My friends' kid is a vegetarian...

My nephew started out like that. Then he discovered that bacon was rather tasty, so he made an exception. Hot dogs turned out to be good too, so another exception. He's a full fledged omnivore now.

Tom

 

Good point, Evan. Like the old saying goes: "If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?"

Tom

 

Both of my children went through a period around that age where they didn't like meat. Not sure if it was a texture thing, the taste, or for some reason their bodies didn't want it. It lasted about six months or so but then we were able to turn them into the barbecue loving freaks they are today ;-)

 

There are a whole lot of people who have successfully raised children that don't eat animals, without any ill effects to their health.

An amazing number of children will make that connection themselves, between "meat" and animals, and that we should be kind to animals. Children recognize that animals have personality, feelings, and value as living things.

I think the "brainwashing" comes later, when somehow people are convinced that treating sentient beings as factory-produced foodstuffs is 'normal'.

 

Good point, Rae. While I can't claim the moral high ground of being a vegetarian myself, I'm at least somewhat supportive. I think if 'field trips' to a packing or rendering plant were part of our education, we'd ALL be vegetarians.

 

A healthy balanced diet can't be underscored enough. Friends of ours have two sons. One son has refused to eat vegetables since Day 1, and has been permitted to not eat them. Since his grandparents are vegetarians and take care of him a large amount of the time, his diet is reduced to simple starches, tomato sauce and cheese. When he's not with the grandparents, his mother feeds him McD's, CostCo pizza, etc. The kid is overweight (moderately, not excessively) and not as active as he should be.

At age 11, he just recently entered a huge growth spurt, was having increasing back and shoulder pain and went to the doctor. Diagnosis: Scoliosis.

Surprised? Not really.

 

Well, burritos, you sure know how to come up with the divisive issues, don't you? :fencing:

 

Bacon is a vegetable

 

Another good bacon comic:
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

 

My favorite example of a vegetarian is Scott Jurek.

Scott won the Western States 100 mile footrace at least a half dozen times. That's from Squaw Valley to Auburn in the Sierra Nevada mountains. He's also won the Badwater Ultramarathon. It's from the bottom of Death Valley to Mount Whitney. In July .

Scott is actually vegan (no dairy/eggs). Among the reasons that he eats that way is that it helps him to recover from such extreme events. And it certainly doesn't hinder his performance.

An interesting aspect of his performance is that other people can beat him in races shorter than about 80 miles. Above that, and he just runs away from them while they crumble. Clean fuel works better.

There is an interesting interview with Scott at EliteRunning.com | Interview with Scott Jurek

 

On a side, almost related note, if you want to talk about dealing with the eating habits of children, the best thing is just let them be.

The less of an issue you make food choices, the less problems you will have.
Yes, some weeks all they will eat is peanut butter. Others, it will be strawberries, or corn, or yogurt. So what.
If you make food a battleground, it will become an issue in that little person's life, for their whole life.
Let them make choices. Those choices will change. Be sure to offer choices (don't just have peanut butter, for example), but let them know that they can decide for themselves what they are hungry for, and how hungry they are.

Yes, parents SHOULD make sure that there is a variety of only healthy foods available to choose from. No, an occasional hot dog won't kill you (well... maybe. I won't eat one), but if you make an issue of it, you've created a problem.

 

Or like the cannibals said in the old Flanders & Swan song, trying to convince the reluctant cannibal who felt that eating people was wrong:

"If the good lord had not meant us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat."

I was 19 when I decided that it was morally unjustifiable to kill animals for food in a society where a healthy vegetarian diet is readily available. "Morally unjustifiable" is the atheist equivalent of "sinful." It was not until I was in my early 40's that I began to recognize that good people sometimes do evil things and it was not my place to put labels like "bad" or "evil" on people. Now I limit myself to labeling the actions as "cruel." I think it would be hard to argue that killing animals for food is not cruel. There are places and times when one must be cruel to survive, where hunting is the only way to eat. But in a modern industrial society, the cruelty is unnecessary.

You have a perfect right to eat meat. But it is unnecessarily cruel.

I am surprised that a 5-year-old was precocious enough to come to the conclusions she did, but I applaud her. Her parents may succeed in turning her. Parents have a lot of power over their kids, and it is the very rare kid who has the strength of character to continue doing what she believes is right in the face of strong parental opposition. I wish her the best of luck.

And I agree that a balanced diet is necessary to good health. But rather than insisting she must eat meat, a more caring route would be to teach her what a balanced vegetarian diet consists of. And if she is comfortable eating dairy products, then amino acids are not an issue, nor is B-12.

Many Hindus are vegetarians, and those that have enough money to buy sufficient food are perfectly healthy. Meat is not necessary to the health of a growing child. A much bigger problem in the U.S. is the obesity epidemic, caused by a diet too high in meat and fat, as well as lack of exercise.