Help with 14 yo who doesn't want to eat meat.

[FiveHoursSleep]

We've had this on and off with my DD since she was about 10, and I've always told her that she needs to wait until she can cook for herself as I have three other ( younger ) kids, with various SNs and I can not be cooking separate meals for all of them.
She turned 14 a couple of weeks ago, and had now decided her NYR will be not to eat meat. She likes the taste, and it's not ethical as she will drink milk, eat eggs and wear leather.
I'm not overjoyed TBH, and have told her she needs to look into other sources of protein and iron as she's not going to get by on just the vegetables that I feed the others.
Has anyone got any ideas of what she could eat instead to keep her healthy? It needs to be something needing minimal preparation. She seems to think she can just eat a handful of cashews, and perhaps grill a quorn burger now and again and that will be fine.
Has anyone got any experience of this?

a slightly off topic batch cooking thing- don't use foil containers. Tell her to go to Wilkinsons or poundland and buy 10 plastic food containers with lids. These can go in the microwave and freezer, and then afterwards in the dishwasher. They should last a good year and a great way to batch cook.

on the main topic, they teach nutrition at school and she is no doubt perfectly capable of researching a balanced vegetarian diet. She should be doing some cooking and helping by now, so this is her chance.

At that age I would cook for the whole family (not a pain, I just hated the other chores and this was the best bit so I took it on). It's a great life skill to develoop anyways.
If she chooses to change her diet, it's up to her to maintain it. I became vegetarian for a few years and what I would suggest: she implicates herself in meal planning and in the cooking (you can do this together). You could also go together to see a nutritionist, so that you both get a good understanding of a balanced vegetarian diet.

If your cooking a few veggie meals a week anyway it won't be difficult. Pasta and pesto, jacket potatoe with cheese and beans, omelette, falafel is easy to cook, don't you do kids food like sausage and mash? Easy to shove a few veggie sausages on.

OP - use quorn mince for chilli and spag bol - it's not that different.
You could make a veggie meal one night a week - Spanish omelettes or similar. If you are doing sausage and chips she can have egg and chips, provided she cooks her own eggs and washes the pan. Her fads can't create more work for you. If you're making pizza, hers can be veggie. If you make Cornish pasties hers can be cheese and onion. If sausage casserole, stick a couple of quorn ones in for her.

DS has been doing this periodically for years. He lapses because he loves meat, but I just make a few more veggie family meals each week, buy quorn instead of mince and then let him fend for himself when it's too much faff to do otherwise.

On nights when you are having meat just have a pot of humous or some cheese for her to eat alongside the veg and carbs you provide.

My DD (20) doesn't eat meat, fish or eggs. Doesn't like the taste or texture. DS will not eat the lentils, beans or pulses and as for Quorn (although I do agree with him on that point)

If I am doing a dish with sausages I cook a couple of Quorn sausages. She is happy to pick out the meat sausages our of a sausage pasta bake. Like wise with a casserole and I heat up a bit of chicken style Quorn pieces and mix with a bit of the sauce. If cooking a spag bog she has pasta with pesto, mushrooms and either grated cheddar or grilled halloumi

Second the packs of tortellini. I also have a stock of frozen cauliflower grills, lentil burgers and such like.

At her age it is harder as you aren't always sure if she will be home or not so tend to cater for us.

I do admit to having ready meals in the freezer too for her.

She will have to start helping out

I feel sorry for you OP, some of the answers here have been completely pointless ignoring everything you have said about the other children "oh you can simply serve your eldest something completely different from the freezer" NO SHE CAN'T the other 2 will throw fits that she gets special treatment for her requests but they don't

So she has to eat meat because otherwise her autistic brothers will get pissy? Great.

does she like beans? lentils? There is a world of possibility.

I think Qwebec has a great suggestion. Time permitting (weekends) start it as a joint project. I think kids have a much better appreciation for food (the work involved, the joy, the nutrition and the taste) when they get involved. Simple bean dishes (kidney beans, chick peas or lentils) are simple and you can get her to learn to cook them herself.

My friend has 2 slow cookers, a little one for her veggie DD and a larger one for the meat eaters. It works for one pot style meals, such as the ones you mention.

Thanks for the replies. there have been some really helpful ideas above.

It's obvious that some of you are lucky enough to have no idea of the impact of SNs on a household. Autistic meltdowns are not simply the result of a child 'getting pissy' and the autistic members of our family are all female!

Can I ask one last question? We had hotdogs last night as it was DS's B'day ( they get to choose) and I got DD1 Quorn hotdogs . She hated them!
Does all Quorn taste the same? I got some sausages, 'bacon' and 'chicken' escallops too, so will she hate them all?
She likes the taste and texture of meat, so is there anything vegetarian that tastes like meat?

Try Quorn sausages. Personally I think out of all the Quorn range they are the most like like their meat equivalent but still not exact. My reason for not particularly liking Quorn chicken piece/fillets is that i find the texture quite soft (which is why my DD likes it!) compared to meat).

Although it may cost you I think it is a case of trial and error

I am vegetarian and I class quorn as inedible. Unfortunately, the things meant to taste like meat don't taste that good to me.

Does she like any beans? Nuts? Nut/bean burgers (I don't frequently see dogs) are very good.

I think you are in a bit of a bind. it's one thing if your child really likes various vegetarian food AND then declares is vegetarian. It's harder if the idea is to just cut out the meat.

It'll take a bit of trial and error to find what brand she'll like. We still haven't managed to fund veggie sausages that DD likes but she did like the ones she had at nursery! We don't tend to buy Quorn for ourselves as DH hates anything tasting like meat. Sainsbo's do quite a few dufferent sausages both in the chilled and freezer sections.

I tgink the PP who suggested usingthe freezer has a good point. Could you spend some time once a month making veggie alternatives to chilli, cottage pie etc then freeze them. Then on the nights you're having that, you can just grab a veggie portion out of the freezer that she can have with the same accompiaments

I find quorn hotdogs disgusting but i quite like their sausages and chicken pieces

Lots of Quorn products taste slightly different, you will probably find that she likes some and not others. I found Linda McCartney veggie sausages and mozzarella burgers a pretty good meat alternative when I was vegetarian, so it might be worth trying out a few different similar brands to find one she prefers.

i'm vegetarian and cook for people who eat meat. I usually make the same meal (meat and veg version) at the same time. Takes the same time. For lasagna/shepherds pie - I usually use Quorn Mince, kidney beans and mixed veg. For Chicken Alfredo I use Quorn chicken fillets. Sometimes when I'm feeling really lazy with lasagna I just make a vegetarian version and lie - nobody notices the difference once you've poured the white sauce and cheese on top.

Veggie sausages/meatballs aren't particularly healthy overall (unless you go for Quorn's version which I find a bit tasteless) so I usually make my own with a variety of beans/eggs/etc. Just takes a quick whizz in a blender with a bit of egg and cornmeal to set and then put on the grill. Takes me 20-30 mins overall; they won't look the same but they'll be healthier and taste nice.

OP, just saw your question about hot dogs.

There's a big difference in taste between quorn products and soya products. I've given soya hot dogs to meat eating DC before now and the taste is much closer to meat ones (which are only required to contain 30% meat, so maybe that's why!).

Soya mince and burgers have a more "meaty" taste, too.

Meant to say Tesco and sainsbos both do a good range of frozen soya meat substitutes.

I went veggie aged 11. If asked I don't think could have articulated why I made that decision however I was and still am an animal lover. Did me eating meat was wrong (including fish) however I do wear leather, drink milk etc. My parents thought it was a phase which would last a few weeks and that a trip to France that summer would change my mind (the French do not do vegetarian). Anyway, 20 odd years later I'm still veggie. Af that time there weren't as many veg alternatives about so I pretty much lived on baked potatoes and nut cutlets from the freezer and veg. This was minimal effort from my parents as just threw stuff in oven them I ate whatever veg the rest of the family were eating. Yes not a particularly varied diet but tbh I don't think my meat eating siblings had a particularly cried diet either. Anyway my point is that I turned out OK and if my parent had made me continue to eat meat I think I would have struggled / become a very fussy eater and probably malnourished ! Honestly I still can't 100%?explain why meat to me is wrong. I do remember quite liking the taste and have no issue with people eating meat around me it in my home (dh eats meat ) although I did draw the line at scrubbing the roasting tray from the turkey at Xmas . Please try to support your dd- yes she's young but she clearly has a view on this which should be respected.

I think I am being quite supportive, despite it making life more difficult for everyone.
She has been in a foul mood since giving up meat!
Last night we had a fry up, so I did facon and quorn sausages for her and she just yelled at everyone for eating the meat versions. She thinks we are trying to tempt her back to eating meat.
I can't get the other kids not to eat it in front of her, DS eats bugger all anyhow :(

Ah, well, that's a different issue. I would make it clear that you wil support her vegetarianism but in return she needs to accept that not all the family want or are indeed able to do the same and that your support depends on that. If she carried on stropping I would hand it over to her. And I say that as someone living with and cooking for 2 veggies, but isn't one herself, but I think it a very good thing to be (it would be very difficult for me, especially out of the home, to be fully veggie, but all our family meals are).

Could you get her a student veggie cookbook like this or this and let her get on with it? She chooses, you shop or give her the money (student cookbooks are all about cheap easy food!) and she cooks. Cooking for herself is a way of showing she is serious about being veggie, also it’s a life skill and if she’s not having to worry about her siblings she may become a more confident cook than you are! (My DS has an ASC so I understand why her doing family cooking may not be an option)

Oh and no matter what, if she cooks for herself or you then don’t discourage her by criticising anything she makes. We bought a non-veggie version of these for my DS and told him to cook for the family once a week. Sometimes the best thing I could find to say was “well it’s nice to have a change from what I would usually cook” but he does some lovely dishes now.

PS there's no harm in being firm about the "temptation" issue. What she easts is her decision but it is not anyone else's responsibility to change their eating habits to suit her.

it's not ethical as she will drink milk, eat eggs and wear leather

Why do you think this is not ethical? I've been vegetarian since I was a late teen (age 50 now) and my choice was entirely ethical.
However I'm not vegan, which would preclude my eating milk cheese and eggs, because my ethics only go so far. I also wear leather shoes.

I applaud those who take their ethics further and i think it's a crying shame that you're not supporting your DD's decision to make the world a better place.

If the whole world was vegan, we would have more than enough to feed everybody on it. It's the greedy meat eaters of the west who take more than their share.