To think vegetarian dd is being unreasonable?

[Abergavenny]

A few weeks ago, Dd aged 14 declared that she is now a vegetarian. It’s a bit of a hassle, given that the rest of us (2 parents + 2 siblings) all eat meat, but I’m getting the hang of it i.e. doing quorn chicken for her while doing normal chicken for the rest of us.

Yesterday, however, she refused to eat what I’d made her - I’d done a tomato pasta bake with meatballs, and put veggie meatballs in at one end for her. But she refused to eat it because it had been cooked in the same dish as the meat.

AIBU to think she’s being unreasonably precious given that she ate meat for 13 and a bit years before this?

And is it unreasonable to refuse to cook her anything else, and tell her she either eats veggie options cooked in the same pan as meat or makes her own meal?

I became veggie at 14. Thank goodness my Mum supported me enough to help me. 30yrs later, I'm still veggie. I think you sound very ignorant tbh. I understand that vegetarianism is something you clearly don't understand (tbh it's not rocket science), but I might be a good thing if you educated yourself about why your dd has made this decision....or do you just choose to close your eyes to the cruelty involved in the meat industry? ( quiet astounding, if you don't care or know how exactly your food was produced) If you look a little deeper, you will see exactly why she has made this lifestyle choice, and good for her! Support her with this, help her. That's what us mums do, isn't it? Don't punish her for trying to do something good in the world.

Thanks for the recommendation @Mummyoflittledragon.

I hadn't heard of that one.

Op how do you think vegetarians get iron?

I'm not vegetarian but do people really have so little imagination around cooking that they can't fathom meals without meat? How boring.

Leafy green vegetables like spinach are the best source of iron.
You obviously don't respect your daughters choices, continue the way you are and you will drive her away.

And having family veggie days is a no go I’m afraid as my older dd is frequently anaemic from heavy periods so there’s no way I’m going to reduce her meat consumption to suit dd2.

I think mummy has a favourite child... Top parenting tip - at least try and pretend to love them equally.

Anyway, you plainly are not prepared to cater for your child's vegetarianism, so you will need to allow her free rein in the kitchen to make her own meals. At the moment you are passive aggressively pretending to cook for her then making totally unsuitable food. You actually sound quite nasty - are there other issues with your relationship? Do you have a Horrid Henry/Perfect Peter set up in your house? It all sounds a bit dysfunctional, based on what you have shared.

Spinach doesn't have a lot of iron. Good non-meat sources of iron are pulses, nuts and cereals.

You don't sound like you respect your DD at all, which is sad. What you tried to give her was not vegetarian so I'm not surprised she wouldn't eat it. Fair enough to get her to make her own food if you would also expect the same of the other DCs, but not fair at all to lead her to believe you are preparing a vegetarian meal for her and then not.

Gosh,if you think it is difficult to make your dd a seperate meal because she is veggie (or make one base meal,and cook the meat part separately) just be glad she doesn't have allergies!!!

Of course she should learn to cook, as should all other children in the family, given the right age. Of course it is fair for her to share the (actually rather minimal tbh, if your cooking practices aren't from the 1950s) extra faff - perhaps cook a family meal once a week. But there's something a bit vindictive and punitive about refusing to make any accommodation whatsoever. After all, eating meat every day is simply a preference too, not the law.

"convince my veg kid that something else i've provided that isn't the specific thing she asked for but is the closest i could obtain is a suitable substitute and i'll take your word for this"

This bit, @iwishicouldbelikedavidwatts which was in response to my very simple post pointing out that there are vegetarian cheese alternatives to Parmesan, as well as completely vegan substitutes. Im not asking you to take my word about anything, I was just posting a simple fact. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

Just make vegeatarian meals for everyone. You can eat what you like out of the house. Why cook 2 separate meals with chicken and quorn chicken. Just make it all with quorn.

And having family veggie days is a no go I’m afraid as my older dd is frequently anaemic from heavy periods so there’s no way I’m going to reduce her meat consumption to suit dd2*

Her anemia might be causing her heavy periods.

Give her a decent gentleiron supplement such as spatone then. She also needs to eat enough vitamin C to help absorb the iron so the right fruit and vegetables.

And support your other DD who wants to be a vegetarian. She’s your daughter not an inconvenience

What nonsense, OP! I haven't eaten meat for 30 years, and have never been anaemic despite having had really heavy periods throughout. There are plenty of veggie sources of iron and your older dd would be fine without meat two or three times a week.

I suspect that the real issue here is that you feel your dd's new moral stance against meat amounts to an implied criticism of your own eating habits. And in some ways, you're right, because she has made an ethical choice that goes against the way in which you have brought her up. That must hurt.

You don't have to agree with her reasoning, but I think you should support her in the choice that she has made, and be proud of the fact that she is thinking about ethical issues and trying to live her life according to what she believes is right.

I also went veggie at 14, and I'm so grateful to my parents for the fact that they respected my decision and supported me in it. If my dd decides to take an ethical stance against something, I hope that I will be able to respect and support her likewise.

Yabu!

The issue isn’t so much that the DD isn’t cooking her own meals - it’s that the OP offered her a dish with meat in it.

And the OP hasn’t offered the solution of letting the dd cook her own meals.

When my dcs are older, I will teach them how to cook meals and let them have some choice over what we eat. If they go veggie then they can have veggie meals - as can we all on occasion as it isn’t poison. I would find a way to either have the dcs do some of the cooking or cook the meal separately.

But I wouldn’t be an arse about it and insist that they do it all themselves. While some might think it teaches them that “morals have a cost”, it also teaches them that other people in their own family just don’t respect or support their beliefs.

It doesn’t sound like you like your daughter very much. Or respect her as a person with her own brain.

Love Mumsnet.

Vegetarians are being unreasonable to not want to eat food with meat in it.

Meat eaters will die if they eat a meal without meat in it.

Iron tablets are your friends, op. I went anaemic at 14 due to heavy periods combined with vegetarianism and was given iron supplements.

I eat meat again now but as a family we treat meat as a luxury, so only eat it a couple of times a week, and always the best local quality we can source.

IMO plant-based diets are the best and it might be to your family’s benefit to switch to less meat. I highly recommend Fearnley-Whttinstall’s Veg Everyday book.

A typical menu in our house would be:

Sweet potato wedges with salad
Roasted Butternut squash cubes with pearl barley and salad
Couscous or quinoa with roasted vegetables
Creamy mushrooms on brioche toast
Homemade vegetable soup with homemade bread

On days that the dds don’t want what dh and I are having, I’ll do mac n cheese, fishfingers, sausages, pesto pasta or pizza with salad / vegetables.

At the weekend we may have a bacon sandwich (or three), chicken or steak.

I’m still laughing at the posters who have been vegetarians fo rthe last 30 years, have cooked for their vegetariana dcs for the last 10 etc. who say that it’s really not difficult to ‘just change the way you are cooking’.

It’s in complete opposition to threads on here where people are saying how difficult it is to learn to cook, how some people will never be able to cook etc etc

The reality is

• Cooking to cater for two different type of diet is hard (Having had to change our diet for dc allergy, I know very well it is)

• Cooking in a way you aren’t used it is hard. Going from omnivore to vegetarian is like going from cooking your normal daily meal to ask someone to cook only Chinese food. Or to do both. Just because one of your children has decided that traditional Chinese cooking is better for your health. Clearly the OP has no experience at all of vegetarian cooking somthis would be a similar mountain to climb.

After all of cooking for a child is allergic is hard, it will also be hard to cook for a vegetarian. In both case, you are removing one specific item from the diet. For me being evegetarain is like cooking for someone who is allergic to gluten or dairy. All of them are playing a big part in our diets. And hard to adapt to when you need to cater for that.

• There is a lot of ideas associated with eating. That a meal wo meat isn’t a real meal, you u can’t get all your nutrients form a vegetarian meal etc etc. And whilst I agree this is not true, it is also true that by reducing the range of what you are eating, you also need to learn to be much more careful about your diet if you do want to acheive a balanced diet. There is a reason why some vegetarian are more likely to ends up aenemic. That’s because very few people know enough about diet to be able to make a balanced vegetarian meal.

Dismissing the difficulty of cooking, learning new dishes and what is a balanced vegetarian diet isnt helping anyone, not the least the Op and her dd.

I'm not dismissing the difficulty of learning how to cook without meat or learning to balance nutritional requirements in a different way. I get that it will be a challenge for the OP, just as it was for my own mum 30+ years ago.

Ultimately, it's about attitude, I guess. My own mum was very loving and wanted to support me in the choices that I had made. I am so grateful to her for that now. She wasn't a confident cook at all, so it must have been a challenge for her, but we learned a lot together and we found our way through.

I think I would have a very different relationship with my parents as an adult now if they had been dismissive and disrespectful of the moral choices that I wanted to make as a teenager.

As things turned out, my mum eventually decided to follow me by going veggie a couple of years after I left home. She hasn't eaten meat for 25 years now either, and is probably much healthier for it!

Viva your views are very outdated
Vegetarians aren’t more likely to be anemic and it isn’t a whole new way of cooking - you can cook all the dishes you currently do just without meat and add a substitute. You can also cook amazing meals with just veg. It really isn’t hard. But I agree it requires a little thought at first.

The world should eat less red meat - both for health as it plays a role in causing all sorts of cancers and has a massive determent to the environment. It’ll be the smoking of the next generation.

Kondo cooking veggie food or for someone with allergies is a lot easier than it used to be. The resources available online are brilliant. My Facebook feed is full of great recipes from Bosh and other veggie Facebook feeds, and there are so many more really good veggie alternatives. We love the Linda McCartney sausages and burgers for example.

Although I do realise that allergies are much, much harder to cater for.

And I agree - I love my parents for respecting my choice to become veggie 25+ years ago. It was harder for them then as well as less veggie products and less ready meals etc
In return they learnt to cook healthier and eat a wider variety of food. I would have very felt unsupported if they said they wouldn’t cook for me or I had to eat meat to be a balanced diet and yes that would have affected my relationship with them a lot.

YANBU she can either make do or cook her own meals. We don’t tolerate fussy eaters in this house.

Reddington for example sounds like the kind of parent I’d be no contact with by now!