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?

My 14 year old DD announced she wanted to become veggie last year and we went with it. She actually decided that it wasn't for her in the end and has gone back to eating meat (I was quite relieved I must admit)

If we were having something like sausage and mash, I'd just sub the sausage for a Quorn sausage.

If we were having a shepherds pie/spag bol/chilli I had a separate smaller frying pan and cooked both at the same time if you see what I mean (I'd make double and chuck half in the freezer). I had a separate 1 person casserole dish for stews/etc

DD did get a bit huffy about us still eating meat, but she was told straight - I was happy to support her choices but the rest of us had not chosen to become vegetarian too, like it or lump it.

I found Quorn were best for sausages and burgers, Sainsbury's do a good veggie mince. They also do soya 'pieces' which were good for stews

Absolutely tell her straight - her choice is her choice, but she doesn't get to impose it on anyone else. She doesn't sound to me as though she will stick with it, tbh.

Can you approach it by getting her involved in cooking vegetarian stuff to try to find dishes that she likes, with a view to making the change to dropping meat at some vague unspecified point in future? Suggest she carries on eating meat during the "transition" (which may or may not come but it will be a lot less of a pain in the arse if it does as by then you will have some recipes under your belts).

To justify why she can choose her own food and her sibs can’t, you might be able to pick from:

• She is old enough to start choosing what she eats (if her sibs are younger!)
• She cooks so she chooses what to cook
• She is making healthy food choices – and you could explain that in different ways depending what your kids will understand, such as that everything she cooks comes from the (non-pudding) section of the cookbook; or that it contains a reasonable amount of protein/fibre/vitamins and not too much sugar etc.; or that it balances the veggie bits that you cook
• She is making varied food choices and not eating exactly the same thing every day.

Those could be reasonable “ground rules” for her as well as explanations for her sibs. You did say she could go veggie when she was old enough to cook for herself? At 14 she is old enough to start.

There are some potential benefits to this too. You could have a rule that she makes a little bit extra so anyone else can have a taste. Kids (even kids with ASCs!) can be perverse (well, sensitive to context ) and a new food cooked by DSis might be tried and enjoyed when the same thing made by Mum would be rejected out of hand.

Boil an egg with the rest of the meal. This is minimal effort & will cover protein-iron needs, let OP cook whatever else they like. Move on. This is so not a big deal!!

Two choices for dinner tonight - take it or leave it.

Always used to say this to my children when they started getting huffy about dinner - now they know to accept or write a list of what they want before I go to waitrose i wish aldi to get the food and I'd try my best to make a meal that fitted around everybody.

And if that doesn't work, read the first sentence again

With all the dishes you mentioned it would be easy enough to cook a smaller veggie version alongside. So when you make a meat chilli make an identical veggie version at the same time. Same with cottage pie and stew. Use lentils or pulses instead of meat for her dish.

I'd make the family meal, dish it out and leave hers in the pan.

If she wants to be veggie, help her to cook it herself. Can't be fucking up the family meals when it's finally stabilised out for you.

I think she's quite eat to accommodate actually. Imagine you are cooking shepherded pie, while making the main shepherded pie for the family, you make a much smaller almost identical shepherded pie but with puy lentils.

But yes she can cook some if the meals

Fivehourssleep - what a nightmare for you. Do you think dd is trying to get attention due to siblings with SN? The best solution may be getting her to help with veggie meals then you are not ignoring her...... Can she have a hot veggie lunch at school?

It never seems to work the other way with vegetarians, if this was a vegetarian family whose DD wanted to eat meat there wouldn't be people on here suggesting that twice a week they could just eat a bit of steak or chicken. As for restaurants try asking in a vegetarian restaurant what the meat options are.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Would you go to a curry house and ask for a pizza?

My DD is a similar age, and has been a veggie for about 4 years. We eat veggie when she's there, to save extra cooking, even though my older DS is a keen meat eater. For mince dishes, I use Quorn mince for everyone. I think it does taste meaty, particularly with all the seasoning.

But I'm actually just posting to recommend Cauldron sausages, as no-one had mentioned those, and DS and DD both like them, but not the Quorn ones.

She's 14, just tell her to cook her own meals

Trying to get back to the OPs original question, what can her daughter eat?

I've been veggie for a very long time and I don't think I do anything special. I eat eggs and cheese and it seems as if the OPs daughter will do this too. Spinach is a good source of iron.

The things I won't eat are meat substitutes, because they pretend to be/taste like meat. But it seems as if the OPs daughter isn't as fussy as me.

To be honest I wouldn't worry about it. She won't waste away as a result of eating vegetables. But it is a good opportunity for her to learn to cook. We (my wife isn't really veggie but almost) do a lot of one-pot cooking - curries, stews, pilaff, etc. Pretty straightforward. Plenty of opportunity to do more elaborate meals though, if she gets enthusiastic.