help-my ds has gone veggie!

[jollymum]

Right, help needed here. I'm teaching this morning but will check thread later for all yourwonderful ideas! My ds(8) doesn't like meat much, or food in fact. I aslways do a roast on Sundays and he'll eat some of it because I make him. Same as in the week, he doesn't like most stuff I do but it's tough and he has to eat some. So, menu would be Baked spuds one day with vegs etc, sausuages and mash (sneaky vegs in the mash) chicken baguettes with cuc and carrots, tuna pasta stuff, roast dinner, salmon/fishcakes. He's decided to be a veggie so what can I cook for him? He doesn't like anything in the cook books we have, so no mushrooms, tomatoes, pasta sauce, vegs apart from carrots/cuc, brown bread, hates rice. I'm stuck, he's a skinny bean anyway and I don't want him wasting away. Any ideas gratefully received!!

omelette with added veg that he will eat.
would he still eat the fishcakes?
Homemade soups with barley and pasta in - if you are interested, I can track down recipes.
Pizza with veg he will eat on and cheese - would he eat the tomato sauce base bit?
jacket potatoes

If he helped you make it, do you think that would help? Or could you set up a small plot in the garden and he can be chief gardener and you could grown your own.

of course it is vastly easier said than done but you must ensure he eats leguems/pulses 3 times a week. Beans on wholemeal toast with cheese on top is a complete food and he will get a full whack of the important stuff from that.

His iron levels are going to be down sure enough so let him have a square of Green and Blacks dark chocolate a day and his vitamin B levels too, so that's marmite on toast for breakfast and make him drink fortified OJ, you know with added vitamins.

Just remember iron, vit b complex and vit c and he should be ok or hopefully grow out of it

Great that he's gone veggie! Try and get him interested in his own nutrition.
A selection of recipes here) Some books ink{http://www.viva.org.uk/shop/booksveggie.htmhere) And a couple ink{http://www.viva.org.uk/shop/booksbabies.htmhere
There are lots of good recipe sites on the web too.
Um... I remember we had a very good book from the library once, lots of interesting veggie recipes - possibly for children/families? Anyway, I think the recipes had been collected by Oxfam.
Most of my books are vegan...
Good luck!
P.S. Does he like soup? I hide lots in soups.
Oh, and for meat alternatives Redwood are very useful and free from hydrogenated oils.

Sorry, link screw-up! Anyway, on the Viva site you will find veggie recipes and good books.

Both my children and myself are veggie. We love Quorn plus use a lot of beans and lentils in stews and whizzed up in pasta sauces. Soup is great too. I think it's great that he's veggie - good lad! Have you thought about speaking to your HV or GP for guidance?

Ah, this one maybe?

I'm sorry I feel that 8 is too young to decide to be a vegetarian. Now before all the veggies pile in on me, my dp and dss are vegetarian and I support them 100 per cent. But I am a trained chef and have studied nutrition and we have a very balanced diet with loads of pulses, tofu and green leafy veg.
The reasons that alarm bells ring for me is because dss was allowed give up meat at about 8 and it wan't replaced in his diet. When he came to live with me at 14 he diddn't eat any veg apart from the tomatoes on pizza(he only ate margherita) and the dubious potato content of hash browns, he also wouldn't eat any dairy products apart from mozzerella. His mother is a bit dim and just let him eat what he wanted instead of what he needed.
My point being that dss now has a curvature of his back that may or may not be related to lack of nutrients in his diet. I am not saying that this will happen to you son just that he has a hell of a lot of growing to do in the next few years and needs all the dieatry help he can get.
My advice to you would be to continue what you are doing, feed him what he will eat and occasionally force him to eat what he doesn't want to. Tell him he is allowed to be a vegetarian when he is 14. If he flatly refuses to eat meat at least make him eat beans and lentils, leafy greens, cheese and if possible fish.

Sorry for the rant but I think that this is really important.

she's right
that's what I wanted to say
don't know why I didn't
FAR too young to give it up unless you are prepared to balance all his meals all day everyday.
And I used to be veggie for 14 years so I can understand the whim to become one

Is he old enough to understand the concept of a balanced diet? What if you made up a chart with all the different food groups and every day he had to check he'd had a bit from everything (inc vegetables!). Will he compromise on fish (like salmon/tuna/fishcakes)?

God no PLEASE do not force him to eat meat!

We have a veg patch and TBH he's a good cook already. DH is a brilliant cook and all the kids love chopping and cooking. I don't actually physically force him to eat meat, just if he has a roast dinner and wants pudding, he has to eat SOME of it. He doesn't want to eat fish either, so that's his favourite (tuna pasta) out of the window too. I don't have any problem with him being a veggie and TBH I do think he has the choice at 8. Next week it will be something different probably, all kids have fads. He grew his hair long and then had it all chopped off. He has said he's happy to have quorn substitute and he eats dairy stuff. I will be giving him a multi vit etc now as well and he has those bio-drinks. I know that you have to make up the lack of amino acids but he's already hard to cook for, doesn't like much. He's done nutrition at school already, (can't believe the stuff he's doing now, much too highbrow IMHO) but tha's another story. Learning to lkearn days, my are! Why can't kids just learn stuff without all the gobbledegook?! Anyway, back to food. He doesn't like soup apart from tomato, 'cos his sister made veg soup at Xmas for us all and he said it looked disgusting. Sigh,...kids eh?

Oh, I wasn't saying you would force him, just responding to Carmenere saying that you should!

And I certainly wasn't suggesting forcing meat down his throat just coaxing him to eat it like jollymum is already doing.
Good luck with his diet Jollymum and you of course are right he may well change his mind in a few weeks.
If he were my child he would not be allowed to give up meat at 8. In fact he would have to be old enough to give me a reasonable debate about why and to understand what he would need to eat to balance his diet. I am not anti-vegetarian I just don't think that 8 is old enough to make that decision for the reasons I have stated below.

The vegetarian society website has a good section on veggie children and what to feed them.

2 of my dds are veggie, and the third is mostly.

They mostly aren't that keen on spicy sauces and all the sort of "adult" veggie stuff which I like. They tend to eat:

Lots of eggs, cheese, yoghourt, baked beans, hummous, quorn and soya sausages and burgers, peanut butter.

Occasional lentils, chickpeas or other sorts of beans though they mostly aren't keen.

Dried apricots, fortified cereals, and dark leafy veg are good for iron levels.