Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy the age of vegetarianism

DD5 has decided she can no longer eat "things with faces" - not a major thing since as a family we barely eat any meat, and i was a vegetarian for most of my life, starting when i had a similar epiphany around the age of 7.

the critical moment came when she got really upset about a new lobster restaurant in the neighbourhood, imploring me to never support a place that would boil lobsters alive. she then had to be talked out of also quitting plants ("but they are ALSO BOILED ALIVE! or STEAMED! it's a HORRIBLE DEATH!")

which got me thinking about when any of your kids quit meat? what was the scenario? did it really take? (and if not, what broke them? was it bacon? :))

DS5 has thought about this A LOT!
First, wouldn't eat any animals.

Then he would come up with a tale about the life of the animal that somehow justified it being made into food. ("Mom, these nuggets came from a super horrible chicken. She attacked a baby!")

No vegetarians in my house, but I have a friend who calls bacon the gateway meat.

My wife did this when she was younger and stayed a vegetarian.

My children, on the other hand, are only slightly bothered by the source of meat (and my wife will cook meat, just not eat it). They have also shown no qualms about tasting crabs that they personally caught out of the water.

I did this around 5-6 when I saw my Mum preparing a Thanksgivimg turkey, then spent most of my childhood eating little meat. I'm now closer to car ignore (priceless iphone autocorrect for "carnivore") on the omnivore scale.

One of my kids doesn't like the taste of meat and won't eat much of it. I'm the same.

I also had the same reaction to lobsters as a kid. I also don't eat veal on principle and will occasionally preach about the cruelty involved to people I know well. Ditto for foie gras, which has happily been banned in my state.

We also eat eggs from pasture-raised chickens and do our best to avoid what could be called cruelty meats. I will take this opportunity to note that there is evidence that grass-fed beef is much better for you than grain-fed beef and that the grains are bad for bovine digestion (see The Omnivore's Dilemma, which also has a way cool edition for young readers). The book seems to support its claims reasonably.

Heck, DD8 is even in cricket rescue. We go to the pet store now and then to rescue a bag of them raised as lizard food. We have some very happy crickets living in a large-ish habitat in her room. They make a lovely relaxing chirping noise, too.

I recall a documentary I watched in the late 1980's (or was it the '90's??) that depicted the response of live plants when another plant is put through a blender. They had electrodes (?) hooked up to the live plant and then fed the blender full of another plant.

They actually got a measurable response from the live plant. Interpretation: Plants know when plants are being tortured/die.

Seriously. I really did see this on tv years ago. Now where the research was conducted or what the outcome was, I couldn't tell you.

Anyway, I understand why someone wouldn't want to eat a formerly living being. If my son decides he will no longer, I'll make him a terrific veggie lasagna to celebrate!

We live on some acreage and raise our own grass-fed beef and our own free-range chickens. I like to know that their lives are happy and sun-filled before they become part of us through nutrition.

The cricket thing is really why I responded. DS loves to search the local pet supply store for "rogue" crickets and buy them to take home to freedom.

I just never liked the taste of meat-- I'd have liked to keep to pesco-lacto vegetarianism, myself, though. Alas, it was not to be.

We're fortunate that DD has been a hardened carnivore her entire life, I suppose. She and her dad have little choice, given their food allergies. They truly lack a lot of means of getting adequate protein intake otherwise, because entire food groups are off-limits to both of them, and some things can't even be in the house at all.

I eat only grass-fed/humanely raised 'red meat' (pork, beef, and rabbit) and poultry as my non-vegetarian protein sources. I might not be a vegetarian, but anything I'm eating needs to be. LOL.

Oh-- and fish as long as it was caught by someone known to me and I can count on it being uncontaminated by shellfish. I really like fish.

I probably eat four to six servings a week of various animal protein sources.

My advice isn't likely to be very useful re: strict vegetarianism, since mine isn't based in philosophical objections per se and I have no trouble preparing my meat (such as it is), I suppose. My other feeling is that if I couldn't bring myself to dress it out, I wouldn't eat it. If you have to fool yourself about where it comes from... well, you know what I'm saying, I suppose. There's no meat fairy.

However, along the same lines as Val's recommendation, I encourage others to read not only The Omnivore's Dilemma, but also Pollan's other book In Defense of Food, and Just Food, which is far more nuanced in many ways, and does a better job of the environmental side of food choices. It discusses the ethical considerations of food choice very intelligently.

My DD read that book when she was about 9 or 10, I think. We had some great family discussions about several of those books.

My eldest started having conversations about pork/bacon/ham = pig, beef = cow, etc between 2-3yrs old. She was somewhat tickled that chicken = chicken... What exactly she was eating came up at most meals and certainly it gave her some pause. There was a moment I thought she was going to declare vegetarianism. However, she was also an avid wildlife documentary watcher, "Walking with Lions" being a particular favorite. She seemed to conclude carnivores eat meat, herbivores eat plants, humans are omnivores and eat both. Certainly we encourage this view, but it was no more than casual discussion on our part...

Her younger sisters have also gone through stages of identifying the connections between food and farmyard, but with less interest (and less interest in animal docos too). My youngest is only just three though, she could yet have an epiphany, which would be unfortunate given her extremely limited food options. The only reason she's growing is her intake of ghee and chicken/meat.

They're certainly concerned with the ethical treatment of animals.