to think parents shouldn't bring their child up vegetarian?

[Picante]

Unless for religious reasons.

Yes this is a thread about a thread but I think I was annoying too many people over there so I've started my very own for people to get annoyed with me here!

I just think it's mean. Meat is such a huge part of our culture and fair enough if you're old enough to decide that you don't want to kill animals... but children should be given all sorts of food in the early years, including meat, until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves!

Libloom-you can't control what your DC thinks. I have vegan friends with DCs brought up that way from birth. The DD is a vegan but the DS eats meat. I have meat eating friends where the DCs are vegetarian. You can bring up and set by example, but your DC may have entirely different views from yours. To say that you know your DCs views when older is rubbish! -you can guess them or hope for them but the one thing you can't do is know them. He is a free spirit and not a clone.

How many pigs actually have "happy well cared for" lives?!
I understand that some have better lives than others but the majority of meat out there, on supermarket shelves - the stuff that a lot of people eat due to the cost, is all mass produced on intensive farms.
As I said before, things will never change now, but it doesn't mean that it is right!
We are supposed to be the "intellegent species" - I don't think it's too smart the way the world has turned out.
Eating humans is so wrong but to be perfectly honest I really can't see the difference between eating a person or eating a pig etc......I would do neither!

That is your choice Libloom, my choice is to eat it, but not from the supermarket shelf-I like to know where it comes from. Live and let live! Your DC will eventually make his own choice-as we all do.

"Live and Let Live"?? I think you should re-evaluate the meaning of that...
I know people can make their own choices...if you know where it comes from and are fine with that then great, good for you, but most people do not and as mothers I thought people would have been a bit more understanding of the suffering that a lot of animal are subjected to where pregnancy and babies are involved just to fill our fat bellies! All I want is an end to the ignorance!

Anyway, I have a child to go and feed - Mmmm, Tofu ravioli!

I think there's more awareness now than there has ever been about how meat is raised on intensive farms, even if only because of television and celebrity chefs.

Some people are so dumb about nutrition it is unreal. On both sides of the debate. Leaves because staying will make me mad

I think the sad thing is that some people are so far removed from how food is produced, and they have the idea that the countryside is a cute and kindly place. Nature is cruel. Even if we didn't eat meat, and by some magic way we removed the farm animals, some animals need to be culled like rabbits-or are they equal and we stand by and starve while they eat all the veg? If they have to be killed, I would have thought it less wasteful to eat them, than have mass graves for rabbits.

I am quite happy for people to follow the diet of their choice-I don't think either side should say one is wrong or better.

Most people are happy to let the DCs make up their own mind-without heavy indoctrination. They will in the end.
My vegan friend is heavily into the 'raw food' movement-she is very against farming and even her cats have to be vegetarian-unless they catch their own!
Despite all this she has a DS who loves his bacon butties! The one thing that I have found from parenting (which I didn't understand at the start) is that a DC isn't a blank sheet to write what you will-they have strong ideas of their own. If you are lucky they match-but you can't rely on it.

Libloom you seem to have some serious issues with your species - this is very odd to me and would like to hear more about why you hate humans so much (preferably without too many exclamation marks if possible).

I believe in evolution (well as much as you can "believe" in a fact). It was what put us at the top of the food chain, I quite like it here at the top and as far as I am concerned it really doesn't matter how the other animals on earth feel about it.

I am not keen on intensive farming, not because I give that much of a fuck about the animal's welfare but because it affects ME to have crappy meat/diseases spreading from them.

Humans are selfish, cats are selfish, rabbits are selfish some of us are just better at it than others.

And sorry, Tofu Ravioli? Boak.

We had lamb shoulder slow roasted in a heavy tomato/olive sauce. Damn it was good.

You know I can't think of a single reason for a pig to be alive other than for meat. It is below me and I will eat it.

Haven't read whole thread so may be off track here. But i was brought up veggie by my parents. I remained a veggie til i was 35. One day i got totally fed up of being tired all the time and my restricted choices when cooking and eating out. I began to eat meat and haven't looked back since.

I resent the fact that my parents imposed their choices onto me as a child. I am bringing up my children to eat meat (although we mainly eat chicken and fish) and we also regularly eat vegetarian meals as well.

Speaking personally i think i was put at a great disadvantage by being brought up veggie as i lacked the strength and stamina of other kids. I can see now that was due to my parents being ignorant as to what constituted a healthy balanced vegetarian diet, but i have looked into it and it is actually pretty hard to get all the nutrients you need in a vegetarian diet, especially with children who are fussy eaters.

If i was still veggie now, i would still give my children the option of eating meat. I would not impose my personal beliefs on them.

I don't think you are off track, oneplusone, you are right on! I have no problem with vegetarians bringing up their DCs as vegetarians but I do have a big problem if they try and impose it outside the home, deny choice and use emotive words like disgusting, dead flesh. I too, would heavily resent my parents imposing their choices on me and it fact it would make me do the opposite!

Libloom, I am a huge advocate of tofu but really, tofu ravioli? I've never even heard of that one and I do really weird stuff with tofu

oneplusone, it's not hard to get the nutrients in a veggie diet, I must disagree there, however I fully agree with you sayig it is hard for fussy kids. My parents gave up trying to force feed me anything I didn't like when I was young. I was 15 before I got over my food phobias enough to have a vegetable that wasn't sweetcorn. I'm 20 now and have so much trouble with fruit and veg. I'm a genuine food phobic. Anything with a new taste or texture screws me over for months on end and because of my phobia I am extremely lacking in nutrients now. All that could have been solved when I was a kid if my parents knew how to raise a vegetarian healthily. Though unlike you my parents were meateaters and I chose to become veggie at 5.

Feeding cats a vegetarian diet is cruel. I feel very sorry for your friend's cats, pisces.

I think they caught their own! They went absolutely beserk if they were given meat-the DS used to get them some and they adored him!

Actually that is a question for the vegetarians who are utterly against killing an animal for food-what are dogs and cats to eat?

PixiNanny, so you are a vegetarian who has problems eating fruit and veg?

When you said you became vegetarian at the age of 5, was that a decision you made because of your beliefs or was it because you didn't like the texture of meat?

It sounds as if you have a lot of issues regarding food, I'm not getting at you btw, I'm interested because my youngest daughter has just started refusing to eat meat and will gag and spit it out.

What do you you think your parents could have done differently to avoid the problems you now have with food?

At the moment, I'm not making a big deal about it and I'm not forcing her to eat meat, but after eating meat for 18 months, I think 2 years is a bit young to decide that you are a vegetarian!

Dogs are not obligate carnivores, they can subsist on a vegetarian diet. Cats are however and need animal taurine, you can now buy synthetic taurine to feed them apparently but it doesn't work as well. If cats don't get taurine they will sicken and die, dogs will probably not die but will not be at their peak either.

It is cruel to not feed a cat (and to some extent a dog) meat, it is just crazy.

Flappy: yes, to put it bluntly lol and dw, I just thought you were curious . I'll try give you as informed of an answer as I can give, so please forgive the essay!

I don't know why I decided to become a veggie then, my older sister thinks it was because she had just done it herself (age 7) and my parents think that it was influenced by that but also because I had just realised that the lamb I had for dinner came from the lamb in the field haha Same happened with fish when I was about 7/8.

I have really serious issues eating quite a lot of food. Tomatoes and things like it are the worst, don't ask me why as I have no idea, but I just can't stand tomatoes/peppers/courgettes/etc.
I decided to try conquer my phobia of tomatoes shortly after starting my job here and just bit into one. I nearly threw up and my DadBoss thought it was the funniest thing ever rolls eyes It's so bad that I can count the fruit and veg I eat on my hands.

I ate sweetcorn, pears and apples until I was about 15, then started eating carrots and peas (the textures still feel weird!), then whilst here (my current job, start last Nov) I've started eating parsnips and tried things like lettuce (I don't understand that concept, eating a leaf, but it's good with brie and walnuts lol) and I'm trying to eat a few other things with varying amounts of success.

I don't know what my parents would have done differently, however I know that when I have my own children I will be very careful with how I feed them. If they dislike meat or want to go vegetarian I won't force them to eat it, but I'd put a strong emphasis on having a variety of vegetables and fruits, which is one thing my parents never did. Of course kids are going to be fussy sometimes but I will not let them be too fussy because I'm terrified that they'll end up like me.

I can't travel abroad easily because I can never eat easily whilst I do, I can't eat in restaurants very often which hampers my social life and I had great difficulty last year working at PGL because I couldn't eat half of the food they served (I'm going back again in January/February and I do worry as I'll be in a smaller centre with less options then and in the middle of France, so no pot noodles and cup a soups!).

Medically, I probably have long term nutrient deficiencies (never had those checked as I've only just recently admitted to a doctor that I have phobias of fruit and veg, and as I'm on Swine Flu isolation I haven't been able to have the blood tests she's ordered me to have! ). I definately have long term anemia which is to the point where I've been told that I shouldn't donate blood at all (something I really want to do) and I'm constantly tired and have been since I was a kid. I also have knee problems which are unexplained and they still haven't found the route of the problem after 9/10 years, however I'm starting to think that my diet is contributing to that as well.

I know my 'story' would probably put people off raising their kids veggie completely right? I'm a huge advocate of doing things healthily and am slowly repairing the damage to my diet!

I don't agree with vegetarian cats for the reasons Moroth explained (though I never actually knew the specifics before, only that they needed flesh food), though I wouldn't mind having a vegetarian dog as long as they were as healthy as other dogs in regards to their diets.

Either way, meaty animal food stinks

Thanks for your reply PixiNanny, we were out today and I ordered dd2 food she has eaten in the past without any problems but recently in the house it has become a bit of an issue.

She put it in her mouth, chewed it and then gagged and spat it out. She is now doing this with more and more food. This evening she ate nothing until I gave her a banana.

This could be normal toddler behaviour, but having not gone through it with dd1, it's a bit strange to have a young child who will not eat.

It does seem to be textures with her.

I can understand a little bit about refusing to eat certain foods. Every time my parents forced me to eat mushrooms I was always sick, so avoided them for years. When I tried them again, my stomach became very bloated and the cramps were dreadful and this has happened several times, so can only deduce that mushrooms and I should give each other a wide berth!

Is she doesn't like the textures I would try making it all into soup. My DSs used to eat all vegetables that they didn't like in soup, they didn't know it was there. I made sure the main ingredient was something they liked, e.g. carrot soup-they could see it was carrot and it was the main taste, what they didn't know was that it had 4 other veg in addition.

For those who think that a sheep has the same right to life as a human, what are cats and dogs to eat?-bearing in mind that a farmer isn't going to keep a sheep until it dies of old age and then send it to the pet food factory-he couldn't afford it.

YANBU. Children should decide themselves. Parents shouldn't deprive their kids of sausages, It's part of growing up.

" YANBU. Children should decide themselves. Parents shouldn't deprive their kids of sausages, It's part of growing up."

Two words for you:
Veggie Sausages.

Do what pisces moon says about the soups, I'm crap with textured things as I sad, but I find soups and smoothies easier to deal with. Though be careful with things that have a distinctive taste, like parsnip. I tried getting the kids I look after to eat mash with parsnip in it and they realised straight away. Parsnip is one of the few foods they dislike.

Veggie sausages really aren't the same. Also, I don't get why vegetarians i.e. people who don't eat meat want to eat things that look like meat. Quorn is horrid.

I love this whole "children should decide for themselves" thing. Like being a carnivore is the default status for human beings. You're hardly letting them choose if you're giving them meat - you are removing their choice to be veggie. Works both ways, dunnit.

Mine are veggie; I figure they can opt into meat eating later if they choose. They can't opt out of having already eaten piles of dead animals, can they?