To be worried dd being vegan is an excuse not to eat?

[Donthugmeimscared]

Just that really 13yr old announced a couple of weeks ago that she is now vegan. Fair enough except she doesn't like anything, ate hardly anything before hand and now only wants to eat bare minimum like crisps or cereal with soy milk. I also have the problem that I am on a very tight budget of £40 a week for 4 of us so can't get her loads of different food. I'm trying to support her but it's really not going well.

X post.

Reading your update I’d seriously be frogmarching your daughter to the GP to have a discussion about food. Just eating veg is a typical restrictive behaviour...the kind of thing I’d do when I was anorexic. I’d occasionally have a chocolate or a biscuit and convince myself I wasn’t...could be similar to your daughter and the crisps.

Get her to watch these guys on you tube or google some of their food, they are also on insta. They have LOADS of budget recipes and something for every taste so get her to pick a few that you are happy to buy/can afford ingredients for then you can see f it’s an ethical or eating thing.

thehappypear.ie/recipe/student-dinner/

Your update is seriously worrying, take her to the doctor ASAP and you have to get her to eat. If she has an eating disorder or is on the verge then the treatment is basically food and that’s controlled by the parents.
You’ll have to do it anyway so you may as well start right away, she may be headstrong but you have to be very tough on this. Believe me I’ve learned the hard way.

You are right to be wary and I say that as the mother of a vegan teen dd.

I was a veggie anyway and so its been really easy to turn our meals vegan (although depending on what it is I will sometimes portion some of hers off before adding cheese because the rest of us dont wish to be vegan all the time too)

Could you ask for her 'help', say you support her but need some suggestions for meals and maybe do some meal prep or cooking together?

My sister became vegetarian at 16 as a cover for an eating disorder. 20 odd years later she’s still in the grip of it, and now ‘vegan’
It may be just be that she doesn’t know how to be a vegan so you could look up some recipes and cook together. Or it may well be something altogether more serious.

I would be worried too, have a last sit down and explain that you completely support her choice to be vegan but she must agree to eat balanced vegan meals. Suggest different options that you can afford, looking at recipes together etc.

If she is still not eating properly doctor ASAP.

Most crisps aren’t vegan. The only Walkers ones that are are, somewhat ironically, beef flavour. I was told this by a vegan I used to work with.

You do need to do your research and know your stuff to eat a healthy vegan diet.

Had not read your update when I posted, I agree it is worrying and you are right to be wary.

She’s wrong seren

www.veganwiki.co.uk/index.php?title=Walkers_Crisps

YY to taking action eg GP despite your headstrong daughter. She is 13, she is a child and you are the adult and this could be serious. The longer a person has disordered eating, the more entrenched it becomes. This is a situation where it is perfectly justifiable to take control of the situation and not allow your daughter to manipulate it.

Look up Anorexia and Vegan diets on the internet.

Fair enough Purpledaisies this was someone I last worked with 14 years ago so their recipe might have changed since then.

OP Foods like beans / lentils / pulses are MUCH cheaper than meat!! Where people get the idea it's an expensive diet I don't know. When I was a student I barely ever ate meat as I couldn't afford it.

OP there are a number of red flags there in terms of your dd using veganism as a cover for an eating disorder. We are currently in the thick of anorexia and orthorexia in our family and dd1 displayed all of those behaviours (she turned veggie not vegan in her case). The illness progressed very quickly once she knew we were on to it.
We are in the SE and called the Maudsley hospital directly and they were very very helpful with their advice on how to manage things at home until we could get her in for an appointment. It may be worth calling your local unit to see what their take on it may be. Do speak to your GP about it too OP.
I don’t mean to worry you but if it is a cover for an eating disorder the sooner you address it, the better the prognosis.
Feel free to PM me if you would like any more advice or you just want to talk.

Sorry OP reading my post back I sound like a complete scaremonger. Hopefully your DD just needs a bit of support in finding her feet with the vegan diet but some red flags are there and it’s well worth keeping a close eye on her and having a chat with your GP.

After your reading update I wouldn’t research vegan stuff, I would switch to how to get help for teenagers with eating disorders. I hope you can get support for her

Op sounds very worrying for you but until you decide what to do next, for meals there is a Facebook page for vegan meals to feed four under a fiver, or look up cheap vegan meals. One I do all the time: Boiled Brocolli, couscous or rice with soya sauce or any sauce she likes.And some fried tofu. Very simple to make a delicious. You can get couscous in the supermarket, tesco def have it and tofu is cheaper in the Asian stores if there is one near you.