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.

As I said upthread, it’s flawed logic that comes from a rather outdated playbook of carnist ‘gotchas’ that’s been pretty comprehensively debunked over the last couple of decades.

I am old now, but I remember going on a horseriding holiday when I was about 10 or 11, and breakfast was 2-3 triangles of toast, then nothing until dinner which was not a large portion of cheap beige-type stuff.
All the kids were ravenous and raiding the tuck shop-I'd never eaten as many bars of chocolate in my entire life, and of course they don't sustain. And this was for pre-teens and young teenagers who were doing vigorous activities all day!

My parents hit the roof when I told them. My dad picked me up and asked me what I had for breakfast while there and I 'about 2-3 bits of toast' he just looked at me and said 'And?!'

They joked that I never stopped eating once I got home. I would've hoped things had improved since then!
I don't remember going hungry on the two school residentials I went on however, to be fair.

It would be easier to send things to help those children such as snacks or something familiar to be cooked without the added restriction of veggie only.

@PipMumsnet honestly, the entitlement is unreal.
The school have chosen a venue that only does veggie food. Big deal. It's 5 days max, everyone knows the score and everyone can eat the same menu
Count your blessings that you don't have a young child with a serious eating disorder who couldn't access any sort of residential experience.
You clearly don't have much to worry about in your life to get so het up about this.
Just don't send darling dc if he can't survive for less than a week without meat. Children are starving in Gaza 😡

With allergies, I just meant that with a vegetarian diet, some allergens are more often used in meals such as soya and nuts as an example which could make it trickier

But if the centre was made aware of the allergies in advance (which is normal practice for school residential), they will cater for these - this can still be done with vegetarian food.

I wouldn't think twice about him bringing his own food usually and that's what my he usually does at school for lunch but currently he eats a ham sandwich every day and I don't think a place like that would appreciate me packing my son ham sandwiches

Surely he eats other food besides ham sandwiches? Even if it means he has cereal for lunch instead of sandwiches, I'm sure there would be a way around it, to make sure he could eat something? Not ideal, but ok for a few days. If he genuinely won't eat anything other than ham sandwiches for lunch, then fair enough, but this would be a problem at any venue surely? What if they don't have ham? They might only provide cheese, or tuna, or salami sandwiches, so you've got the same problem, even if they allow meat.

They're vegetables, not human excrement. Get over it.

"My child can eat vegetables for a week obviously"

Good to hear - but being vegetarian isn't about eating vegetables and vegetables alone 😀

I would like this actually-it means they don’t have to cater for religious sensibilities and avoid horrid cheap over processed meat products.

because meat eaters are omnivores, not carnivores and do also eat vegetarian food. It isn't comparible.

Yup. DD wouldn’t eat, or eat very little, but odds are that would be the case anyway. Meat(chicken) would increase the chances of her eating, but it wouldn’t be a guarantee. She still loves going on school trips.

go on, send your email, ring them up,
make a fuss
feel like a great warrior

make it harder for school to provide a residential
teachers get no extra pay for going
they miss out on their own family life
all for ungrateful entitled fuckers who have to make it all about them

bet they don’t bother next year / thanks a lot

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.

You were lucky - I tried eating veggie once and I turned into a frog.

It’s not that deep OP

It is a ridiculous comparison to make when you say that forcing an omnivore child to eat only vegetarian food is the same as forcing a vegetarian to eat meat. Presumably your child doesn’t eat exclusively animal flesh? I don’t see the issue. It’ll probably be beneficial to the children.

Your child won’t just be eating vegetables! If it’s a vegetarian meal, it could contain beans, lentils, cheese, eggs, milk, nuts, pasta, rice, bread, etc etc. All perfectly normal filling meals.

Indeed, I guess your child often eats veggie meals - or have they never had macaroni cheese, beans on toast, cheese omelette and baked potato, breakfast cereal and milk, a cheese and pickle sandwich, a boiled egg with toast fingers, a Margarita pizza??

You’re at risk of passing on your prejudices to your DC. There’s nothing wrong with being vegetarian or vegan. I’m neither but we happily eat veggie and vegan meals across the week, even my DS who is a fussy eater.

There really isn't any equivalence between expecting a vegetarian to eat meat and expecting an omnivore to forego meat, because vegetarians specifically exclude meat from their diets whereas omnivores include vegetarian food in theirs.

Your son will be fine eating vegetarian food for a week. Pasta, pizza, baked potatoes, eggs, cereal, quiche, curry, chilli, beans, soup, sandwiches, stew, noodles and a million other things are or can be vegetarian, so he will be well fed on a nutritional diet for the few days he is away.

I think you will look unhinged if you complain and try to suggest he is being discriminated against as an omnivore.

Thank you for your thoughtful post .
My husband’s family farmed too .People will always eat meat but too many of us have become very detached from industrialised modern day meat production which largely bears little resemblance to the smaller family farms of old .

Really??

Thats ridiculous. Harks back to my dad saying only meat and two veg will do. It’ll be good for the kids to try a more modern way of eating and learn about sustainability. I’m a meat eater by the way but I don’t mind eating veggie and wouldn’t feel a hardship going somewhere that only did veggie food.

Is it vegan/vegetarian as in fake meat or naturally vege stuff IE soup, salad, pasta with tomato sauce or pesto, jkt potatoes with cheese and beans, pizza, chickpea curry, bean chilli, stir-fry etc.

Have they sent a menu? IE will your child not have safe foods? I'd be asking for a sample menu so you can check that actually your child will actually eat. We often have vegetarian or vegan meals but also eat meat and fish. For me it'd be an issue if they used Quorn as I'm intolerant or if the only none dairy was soya as it's contra indicated with my medication.

I'm assuming there's not a reason your child can't eat vegetarian foods?

This is the problem in a nutshell. It’s not going to kill anyone missing meat for 5 days.

if people built regular non-meat meals into their routine they wouldn’t have an issue. Aren’t we all supposed to be eating less meat anyway, vegetarian or not?

We went youth hosteling in Germany on a residential when I was 10. Pumpernickel bread and salami featured heavily. By mid week we were all so hungry, the pumpernickel bread became delicious.

If your child wants to go and isn't fussed about the menu, why create issues?

Don't send him then. What a pain in the arse some parents are.

Meat eaters are pathetic, good god.

How do you know someone's a meat eater? Shove a carrot in their face.

It's actually quite hard to be protein deficient, even on a vegan diet.

As an aside, most protein supplements are used by meat eaters 🙂

It’s a centre that is used to providing vegetarian food. I’m pretty sure they’ll be up on the nutritional requirements of their visitors.