To go ahead and feed my vegetarian kids meat?

[QueenEagle]

To clarify:

I am meat eater, dh is strict, strict vegetarian. We agreed when I was pregnant with our first that baby would eat fish and chicken.

One way or another I was overruled since and both our 2 kids have been veggie as dh couldn't face them having meat or animal products until they were of an age to decide for themselves.

They are 4.5 and 2.5 and their diets consist mainly of a processed frozen Quorn product such as sausages, Quorn chicken kiev sttyle thing, or similar with potatoes/pasta and veg. As often as time constraints allow, I make veggie shepherds pie or lasagne from scratch (ish).

Anyway, increasingly I wish to feed them good quality meat and I do struggle for inspiration for veggie dishes; in short I am getting quite tired of them being veggie because of dh's wishes whilst mine are disregarded.

Our relationship is at a very bad point right now and I suspect dh would see this as me trying to have a go at him. My older 3 kids have been veggie by choice for the last 4 years (dh and me been 2gether for 6). However dd has recently started eating meat again and tbh it's been lovely having a fellow meat eater in the house, and being able to do hearty beef casseroles and pork chops etc for someone other than myself.

If you have stuck reading this through that load of old ramblings, thank - any advice? What should I do?

This is a really tough one.

I totally get your viewpoint - but why after all this time are you unhappy with it?? Is this more about your relationship with DH as opposed to not feeding your kids meat?

Overall I would say - continue to cook meat dishes for you and DD, if there ever comes a time when your younger two ask for some - explain that it is meat, but that if they still want some, then they can.

Hello there, Queenie. My very first thread on mumsnet went along these lines, although I was worried about the future because I was at the time pregnant. My husband is a very strict vegetarian, with no fish like the nice pretend vegetarians eat. (I talked a bit like this on that first thread and was accused of trolling and abusing my husband, but hey ho.)

From the beginning of our relationship, I've eaten veggie with him in the evenings. Meat freaks him out. Meat cooking freaks him out. He doesn't want me to cook meat if he's in the house. The only meat I get is from lunchtime sandwiches, take outs, and I can't even really go to restaurants because he always dicks on about there being no choice for vegetarians, to which I always reply 'you have chosen to eat food that doesn't contain the food most people eat, how many choices can they provide for you'? It's an irksome arrangement, because I believe it's hard to be healthy without eating fish, and we eat a lot of cheese and pasta and I'm a couple of pounds heavier than I was before I met him. And whereas you can flash-fry a piece of fish and serve it with vegetables, edible veggie food seems to take hours, all the chopping and cooking. So I started to worry about all this when I got knocked up.

I am now weaning my 8 month old and I make lentil dishes, chicken dishes and fish dishes when he's out at work. It's all stored in the freezer along with the communal frozen stuff. I try to use pans he doesn't use, as he believes the pans will be tainted by the meat. Contaminated, maybe. Whatever. He's quite happy watching me feed it to the baby.

But as the weaning becomes all our meals together, I'm faced with a choice. Feed the child full meat meal at between 5 and 6 and eat with him later? Make a big vegetarian thing and eat it with him later, giving the kid a bit of that and a bit of chicken breast? or just give it to the kid without the bit of chicken breast? And what do I do about fish, the hardest smell to get out of a house, in the dead of winter, if I want my kid to have proper fish meals without making him physically sick?

It's really hard!

My best friend's whole family eats meat. She says she eats with neither her children nor her husband. Kids eat at 6, she eats 7-8, husband eats when he gets in at 9. And they all eat different things, she says, because her husband also cooks a big plate of pasta and she prefers a salad. Isn't that crazy? So you can have weird arrangements even without the meat thing.

You'd think that everyone would just say live and let live in my arrangement, but I know meat really freaks him out, so it's not that easy. He's not a vegetarian for ethical reasons, or at least he pretends not to be. I had to eat his mum's roast beef - the reason he gives for being a veggie is her cooking - and I saw what he meant. I had to hide it under sticks of broccoli and almost gagged all the way through the meal. 16 years of that might well put you off the food that had parents.

So my plan is basically to stick with the arrangement we have, press meat and fish on the kid for lunchtime food and lean towards veggie when he's around - not to hide it from him, but to not freak him out. When we all eat together, I'm hoping the kid will like the sometimes-a-bit-horrible veggie food I'm prepared to eat, and if she doesn't, I'll make her something else first. She can choose what she wants in time. But neither he nor I like the meat substitutes like Quorn, we go for the naturally meatless meals like Italian food or whatshername Elliot. I'm a bit suspicious of Quorn, as I am any very processed food.

(My husband is an annoying jackass, though, as he won't eat aubergine or halloumi, and it is devilishly hard to make substantial tasty veggie food when you're steering clear of both of these.)

I've been typing for ages, I fear that when I press post this will be the longest post of ALL TIME.

lol, sorry but bollocks to the drooling over bacon post. (I'm NOT a strict veggie in any sense of the word, this is just the way I was brought up since being at 9 or so. My dad decided the family was going veggie some time around the BSE scare and because he'd done some transporting work for a meat company and was horrified at what he saw. Fair enough, we all went veggie)

The smell of bacon does not make me drool, it smells like singed flesh. I'm not militant, I will cook meat for my dp, even had my hand up a turkey's arse at christmas. I don't care what anyone chooses to eat in fact, but meat to me equals muscle fibres, blood, enzymes, skin, follicles and abscesses etc. It's just the way I feel, I can't get excited about it. It'd be as difficult to pop a piece of chicken in my mouth as it would be to pop a piece of roasted human in there!

As for feeding your kids meat, I'd assess your reasons for doing so. I'm not saying it's bad to eat meat, I have no opinion other than it would hurt your other half because he would see it as you "contaminating" them with the above list of lovelies. As someone else said, if you're having to cook like this for the older three and your dh, why can't you continue doing so for the younger ones too?

I can understand your concerns about their nutrition don't get me wrong. But quorn isn't bad for a processed product, it's lower in fat than meat, contains iron, B12 and Zinc, and certainly better than what a lot of people feed their kids on a daily basis. You haven't mentioned feeding them many veg/pulse based dishes, which are more important nutritionally than meat ones, can't you try to improve their nutrition that way too? That way you can avoid the processed stuff so much but still feel confident they're getting a good balance of nutrients.

you are all so reasonable. i threatened to divorce dh when he pondered being vegetarian.

have some pork scratchings and try and get a SOH

Gosh you're a charmer aren't you?

plenty more where that little gem came from, I can assure you, sweetheart

Wow and are they all so original?

God why am I getting into this discussion? I don't care that much!

shall we stop this now?

I'm off to bed
goodnight

We only eat happy meat in this house. Meat from the farmers' market where I can ask the farmer exactly where it came from, what it's had added and how it was killed.

Bit more expensive but my God, it's worth it for the glorious, glorious taste...mmm...oh yeah, and the ethical smugness.

(I was a veggie for 15 years by the way, then when got pregnant had craving for huge steak and never looked back)

I don't see why you're resorting to quorn and meat substitutes, though. I'm veggie and so is DD and she's only ever eaten a quorn sausage once, the rest of the time we do pulse and nut based meals, tofu, curries and oriental style dishes, as well as more banal recipes such as pasta, omelettes etc.

If you're bored with cooking the same things then maybe you should buy a recipe book before giving meat, as now is not the time if you're having problems with your relationship. A committed veggie would consider it an unforgivable insult and you may damage your relationship beyond repair.

PS. The smell of bacon and pork in general makes me heeeave, so there's no way bacon butties would ever tempt me back. I had to move out of one flat because of a flatmate's sausage addiction - the whole kitchen was ingrained with rancid lard, not a pleasant aroma when eating your breakfast [vomit emoticon]

QueenEagle, if you did change the dc's diets, be honest, would there be an element of "trying to have a go" at dh involved?

I strongly think you should discuss and agree any major changes like this before going ahead.

FWIW: I am vegetarian, dh eats - umm, anything and very much enjoys my veggie cooking - and ds has gradually been introduced to fish and meat (he is 21mo) but largely eats as I do (currently SAHM). Yet as parents we could equally have agreed that ds be raised on a vegetarian diet (and indeed did during preg); but it has just evolved this way. For goodness sake don't let food become a battle ground which might have later consequences. Good luck with your negotiations x

(And - SW: ugh to bacon butty! )

I second Brangelina's post and rarely buy substitutes. QE, I know you are not veggie but you might enjoy veggie food yourself if you experiment beyond the Quorn products - erm, I mean that in a totally supportive way x

My husband claimed at an early stage of our relationship that bacon was the one meat he didn't mind the smell of when it was cooking, so I did have a bit of a ha haa, this'll get him hope about it. The hope was unfounded. He is 100% untempted by bacon.

However the weird thing was when I brought back a hamburger with his portabello burger from the Gourmet Burger Kitchen this summer and he suddenly said about mine, 'God, that smells delicious' and admitted that when he'd weaned himself off meat, he'd carried on going to McDonalds for hamburgers. As far as I can see, the purely ethical veggies are much more likely to be tempted back, so they're double the good husbands to have because a) they may crack because they don't hate the taste and b) they have ethics.

Suzywong I did think you were rude several times but I overreacted, sorry. Am hormonal. Sleep well.

There are buckets of really god veggie cook books out there so have a go. Also if you can find a vegetarian cafe to visit it might give you some inspiration.
The other reason to not feed them meat on the sly is it can play havoc with your digestion if you are not use to it. I found this when switching from eating only vegetarian food for a couple of years back to eating meat.

they are your kids too. the fish chicken comprimise sounds a good one.

does he know what comprimise is?

I was veggie for 16 years and DH cooking bacon was definitely my DOWNFALL.

Anyway, QueenEagle,

• Get your DH to do more of the cooking.
• Don't see that a bolt thru the brain is that bad a way to die (how most cows die), or a quick snap of/axe on the neck (traditional way to kill poultry). I know that it can be done "wrong" (see discussion of wrong ways to kill pigs by Temple Grandin), but that's the point of buying quality meat, you know they tried hard to treat the animals well and kill them humanely. Do your DH's videos show only the Halal/Kosher way or something?
• I guess you're not vegan? Why is it okay to support an industry that separates 3 day old calves from their mothers, but not one that uses a stun gun to kill cattle instantaneously? Free range Beef cows are treated MUCH better than dairy ones.
• I think your child should be able to choose for themselves what they like and don't like.

I've been (ovo-lacto) vegetarian for the best part of 15 years, dh eats meat, most of the time we live as veggies (cheaper, more convenient, we like lots of veggie recipes), and we give ds meat occasionally, or rather dh does. We hardly ever eat meat substitutes. This is our compromise. Tbh I can imagine I might, at some point, fall by the wayside, but only for fish and possibly chicken. I feel very strongly that it is unhealthy and wasteful to eat meat daily, but had no real arguments as to why ds should not at least try (organic) meat occasionally.

If your dh is the driving force behind the vegetatrianism, he should be doing as much of the cooking as is practicable. dh is the main cook in our household, but mainly because he enjoys cooking more than I do (and is in fact a better cook, although I'm not bad).

I have always been vegetarian and my dcs are vegetarian too. My dh eats meat. Luckily for me he has never opposed my decision to bring them up as vegetarians. Yes, ultimately they might decide to eat meat (when they're old enough to cook it for themselves obviously), but I really don't think they will.

My sister, who also grew up vegetarian, has a husband who disagreed with their children being vegetarian, but they have compromised on them eating fish.

You have to bring up your children as you both see fit. If you were happy with the arrangement before, it does seem that your worsening relationship with your husband could be more the cause of this.

Does your dh ever do the cooking?

I spent many veggie years dreaming of ham sandwiches. My vegan sister dreamed of bacon ones.

You weem to be doing all the cooking. In which case you cook what you want, IMO. When he cooks, they get veggie food.

All I can say is that I've been vegetarian for most of my life and that's how I've brought up my children. Had DH gone behind my back and fed them meat when they were little I'd have left him, since that would have shown a total lack of respect for something I feel strongly about.

Haven't read whole thread, but in response to the OP, I am sorry but I don't think you can compare your wishes being overruled here with your dh's wishes being overruled. Vegetarians usually have a strong ethical belief that it is wrong to eat meat and so it would be extremely hard for them to accept their children being served meat. I presume you don't have a strong ethical belief that human beings MUST eat meat? I presume seeing your children eating vegetarian food doesn't distress you, make you feel ill or unhappy or morally compromised?

It sounds to me as if you might be using this to have a go at dp. I can't imagine any reason for showing such little respect for your partner's moral beliefs. I think he already shows some forbearance in living with someone who eats and cooks meat in the house and tolerating meat being served at the table - I couldn't.

Oh my other thought was - learn to cook decent vegetarian food - why not?. It isn't hard and there's no need to be serving processed quorn stuff all the time if that isn't what you want the children to be eating.

Have only skimmed hte thread et etc.

dh was a vegetarian until recently (now eats fish). When I was expecting dd I said as I would be be doing the majority of the cooking and childcare, then dd would eat whatever I decided. When he cooked, he could decide.