Vegetarian meals

[DME2]

My daughter is a veggie but has no soya quorn products. Her nursery uses an outside catering called Zebedees. They use Quorn as a meat substitute. Is this with all private nurseries? She is 1 and if you look into Quorn it can cause so many gut / allergy issues not to mention Quorn is highly processed. They are happy to remove these items but then she is left with veg - which I am fine with. Wouldn't it be worthwhile using lentil, quinoa, pulses as a protein substitute for veggie kids?

I'm sure it would and I imagine that's what you cook her at home, but I suspect the issue with catering companies is that it isn't cost effective in the sense that they then have to cook two different meals. Usually the meat and veg options mirror each other, but one has meat and one has something that is like meat, so they make a chicken curry, one has chicken, one has quorn chicken. It's more staff time and more ingredients to make something different. Also, realistically, not all kids will eat lentils and quinoa or whatever and then parents complain about that.

I think it's a trade off for requesting vegetarian meals. Same as with meat meals, sometimes they are substandard. Ideally, they shouldn't be using quorn every day though. Some meals can be cheesy pasta, some can be omelette, etc.

If your child has a genuine allergy though to soya and there is soya in quorn (I thought it was mostly fungus?) then that's different, and they should be providing a proper allergy free meal.

Thanks and I see your point on cost effective however if they were to cook a chicken curry and rice instead of using Quorn why not use lentils, beans, pulses as replacement? Or just veg which would accompany the rice. My issue is with Quorn, it is highly processed, yes a mould, which can cause allergic reactions. I'm sure most parents would agree that natural wins over processed. And if the child is used to eating like this at home then its part of their veggie diet, like meat is to others. If culturally you are vegetarian, born into that diet it makes no sense wanting to eat a fake chicken sausage. I just think these catering companies could rethink on the Quorn when there are great natural alternatives out there.