going vegan - and trying to feed a fussy toddler!!

[missabc123]

hey all

I'm trying to go vegan for health and ethical reasons; I've been vegetarian my whole life already. It's been nagging away at me for years as I don't like how the dairy industry operates...I'm also opening up more to the health reasons for not eating meat / dairy (and am well aware of the need to maintain a balanced diet with certain supplemented vits)...having researched a lot into it I am increasingly aware of health issues associated with eating dairy (e.g. the China Study etc).

I'm not doing too badly with it so far myself - making nut milks etc, just ditching the cheese in favour of something else. Thing is DS is 2y4mo and really fussy! He only eats bread based products, cereals, milk / cheese / yogurt, sweet potato, broccoli, sometimes carrots, chips, cucumber, crackers, occasionally pasta, plain white rice, fruit, veggie sausages and rarely a few other things (usually white in colour!)...and of course sweet stuff when he gets it. He likes one or two japanese dishes (pumpkin curry, noodles) from local restaurants - but not when I make them at home!! This isn't down to me not trying - I try so hard. He spits out a lot of the food I make in disgust but I try really hard to make things he might like and avoid over spicing etc (am getting there with the manners but it's slow).

I'm torn as far as he goes as one of the few things I can get him to eat is dairy, and it helps make some dishes more palatable for him - e.g. adding cheese on top seems to help. I'm reluctant to limit what I feed him even further through veganism but I don't want to be stuck making tons of different dishes every night.

Any thoughts / help from existing vegan or recently gone vegan parents with toddlers gratefully received.

I know involving him in cooking etc will help as he gets bigger. But he's still pretty young and very unadventurous on taste etc. He rejects my cooking above all, eating stuff at nursery he wouldn't eat at home, which drives me nuts. And I am quite a good cook!

A final note: I am a self employed single parent, meaning time is extremely limited, so cooking up tons of different dishes every day is not an option; let alone the cleaning involved with all that extra cooking, which drives me a bit nuts. I prefer to make a huge batch and freeze portions when I can, but sometimes will go for a convenience option, simply because I am soooo busy and tired.

Arg, help welcomed.

What do you do when he refuses food miss? Lots of toddlers can be fussy like this, including my DD. So try not to worry too much.

I'm not vegan but am df. Have you tried him with a cheese alternative? Maybe make pitta pizzas with him and let him choose the topping and include a cheese substitute?

I'm struggling with consistency when he refuses food! I'm not sure what method to adopt to be honest.

A few times I have let him go hungry if he refuses dinner. But then he wakes really early and eats tons of breakfast instead, which isn't ideal (he likes cereal for breakfast).

Sometimes I give him something else he wants to eat if he won't eat what I cook him.

Otherwise i seem to just serve him what I know he will eat, which is usually different to what I want to eat. This is generally healthy or healthy-ish foods but occasionally cave in and give chips or something! But causes me extra work in cooking more meals.

I think I need to cut out snacks so he's really hungry when dinner rolls around.

Any tips gratefully received!!

Re. cheese substitutes if you have any you can recommend (esp for pizza) would love to know what brands you use. I tried something called Violife the other day which was a plain sliced style cheese for sandwiches etc, and was the best I have tried to date, but prob wouldn't work on pizza. The only others I have tried tasted foul like cheesy feet!!

Cutting out snacks could be the answer although I let mine have fruit. I think consistency is the answer here. When my dd was the same age she was very fussy too. I'd often try to give her something she would eat along with anything I knew might be refused. So if I gave her curry, I knew she loved plain rice so I knew she would eat something.

If he does miss a meal it's no biggy but I'd perhaps let him have one bowl of cereal then try him with something else, even if it's just bananas. There are some great breakfast ideas here.

The other thing we did when she was going through this was to let her have what she wanted on a Saturday night, then we'd eat what we wanted when she was in bed.

I don't eat cheese substitute's but I've heard that the violife pizza cheese is good. I think it's available from Waitrose.

Violife does a hard cheese that you can grate and use on pizzas or mixed into mashed potato. We buy it in Tesco for my 7 year old granddaughter who has had a dairy free diet since last November. Cheese was one of her favourite foods and this is the only dairy free cheese that she really likes.