Three days, meat free for me!

[Bouncy Ball]

It's been great. Not nearly as difficult as I thought. My daughter and I (she's 10) have gone vegetarian. We are going to go to Whole Foods tomorrow or the next day (we have plenty of stuff in the house for now) to check out some different vegetarian food options and I am looking for recipes on-line. She is open to the idea of tofu (she's had it before, in fact, and was surprised to find that out, LOL!). And I'm open to drinking more soy milk (she already loves it). (As of now, we have soy and ORGANIC skim milk, from dairy cows who are treated right and are given only organic feed, no growth hormones, no antibiotics, etc.)

We both feel fantastic. I do have a question: as a pre-teen girl, she does have pretty specific dietary needs and will continue to. Is there a good multi-vitamin for vegetarian pre-teens and teenagers? I'm not having any luck looking online, but maybe I'm not looking in the right spots.

Thanks!

[Elad]

1. Good for you!

Whole Foods has tons of meat imitation products that can satisfy your cravings (assuming you have any) for that old, familiar taste/texture. Most meat-eaters I convince to try some of the imitation products are shocked, literally, at how realistic they are. Experiment plenty till you find ones you like, because they vary greatly from brand to brand.

For a multi-vitamin, Nature's Plus makes a good teen multi:
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/%5BpsDetailsShell%5D.asp?criteria=bannersearch&searchVar=teen&productNumber=29991

[Bouncy Ball]

2. Thanks!

:hi:

We love Whole Foods, and I have had the meatless "meat" products and been shocked myself at how good they are. Thanks for the vitamin recommendation, that one looks good.

[smbolisnch]

3. That's awesome!

Keep it up and keep coming in our little room here to let us know how things are going!

It's great that you and your daughter are doing this together....I am sure you are having fun with it!

Yay Bouncy Ball! :bounce:

[livinginphotographs]

4. Congratulations.

It's easier than you think.

[flvegan]

5. Well done! Congrats to you both.

Not being a teen, nor female, nor a registered nutritionist, I don't know specifics on raising a teen girl as a vegetarian. Joanne Stepaniak has a book that I've heard good things about, called "Raising Vegetarian Children." She's a major part of the vegsource.com family, as well. Might be worth checking out.

[AFSCME girl]

6. That's great, Bouncy Ball!

Keep it up - you and your daughter will never regret going veggie! :woohoo:

[JackieO]

7. congrats!

:toast:

[4_Legs_Good]

8. Fantastic!!!

It's really actually very easy to go vegetarian. I was also very surprised when I took the plunge over a decade ago, and it's gotten many times easier since then!!

Don't give up and when you hit an obstacle make sure not to give in right away. There are always ways around the dillema, whatever it is.

My 2.75 year old son has been an ovo-lacto vegetarian his whole life and is doing well (he does get sick often, but I think that's much more due to the fact that he's around germs all the time at daycare - he's above the 75% in height and I think 50% weight). He does eat tons of organic/free range eggs and cheese. I just wish we could get him to eat more veggies (and stop the apple juice - oops, my bad!)!! But anyway, while I don't claim any expertise on the subject, carnivore people do a lot of scaring wrt how difficult it is to raise vegetarian kids. In my experience it's not difficult at all, other than just steering them away from all the crap meat that's out there for easy consumption. We're getting to the point where soon we're going to really explain the whole situation to him. Now it's just "that's meat and we don't eat meat." but where exactly meat comes from isn't far away.

Anyway, great work, keep at it, let us know if you have any questions and enjoy all the great food out there.

david

[Bouncy Ball]

9. Thanks, David.

The funny thing is, it was HER to steered me to being a vegetarian. The ethical component ALWAYS bothered her, but it got to bothering her so much that I agreed to look into how the animals were treated, killed, etc. Which lead us to the PETA videos showing such things.

That was it. The straw that broke our camel's back. My daughter covered her eyes and didn't watch most of them (and I'm glad, they would have given her nightmares), but she listened to the narration and I watched. And cried. And wondered how humans could live with themselves treating animals that way.

We haven't looked back. And we're enjoying the health benefits. It's been nine days now!

[4_Legs_Good]

12. Fantastic!

I haven't seen those PETA videos, but I have seen animals slaughtered in other films, etc. Even very tame stuff, like the chicken beak searing sequence in Baraka, some old student chicken film I saw in college (I wish I had a copy of it!), and the horrific, though personal - non corporate farming, pig slaughter scene in "Brother's Keeper" show you something you've never seen and probably didn't imagine, especially if you get your meat in celophane.

Anyway, I hope you're still on the wagon (or is it off? heh heh heh). Keep up the good work! And let your daughter know that she's now part of a very cool and exclusive club :)

david

[Robeson]

10. Good for you Bouncy Ball......

...Way to go!!!! :woohoo:

Now, if we can all just figure out a way to get those Repubicans Drafted, we'll be set!!;-)

[LisaLynne]

11. Congrats!

It really isn't as hard as people would want you to believe. And honestly, I know I eat better since going veg than I did before -- nutrition and yumminess-wise! :)