and DC (5 and 3)
aren't and in fact the only sandwiches DC will eat are ham (sometimes marmite).

For my birthday this year, DH booked vegan afternoon tea for us all.

The sandwiches were beautiful (from memory, avocado tomato and spring onion, olive and red pepper tapenade with rocket, houmous (!) and cucumber) but DCs didn't want any of them.

However they happily ate scones with whipped coconut cream and jam, chocolate brownies, flapjack, lemon drizzle cake etc etc. They certainly weren't hungry.

YANBU that if everything is coming served together, you don't want omni sandwiches served up alongside on your beautiful platter.

Also having a good laugh at other posters' horror of "vegan food". Also known as "food".

My Irish fil used to say "tea" for the cup of tea and a cake meal and "meat tea" for the other sort. He was definitely not a vegan........

Nothing wrong with children being exposed to a vegan meal

I’m sure most children have already been exposed to meals that are unwittingly vegan.

Jacket potatoes with baked beans, tomato soup, chips, pasta with tomato or pesto sauces,

I'm all for my kids eating vegan but maybe not going to see morrisey - now that's a step too far!

Nothing wrong with children being exposed to a vegan meal- it will show them something other people do, and might stop any possibility of being unkind to any they come across at school.

This thread is hysterical. I'm assuming all the mummies lovingly giving their children hummus and carrot sticks etc are now rethinking their lives and swapping the hummus for lumps of beef for fear of going two hours without meat

I was on a course with buffet lunch provided a few weeks ago and only realised halfway through my meal that all the food was vegan.

Yes relatively recently when ordering food for workshops/long meetings we switched to ordering the vegan/veggie option as the default (to cover range of dietary requests). Mainly because whatever percentage of veggie was ordered, the meat eaters homed in on the vegan options first, leaving large both a lot of waste and the non meat eaters running short.

According to the chap running facilities no-one has yet noticed and there is far less waste.

So yes the only mistake the OP has made is to specify the category of Afternoon Tea set menu she selected.

Oh and another big 'yes' vote for Vegan Richa's recipes!