planning to raose kid veggie

[ukfirestorm]

I'm vegan and my wife is vegetarian, and this far our daughter has been veggie, and we would continue bit getting g a lot of pressure from family and friends to give her the choice. She is 10 mo.ths...anyone e doing the same?

Just say 'like all families, when she is old enough to choose she can - until then - like all families, she can eat what we eat. It's not rocket science'.

My ds (now 20 months) is vegetarian because I am, and that's the food I cook. Just like in other families their children eat the same as they cook.

Many many thousands of children around the world are vegetarian (India for example). It's a perfectly healthy diet, sometimes more healthy than a typically western omnivorous diet where the person providing food isn't particularly well educated about nutrition.

I would just smile and nod at your family members and then just ignore ignore ignore! Or just act like a broken record, and repeat "our ds is vegetarian, it's not up for discussion thanks" every time anyone says anything.

Ooops I meant dd not ds, sorry!

Thanks

I'm veggie and my DH is a carnivore but we've always had a veggie household (probably because I do most of the cooking, that and the fact my DH likes my cooking :-)

So, my 4.5 year old and my 10 month old are both veggies. I plan on raising them veggie in their pre-school years until they're about 4 and they can understand where food comes from and what its all about and decide if they want to eat it or not.

My 4 year old now knows he's a vegetarian (I've never actually used that label, he must have picked it up from nursery, I've always just said I don't eat meat) and he knows that most people eat meat and I've said to him he's welcome to try any meat when we're out and about but that we only eat veggie in the house, but at the moment he's claiming that he doesn't want to eat meat (apparently its disgusting..) he just wants all his friends to be veggie! (fortunately there is another boy in his nursery class who is also veggie, so he's not the only one).

Ironically, my eldest is not actually that fond of vegetables, but he eats a good varied diet, loves fruit and is perfectly healthy (and looks it) so not had any issues from my inlaws (odd, since they commented on everything else when he was born..... )

We're raising our son with a vegetarian diet, I was raised in the same way and haven't had any familial pressure from dh side (yet).

I wonder how a baby as young as yours would be given choice anyway, do they think you should lay meat down with other food and just see what gets eaten?

I don't know your reasons for being vegetarian /vegan, but ethics and health are pretty popular reasons. I'd think those qualities, and the related knowledge about food provenance etc would be valuable things to pass on to your child. Perhaps some family education is in order? Or just an absolute 'no' is simpler perhaps

This is really interesting. I have been a veggie almost all my life and our household is currently veggie. DD is only seven months and has been veggie so far but I have been considering giving her some meat (but haven't quite been able to bring myself to do it yet!)

I suppose I know a fair bit about nutrition, but my question mark is iron - easier to absorb from meat sources for a baby, apparently. This is why I've been considering it. What iron alternatives do your veggie babies have?

Having principles about eating meat is no different in essence from having principles about anything else. If you think it's wrong to steal, you will tell your child that it's wrong. If you think it's wrong not to say please and thank you, you will tell your child that too. You wouldn't let your child make its own mind up about most stuff, so why wouldn't you bring them up thinking it's wrong to eat meat, when that's what you believe?

hugo - iron is over-rated for babies it's in loads of stuff, not just meat. I'm surprised you'd think of giving your child something you wouldn't eat yourself (for me, the whole health risk factor of cooking meat that I can't taste before I give it to him is another big reason both my boys are veggie just now).

My 10 month old has dried apricots and figs, readibrek (fortified with iron), various green veggies, lentil dahl, chickpea curries etc. I always give vit c when he has iron to aid absorption (so figs and orange segments, apples and dried apricots).

It's just the same as for yourself really, I've never felt that babies need iron that much more than adults (and certainly never had any issues with either of my boys so far, nor me, my iron levels in pregnancy were absolutely fine).

your family encouraging you to cook meat for your child when you are both veg is really odd.

Badidea, we're the same in our household - veggie at home, DH loves a bloody steak when we're out! DH is cool with DS being raised as a veggie, and because we're meat-free at home, there won't be a question every day from DS along the lines of "why does daddy have a great big hunk of meat while mummy and I don't?"

So far, it hasn't been an issue and the childminder that 7 mo DS will go to in a few months' time is on board with the veggie diet as well. My parents are veggie and I was raised as such; DH's parents are not. We've only recently started weaning him so it's all been veggie based anyway. We haven't told DH's parents yet about our intention to raise him veggie. While they are lovely, I fully expect one day when we leave DS alone with MIL at mealtime that she will sneak a bit of meat on to his plate - I have no doubt she will think he is nutritionally losing out somehow. It won't be the last time someone will do that - things will get interesting once he gets to school - but all that's out of my control. While he's with us, we can decide what foods to give him.

And one day, when he is old enough to use logic and reasoning, he might end up like .

The book Baby and Child Vegetarian Recipes by Carol Timperley is proving very handy in our house at the moment.

Nice link maui - but I always wonder with these things, are their parents expecting them to say all this, is that why the camcorder is out (we've never recorded our son eating - taking a few spaghetti splattered snaps mind, but not footage..)

DS1 is 4 now and has started having the odd question about who eats meat and what meat etc, so he knows I'm veggie and his dad is not. So, we've had a few conversations:

DS1: Daddy, do you eat meat?
DH: Yes.
DS1: Have you ate monkey?
DH: No.
DS1: Have you ate chicken?
DH: Yes
DS1: Have you ate horse?
DH: No
(mummy raises eyebrows and mouths 'are you sure?'..)
DS1: Have you ate lamb?
DH: Yes,
DS1: aw.....
DH: Yes, but it's not really baby lambs, they're quite big...
Me: it's still lamb though?
DH: well, yes, but they're a year old, I mean it's not what he's thinking is a lamb...
Me: Still a lamb though?
DH: ....yes (looking slightly crestfallen...)

I have to say, I do enjoy them :-D

Over a year on and daughter still veggie with no