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.

@Pumpkinsquash Ethiopian food, you can have injera which is like a vinegary crepe which you use to pick up your food which is often lentil and bean based, some sweet, some spicy - all delicious! I really want it now... there's a lovely one called Massawa on Highgate Hill - platter for 2, £20 so you can try everything.

Great post, Madhair. I wonder how many children are being brought up to think it's OK to fuss or turn their noses up at a tea their grandparents are treating them to? I'd have been put firmly in my place if I'd tried anything like that as a child; then again, it would never have occurred to me to be so ungrateful, which I suppose I have to put down to my parents not priming me in advance that I probably wouldn't like things or would need to eat something different.

What a massive non issue, the kids eat things like houmous at home what's the big deal?
As a veggie trying to be far more vegan I fail to understand why people can't ever feed their kids a veggie or vegan option. It's like the label puts them off something that ordinarily they'd just get on with eating. Madness.

A grandma would love to share a birthday afternoon tea with her DD and dgc. Being vegan, she often doesn't get opportunity to have a choice of things she can eat and enjoy eating. It's her birthday, so she chooses something that she'll enjoy. Something she knows her DD and dgc will be fine with, because it is food. With cake. But her DD isn't fine with it, that's the whole point. The DD isn't trying to stop her mother having her choice of food, having a meat option for meat eaters won't restrict the OPs choice at all.

I had a 5 year old fussy eater, and while I would absolutely support anyone's choice to eat out for a celebration meal wherever they wanted to, i would either have fed him beforehand, brought another option for him, or dropped in for a very limited period at a venue / event where I knew none of his very limited food options would be available.

Tbh, I would probably have done that even if an 'apparently suitable' food option HAD been available, because one element of his fussiness (linked to long-lasting digestive issues following a serious bout of illness, and then to extreme anxiety, which at that age showed itself as a stutter and by a few months later led to selective mutism) was that he only ate food prepared by 'trusted providers'.

So however 'mainstream' vegan food such as hummus is, as the parent of a fussy eater (he's now an omnivorous teen, but still doesn't eat hummus) I would be negotiating with or declining the invitation from the OP, on the grounds that while well-fed and well-entertained 5 year olds are a pleasure to be around, hungry and anxious 5 year olds, especially those who feel that their fear of foodstuffs is disapproved of [yes, i am looking at you, FiL] are not.

having a meat option for meat eaters won't restrict the OPs choice at all

No, but it would mean the OP paying for meat items that she's not comfortable with paying for. From the sounds of it, the CD WILL be fine with it; it's the DD kicking up a fuss about how they simply must have ham and cheese. She's ungracious, ungrateful and thoughtless at best, and unfortunately she's modelling that for her children.

cantkeep, but these children AREN'T fussy; or at least, they have form for eating vegan sandwiches.

It's one thing inviting children to your home where you are going to be the one preparing the food and therefore the expectation would be that it would be vegan.

Inviting children to a restaurant/cafe/tea shop and demanding that they eat vegan because you don't approve of meat is quite another.

If the OP wants to eat vegan then she should crack on. Expecting that the DC eat vegan when there are other options available is incredibly unreasonable.

Afternoon tea is not an a la carte menu. Its effectively a small buffet. Even if the OP went against her beliefs and ordered the meat afternoon tea (thereby not being able to choose much herself) there is no guarantee that magic ham sandwiches would be included.

Why is this so hard for people to understand? This isn't a case of ordering rounds of sandwiches its a small buffet where you eat what you want from a set range.

IMO it's not so much about the lack of ham sandwiches but the lack of anything decent e.g. Afternoon tea is supposed to be about scones and cakes and so on. If it was a vegan meal it would be entirely possible to make something vegan without it even needing to be announced that it was vegan iyswim. With afternoon tea you don't have that option because cake and scones and things afternoon tea-like just aren't vegan type food so if you try to compromise on those it is immediately noticeable.

Lover, it's perfectly possible, and in fact quite common now, to make vegan cakes and other afternoon tea items. How else would a place that offers vegan afternoon tea work?

What a very peculiar post.

With afternoon tea you don't have that option because cake and scones and things afternoon tea-like just aren't vegan type food

Its entirely about the ham sandwich.

Do you honestly believe that vegans don't have cakes and scones??

Or do you assume they must be rubbish because they are vegan?

They absolutely will be of a different taste because they're vegan.

Vegans have acquired that taste due to the fact they are vegan. But omnivores would not.

In fact over the years there have been multiple posts from previous vegans who will admit that e.g. Bread, cakes etc just aren't the same. But if those are your food preferences then it's not an issue, however it's unreasonable to make others adhere to your food preferences outside of your home.

Would I be reasonable to invite a vegan to a steakhouse for dinner?

They absolutely will be of a different taste because they're vegan. Vegans have acquired that taste due to the fact they are vegan. But omnivores would not

And 'different' must mean horrible? I suggest you ask @BertrandRussell for her recipe for chocolate cake.

Or Nigella Lawson who also has an amazing vegan chocolate cake recipe. I'm no baker but I've never had anyone recognise it as anything other than good cake.

Although obviously they must be weird exceptions I suppose

They absolutely will be of a different taste because they're vegan.

Vegans have acquired that taste due to the fact they are vegan What possesses people to come out with such confidently stated nonsense?

I'm an omnivore and have come across many vegan cakes and bakes that are as good as, sometimes better than, non-vegan ones. Are you writing from the 1970s?

This all feels very 70s, back then people were scared of "foreign food" like spaghetti.

I can’t believe some of the responses here. Yes, vegan cake and bread taste the same even better than the non vegan varieties. Even my omnivore SIL who lives on a beef farm agrees and she very kindly bakes bargain treats for us.

It will not harm anyone to go vegan for an afternoon, especially on the payer’s birthday.

skustew

*oops vegan not ‘bargain’

A vegan afternoon tea. Couple of sandwiches. Some sweet things. Some strawberries.

As for vegan bread being weird. Traditionally bread was vegan - yeast, flour, water and salt. Just companies started adding other stuff to it.

In fact many people going eww vegan food weird etc, would have eaten vegan bread. It’s very easy to go to the bread aisle and pick up a loaf of branded and stores own bread suitable for vegans.

Hang on- since when has vegan bread been different to....bread??? Or am I missing something? Flour, yeast, salt, water.

Ditto scones-flour, bicarb, marge, water....

Are some people perhaps confusing "vegan" and "gluten free"? I have never made an edible gluten free loaf....