Do I get to decide if my child is to become a vegetarian, or

Strike up a conversation with the person selling the meat and ask. That's what I did with the fellow selling his meat at our Farmer's market. He claims that Michael Pollan has done more for his business than any advertising he might have come up with.

 

I consider myself a flexitarian, eating only chicken and fish very infrequently, but I woke up the other morning with a very primal desire for red meat. I believe this is related to my needing some nutrient - I guess. Anyway, I did buy some ground Buffalo and had a great Buffalo burgers for two nights.

 

Feed your kids a balanced diet. With adults who are vegan for personal reasons it is very hard to get the correct nutrition. A kid who is "because you say so" will be extremely difficult to keep healthy. Also if you dont build up a tolerance when you are young you are screwed for life.

 

In a word, no.

But by being a good parent/provider you can predispose the child to
choose vegetarianism later when they are on their own.

As noted, the child's proper and complete nutrition is the fundamental
issue. Meals/snacks that are nutritious and tasty, and presented in a
pleasant, non-contentious setting will become the norm.

Ultimately the child, all too soon to be a young adult, will choose their
life style and diet. What those are will be based on their prior
experience with more immediate inputs from the media, their friends,
their salary, where they live, etc.

If the child's formative years were positive and supportive, and
included vegetarian fare, that will be the default choice...

But it will be the former child's choice, not yours... That's life.

 

Wow, some really interesting viewpoints here.

So, tell me. Why would you be vegetarian or vegan unless you were convinced that it was the best way to meet your nutritional needs? And, if you thought it was, why would you feed your child something "less" ideal?
If you don't think that it is ideal, then why are you treating yourself so poorly?

It might be better to get some nutritional information from well-established vegetarian sources. There is a LOT of help out there for feeding yourself well, as well as feeding children, on a vegetarian/vegan diet.

You might start with John Robbins' "The Food Revolution", then check out some sites like:

American Heart Association article on Vegetarian diets

Vegetarian Resource Group article on feeding children

The Vegan Society

 

In most everything ... find balance. Many grains are refined until little fiber is left ... so that one finds their self eating little but the carbs (complex sugar). Then you end of with a malnurished person on their way to diabetes. It won't be long until the insurance companies start charging more per policy, based on height to weight ratios. The stats show that the average person will outlive the obese person, and that's generally known. But few realize that the folks who are (again ... balance ... NOT overdoing it) under the average weight outlive the average sized people. Yes, exercize, life style etc all play a part ... and exercize trumps a LOT of things. Its strange how much we mess our self up via refined grains .. brought to you under the table by (corn starch) thickers in everything from soup, to sweeteners etc. But I digress.

.

 

That's what I like about this place. Somebody asks a simple question, and it develops into a spirited discussion that involves several important issues. Most of us remain civil, and everybody learns something about each other, the world around them, and maybe even themselves.

 

Yes, you decide what to feed your child, but it is your responsibility to do the necessary research into how to meet all the nutritional needs of a child by such a diet. The Mayo clinic has information on this as well as many other websites and in books. Stick to reputable institutions for your information. Places that are well-known and conduct peer-reviewed research that is published in major academic journals.

 

what do YOU think

 

anthropologically speaking, we were not made to eat meat. over a hundred thousand years, we slowly developed teeth that made meat eating easier, but that is not how we started out.

granted, meat did allow us to eat all year. a veggie based diet does become a bit thin in the wintertime and we not being very sophisticated, did a poor job of getting a good variety of vitamins and minerals in the early days.

but have learned a lot, its just stuff we preach but dont practice. we have gone away from the "do it yourself" to "if i give you an extra buck, will you do it for me?" life.

but now the economy sucks and saving a buck is more important to us, so the portions became smaller, saltier and much higher in fat and its all on the dollar menu. so we eat, get all the calories we need, twice the fat and 3 times the sodium and are happy. but we are also dying because of it which is exactly what God had planned for us since there are too many people here

 

Feed her all the meat she wants but when you eat at home, eat the expensive organic stuff because as others have said, it's sustainable. It's better for you anyway.

When you're eating out, you don't have much of a choice, but remember that fast food has enough calories to put weight on a Hummer (not that I let that stop me from eating it LOL)