5 year old saying he doesn’t want to eat meat.

[Rogben13]

My son who’s 5 keeps saying he doesn’t want to eat animals any more as he likes them and thinks it’s mean. I’m all for cutting out red meat but I’d like to encourage him to carry on eating chicken and fish for the protein etc as he won’t eat beans or things like spinach. Do I encourage this not wanting to eat animals thing or keep offering him meat? As a family we’re certainly not vegetarian but do eat meat free tea time meals around twice a week, my husband thinks it’s ridiculous and he’s just going through a phase. What would you do?

DS has been veggie since weaning - think he ate chicken once and it's been firm refusal since then.

There's loads of good options out there as alternatives - why not let him try? He might change his mind or he might not.

I would respect his wishes too. He might change his mind later on but just because he's 5 doesn't mean his opinions on what he eats don't matter.

I’d tell him he can be veggie as long as he makes his own meals. Pandering at 5 to an already fussy eater is just ridiculous.

Just continue to dish up food as you did before, it’s possible he won’t even notice or remember at meal times if you don’t make a big thing out of it!

My DD has just turned 6 and has been veggie for about 3 months now. She's all about the animals but she also doesn't like the texture of meat. Whenever I give her a meal she'll ask me if it's vegetarian before she puts it in her mouth. I'll give her veggie alternatives to what her siblings are eating and we've incorporated more vegetarian stuff into the family too.
I would go along with it for now and if he doesn't want meat, don't give him it. He may decide to eat meat again in the future or he may not but if it's something he feel strongly about I think it would be wrong to make him eat it.

@AlternativePerspective you don’t have to go to ‘great effort’ to stay healthy if you’re vegetarian. That is a total myth. There are plenty of alternative protein sources out there. The vegetarian/vegan food industry is getting bigger every year! Myself and my toddler twins are all veggie and we are perfectly healthy

I think you need to respect your sons wishes. It’s his body and if he doesn’t want to eat meat then he shouldn’t have to. It may be a fad, it may not. Either way though I can guarantee that if you force him to eat meat you will be creating an unhappy memory that will stay with him
Into adulthood.
When I was six my DM bought me a rabbit fur coat. When I found out what it was made from I begged not to have to wear it but she wouldn’t listen. I still remember my distress very clearly all these years later.

Your son has the emotional intelligence to understand the ethics of meat eating at 5yo, you should be proud. You cannot ignore him or lie to him, that would be very disrespectful and, aside from the veggie issue, would teach him an awful lesson about how to treat the moral beliefs of others.

My DD loves meat but started realising what is involved in meat production when she was 5yo. It took her a year to build up the resolve to stop eating meat and has been vegetarian for two and a half years now. She shamed me into becoming vegetarian - my 6yo has more willpower than me!

Vegetarian food has moved on way beyond the wholemeal everything with lentils stage it was at when I was a student in 1980- something. He'll be fine. And your food bills may well be much lower.

Did anyone watch ‘meat the family’ tonight? Thought provoking stuff

I had the same thing when my daughter turned 5 we spent a lot of weekends at the farm and the zoo and she worked out very quickly that she didn’t want to eat animals. She is now a teenager and still hasn’t eaten meat so it wasn’t a phase. The rest of the family are meat eaters. We had to provide her different meals and make sure she has enough protein etc from other food sources.

Tell him that's great, he can have lots of lovely brussels sprouts instead. But of course no burgers, roast chicken dinners etc
Or just tell him it's Quorn, he won't know the difference.

DD adores animals and has twice said she wants to stop eating meat.

Neither time has got past the “oh it’s sausages for tea, guess you won’t be wanting those then”

Is your DS more serious about it than that? If so then yes I would allow him to go veggie BUT only on condition that he eats a wide enough range of foods to be healthy. He will need to get B vits from somewhere and iron.

Ha cross posted katy

I'd just tell him that what he's eating is chicken-flavoured potato

😂😂😂

There's no way I'm changing everything I cook to accommodate.

@SpeckledDot has nailed this one.

One of mine refused point blank to eat fish when she was little. However, she would eat 'pink chicken flakes' (i.e. salmon).

I gave up meat when I was four years old, through choice and supported by my parents. I've never looked back - it was totally the right decision for me.

I have never pushed my vegetarianism on DD, but recently, aged six, she is starting to say she would also like to be vegetarian. I think this has more to do with 'wanting to be like mummy' than a genuine desire, but we shall see.

My position is to support her. Not encourage one way or the other, but be honest and give her options. Out at dinner the other night she opted for chicken nuggets, so could go either way.

I don't want her to feel like she has to choose one path or the other right now. She's six - it's ok to experiment. How hard is it for your to find some alternatives? I get it's easier for me because I already don't prepare meat at home. Agree with some posters that he needs to eat healthily, so that means a wider range of veggie proteins.

I disagree with some other posters in that I definitely wouldn't lie to my child about it.

So long as he eats cheese, eggs and milk, where's the problem? Yes it makes life a bit more complicated for you, but he should be respected for his decision.

My daughter is only 2.5 but since weaning has been a self imposed pescatarian I suppose. She hates meat. Loves fish.

I’d respect my child personally. It’ll probably be a phase & he’ll suddenly want to eat a burger or hotdog or something with his friends! Veggie isn’t so hard - will he eat eggs? Good protein. Make omelettes for lunch or breakfast. Or egg muffins to grab as a snack. Meat substitutes. Good protein. Greek yoghurt, peanut butter (buy 100% peanut), cheese.. all good protein. Add chia or hemp seeds to smoothies/soups/cereals.That’s ways we get some protein down our daughters neck!

My daughter is quite a picky eater & im currently working with a nutritionist to get some help. We are following something called The Devision of Responsibility - in a very quick nutshell, it is our job as a parent to offer healthy & balanced meals & snacks. It is our child’s responsibility to choose what they want to eat from that choice. We shouldn’t force them to eat. I think that applies here, talk to your son about what being veggie entails & that he’ll maybe need to explore other foods. Maybe suggest you trial it as a family for a couple weeks to see how you all get on (ie. is it easy enough for you to be making an additional veggie option or incorporating more veggie meals for you all).. just keep an open dialogue with your boy so he feels listened too!

@ noneedtoberudedear but OP said he is already a fussy eater, and reality is that most five year olds don’t eat enough veg to constitute a vegetarian diet unless they’ve been brought up on it since weaning.

Also I would look at why he wants to go vegetarian. Is it really about the animals or is it that he doesn’t like the texture, because based on his reasons the OP can adapt accordingly. E.g. if it’s about animals then he needs to realise that all products which come from dead animals are off the menu. So no haribo/jelly sweets, no crisps as these contain meat products (oh apart from bacon flavoured aparrently. If he genuinely wants to give up meat because of animal welfare then he will want to give up all that as well.

If not then there are potentially other steps OP can take to make existing meat products more palatable to him.

You can raise a very happy healthy lacto-ovo-vegetarian child. It’s a good opportunity to get your child interested in cooking and nutrition, but she really isn’t likely to be deficient in any vitamins or minerals unless she’s literally living on chips - veganism would be a bit harder to balance! I stopped eating meat a tad older than your DD (around 21) and there were comments then that it was ‘a phase’ - now a 31-year-old phase. She may not carry on with vegetarianism but she may, and it needn’t be a problem. I don’t think it’s good to either lie about meat or force her to eat it (you’re liable to end up with a very strong anti reaction sooner or later anyway).

I can’t get past that some people are suggesting that highly processed poor quality meat (sausages) is better for a child than a vegetarian diet. I am not vegetarian either.

I think you should respect his wishes and certainly do not lie to him. I didn’t appreciate being fed meat as a child and turned vegetarian as soon as I could, aged 13. A vegetarian diet is absolutely fine. Just make sure he gets enough iron.

Haven’t read the thread but my child did this as she turned 5, 15months ago. We thought it might be a phase but she was very insistent that she thought it was wrong to eat meat, so we made sure we gave her other options as well. When school confirmed she’d refused to eat meat at lunchtimes consistently for a while, we switched her to the vegetarian option and she was exposed to a much more varied diet at school as a result and is now more adventurous at home, too. It really hasn’t been a big deal and the only annoying thing is her younger sibling enjoys meat still (but eats it at nursery).

Just to add, once she realised haribo etc have gelatine in she was dismayed but did indeed stop eating them. Small children can have strong values and I feel like if I’d respect it in a friend why wouldn’t I in my child?

Your son is clearly a compassionate and curious chap. Respect his wishes. It's really not much effort to accommodate and is really easy to do. I asked my meat-eating family if I could go veggie aged about 6-ish but wasn't allowed to til I was 10 which I am still disappointed about over 30 years on.

If he's bright enough to make the distinction of what he's eating, understand where it comes from and express an opinion about that you can at least listen to him.