Pescatarian vs meat diet

[charmanderflame]

I'm currently pregnant. We've talked a bit about how we might feed our child once they are eating solids, but it's one area where we don't seem to quite agree.

DH is pescatarian at home, never cooks or eats meat other than fish in the house. All our dinners follow this plan and I'm fine with that. I will sometimes have chicken and other meats at breakfast and lunchtime, as we eat those meals separately, so it has no impact on our meals together. It's nice to cook/eat the same thing for dinner and I don't mind adapting to his preference there.

But I think chicken is such an easy thing to give to children - it's a good source of protein, most kids like it.

I'm quite keen to give our child chicken and maybe sausages, but DH would like them to have a pescatarian diet at home, the same as him.

Am I being a bit weird about this? I'm worried that it could be difficult to make meals that the child will enjoy and will be nutritious without ever including meat. Fish can have a strong flavour and some kids just don't like it (except fish fingers - but they can't live on those). What do others do and is it easy to follow a pescatarian diet with a child?

DH seems to be under the impression that we will simply make the child eat whatever we eat, but I don't think that will be so easy when we are eating a Bengali fish curry (for example - we can be quite adventurous with our cooking!)

My DH is pescatarian but our children are not. If they wish to be later then that’s therw choice. I do like my children to eat at the same time and the same meal as us. For us that means there maybe a veggie chilli and a meat chilli without the actual chilli and the adults can add chilli flakes at the table.

I avoid giving my children processed meat alternatives or sausages but they do occassionally have ham.

I have been vegetarian for over 20 years but feed both my children good quality meat, like you say things like chicken are just easy ways to give them good food. They can make their own dietary choices when they are a bit older

Easier in our house because both DH and I are pescatarian so there was less of a discussion to be had and DD just follows what we have most days which is mostly veggie with fish a few times a week maybe.

I can’t say whether it’s been more difficult for DD to follow a pescatarian diet because a. I have nothing to compare it to and b. she’s still a toddler so I’m just happy if she eats anything at all at the moment! But I definitely haven’t found it too hard and nursery have no issue with giving her the veggie option every day except on fish finger day (she actually would live on fish fingers if she could).

There are loads of children who are vegetarian (whole cultures raised vegetarian). I don’t think there is one right answer because from a health perspective both are perfectly fine (pescatarian or plus chicken). Children will eat what they’re accustomed to. Obviously, Bengali children eat fish curry all the time.

If your Dh would prefer to keep meals the same (pescatarian only at home), I’d be inclined to go with that. There’s no reason to change up everything you do to prevent some imagined problem you don’t actually have. Adjust as needed in the future. The more adventurous foods you can feed them when young though the better, so you won’t go wrong there. If you have a child with sensory or digestive issues that needs something different, then do something different when it comes to that.

I would say that whoever does all (or the majority of) the food planning, shopping and cooking gets to decide.