School residential vegetarian/vegan only

[vgp1234]

My child had really been looking forward to their year 6 residential, but a new head has joined and had changed the format somewhat.

They have now booked a Sustainability Centre in Hampshire, which only caters for vegetarians and vegans. My child is not a vegetarian or vegan, and across the cohort of year 5 and 6 only one child is vegetarian.

While I appreciate that there is a view that they can go 5 days without meat and they should just suck it up, I find it incredibly frustrating that you would not ask a vegetarian or vegan child to suck it up and eat meat for 5 days. So I don't understand why we do not treat both dietary preferences with equal measure.

The new head is very keen on government guidance, and has changed our lunch menu to comply with the current guidance for school lunches which is that 3 days should include meat or fish (previously we had a meat and vegetarian/vegan option every day). However it seems this guidance only applies on the school site, so you can disregard it at a residential. While they are within their rights to do this, it does seem like quite a contradiction.

I have tried speaking to the Sustainability centre directly but they were very inflexible and just stated it is a against their ethos (may I add that they also offer a day trip at a cost to visit a working farm, who rear animals for meat, so their ethos does not run all that deep). This really goes against my ethos as not only do I think you should treat all groups equally, I can't help but feel that this is forcing their ideas on children verses allowing them free choice and the ability to hear both viewpoints (meat is unsustainable/sustainable) and make their own decision.

In all honesty I'm quite perplexed as to why the school choose the venue when it would clearly be controversial, as this is quite a personal choice for parents and the cohort has so few in it that have this dietary preference.

I'm sure some people will not agree with me, and I am open to your opinions as I'm a big believer in hearing both sides of the argument and our ability to think critically for ourselves and not be told what to think (I want this for my child too).

I do plan to send the school an email initially and request that they provide a rounded menu including meat. But I'd really appreciate any advice on how to word this appropriately as I'm quite upset by it, and I'd prefer to send a well worded email than an emotional one.

get down off that horse of yours

What an odd reaction. Unintentionally (I expect) proving the point 😆

If you were reading you would see that is exactly as I said earlier when I said that mine is vegetarian.

I am genuinely very surprised that there are so many ND people who seem to eat only meat when it is well known that ND people like predictable food and textures in general, and meat is not that. I have many ND people and children in my family and those that eat meat will only eat processed meat which is the same every time eg chicken nuggets. And those children would have issues with residential trip food no matter whether it was vegetarian or not.

Oh, sorry. Mainly what I have read, but since this is not my area of expertise I won't now know the sources. Also, general extrapolation of what is likely to happen if e.g. Europe ceased to use animal husbandry, which has created the landscape and ecology - mainly climate sites, I think.
Thank you for asking, though. Sorry to be no help. Had it been Mary Tudor or Scots reivers I would have been more help.
Should have added observation in India, where cow sanctuaries exist for unwanted cows which cannot be slaughtered as they are sacred to Hindus, but are past usefulness i.e. to produce milk. They are truly saddening - not that I wish to slaughter the cows either, but because in many states most are vegetarian and only keep animals for milk (a huge part of the diet) there are always surplus cows.

My daughter is autistic and eats almost any kind of meat. She can't cope with the smell of 99% of cheese (cheddar and mozzarella only) or anything - as she says 'slimy' which means most things in a sauce. Not a fan of too much stuff mixed together so wouldn't touch lasagna for example. So plenty of restrictions but she will happily eat any kind of salami or chicken or sausages and loves a giant steak.

I have sympathy with you OP - it winds me up that so often I go on events where the lunch is purely vegetarian with weird variations on quiche (including spinach which I hate) or variations on tofu (I also hate this - don't like the squeaky texture) crunchy toppings to make up for the lack of texture in the food (no good for us who no longer have all our own teeth & wear plates & dentures) & I find myself longing for a good old fashioned ham sandwich.

When my late mother & me used to go to Jane Austen Society meetings, we would pretend that we had some urgent shopping to do, skip the lunch that was part of our fee & head for the nearest café for a 'proper' lunch. 😂

Reminds me if this :

A new food is quite possibly going to upset a digestive system. Particularly if it's a UPF (which is all that mass catering of meat for children will be, it wouldn't be proper roast chicken or lamb chops) that they're not used to eating.

I'm a meat eater myself, but forcing meat upon a child who has never eaten it is not the same thing as just upping the amount of veg that a meat eater eats for a few days.

I genuinely believe all year 6 children should get to visit an abattoir as part of their education. Maybe this could be incorporated into the trip too ?

No problem. Thanks anyway.

I would just keep your kid at home. I have tried eating veggie and after a few days I start blacking out at the tops of stairs.

What ever is wrong with letting children experience and embrace new things?

Honestly, I think you are far too invested in this. Contacting the centre where your child is going ahead of time? Providing stats on the dietary requirements of every child in the year group? How do you know one of the children hasn’t recently become vegan or vegetarian?

Send your child or don’t send them on the trip, but I think you need to back off.

That's very concerning. Did you see a doctor, because this isn't the kind of response that anyone would expect from a healthy body.

How terrible that the sudden onset anaemia kicks in just at the point of being at the top of stairs! That's unbelievable bad luck.

I don't agree, I'm afraid. My dd would have found it way too upsetting at that age.

I find it incredibly frustrating that you would not ask a vegetarian or vegan child to suck it up and eat meat for 5 days

As many others have pointed out, you’re being absolutely ridiculous here.

Also, believe what you like, but meat eating the way we do it IS unsustainable.

Why is your child “gutted” to have five days off? That’s just bizarre. He can eat tomato pasta and dhal and pizza etc for five days! No one needs to eat meat every day, we didn’t evolve that way, and that’s kind of why we’re in this unsustainable meat mess.

If you so desperately want to stuff him full of chicken, keep him home.

I can’t understand why this would ruin his whole trip!! So weird!

What do you think is going to happen to your child if they eat omelette / baked potato with beans and cheese / pizza etc etc for five days?! It’s FIVE days! You are making it an issue not your child.

And you know perfectly well that it’s not the same as forcing a vegetarian child to eat meat. Don’t be intentionally obtuse.

This post reminds me of the people that used to get het up about 'black lives matter' just missing the point entirely.

@vgp1234 your child may learn more about food provenance, Co2 emissions from farming and eating a cheaper diet. Not bad life lessons!

The school's new head sounds very eco-friendly, bravo!

It's the venue not the school that is vegetarian.

And I'm quite sure they won't be just eating salads.

Your child will probably get fed tomato pasta, pizza, chips., jacket potatoes. Year six residentials tend to be quite carb heavy to compensate for all the exercise

And you have the option not to attend.

Some children won't have been away from their families before. When my friend was homesick on trips, not having familiar-ish food would exacerbate it a lot, she'd get panicky about not having eaten, and she'd be hungry so couldn't sleep.

Venues often do boring but safe foods to be sure. And maybe this place are - Margherita pizza and pick your own salad bits, tomato soup and bread, jacket potato with cheese and beans. That's why I said op should look at the menus. It may be absolutely fine.

At secondary trips they should already be confident being away and I'd say go for it with the trying new things.

In the final year of primary school we were taken to the local chicken factory. We saw the hatchery, the barns where the chicks were grown and adult chickens being killed and processed on an industrial scale.

Having said that that, I was brought up on a farm, the only chicken that I ate at home was chickens that had been produced by us. We knew that the bullocks in the fields were destined for market & then the table and had no issue with that. As a teen I used to buy orphan lambs from a local sheep farmer. I'd bottle feed them on goats milk (I had 4 goats who tend to lactate for 2 years before needing to give birth again which is longer than dairy cows who need to give birth every year). The orphan lambs would be kept in a spare stable & the yard fairly close to the house (if they were very small or poorly, we would put them in a playpen close to the Aga in the kitchen) until weaned & moved into a field & brought into the stable at night until they either went off to market for meat, or often the ewes would be sold back to the original farmer at a profit.

But this was over 50 years ago. The chickens ran around the orchard where they scratched around and have a good chicken life, the bullocks were bought as weaned calves at market & spent their time in fields eating grass and having a good life.

I only buy meat from local butchers where I know where the meat comes from because that way I know that the animal has had a good life before it comes to my table.

We tend to forget that the British landscape is the way it is because of hundreds of years of farming. Without sheep, cattle and horses to eat it our moors & places like the South Downs would be over-run with scrub, brambles etc and much of our wildlife depends on the land being managed. We would also need to use more artificial fertilisers.

I would be asking what the vegan/ veggie menu is.

Early studies indicate more people are allergic to quorn than any other allergen. Including peanuts, nuts, dairy - all the common allergens.

I myself am allergic. The problem with this allergen specifically is it increases in severity rapidly. So you may not be allergic initially. But if you are it only gets worse.

As this is an allergen which people have little knowledge of; even take pride in tricking people to eat it. It is a concern.

But even if they served meat it might not be burgers, or anything the child wants.

That is a wildly abnormal reaction.