Meatless Minors
by regular contributor Chris Belden
I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years. I don’t eat meat of any kind—no beef, pork, poultry or fish. No lobster, no chicken soup, no turkey at Thanksgiving—nothing with a face, nothing with a mother. I don’t do this for health reasons. If I were interested in health I would exercise more and drink less. I do it for ethical reasons. This is not the forum to discuss this topic, but suffice it to say that I don’t feel it’s necessary to kill animals to survive. Anyone interested in my reasons for not eating meat can read books such as Jonathan Safran Foer’s recent Eating Animals, or just Google “slaughterhouse video.”
My 4 ½ year-old daughter, Frankie, is also a vegetarian. The flesh of an animal has never passed her lips. When she was born, I asked my wife to honor my wish to bring Frankie up this way, knowing full well that, some day, she will probably be out with a friend at the mall and eat a slice of pepperoni pizza, and that will be the end of her vegetarianism. But I wanted to try. (My wife, by the way, is not a veggie. She eats poultry on occasion, though she never cooks it at home.)
When people learn that I’m a vegetarian, they always ask the same question: How do you get your protein? My answer is simple: I eat what my body craves, trusting my system to know what it needs. If I’m low on protein, I crave beans, or peanut butter, or tofu. And so I eat it. I don’t keep track of what I eat, or how much. My health is as good as it can be at my age (50, God help me). My cholesterol is perfect, my blood pressure is on the money, all my blood levels are where they need to be. I’m not low on anything.
When people learn that Frankie is also a vegetarian, they sometimes freak out. She’s a kid! She needs her protein! But according to the American Diatetic Association, which was established in 1917, “well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for all individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence.” Most people are more aware of the recommendations of the USDA, which every once in a while comes up with a new version of the food pyramid. What people don’t realize is that the USDA is not only charged with providing eating guidelines, but also with promoting the food industry. So the recommendations to eat a certain amount of meat, to drink a certain amount of milk, etc.—it’s all tied in to promoting big business.
Frankie loves cheese, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, and meatless “chicken nuggets,” all jam-packed with protein. Her favorite food in the world is lentil soup, which my wife makes from scratch, and is as good for you as almost anything. Like all kids, she also loves junk—gummy bears, ice cream, anything sweet. We fight the usual battles about this stuff; we just don’t tell her to please eat her bacon at breakfast.
Other than a lingering cold and allergies inherited from my side of the family, my daughter is as healthy as any of her meat-eating pals, and more so than most of them. When we recently had a strep throat scare, her pediatrician noted, with some surprise, that Frankie had not been in to see her since her annual check up, last August. And while I can’t possibly be objective about this, I really think she’s smarter than the average bear. Her teachers concur. If a lack of animal protein has stunted her mental capacity, we see no sign of it.
How does Frankie feel about being a vegetarian? I’ve been continually surprised that she has never requested a chicken finger, or a hamburger, or a hot dog—the products so often foisted on kids at parties, fairs and picnics. When a friend munches on one of those strips of processed chicken, Frankie casually mentions that she doesn’t eat animals and continues to eat her grilled cheese sandwich. No big deal.
I’m not sure how long this will last. That slice of pepperoni pizza is waiting out there for the kid who wants to rebel against her daddy. So are cigarettes, bad boys, beers and tattoos. I can only hope that, when the rebelling is over, she remembers what Albert Einstein once said: “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
What are your thoughts on raising kids vegetarian? Do you think it sets them back? Should they be allowed to choose?
I know I’m just the ignorant type to be one of the critics of this approach: “Why not let your kid decide?” But that argument is flawed, obviously, because if it were up to kids, all they’d eat is cake. They’d be “Dessertarians.” It’s similar to religion: you present a way of thinking to the kid and they make up their minds for themselves when they reach some semblance of adulthood.
Nice post, Chris. My wife and I are doing the same with our daughter. My wife is a strict vegetarian like yourself, and I only eat meat outside the home. We, too, have had zero problem finding a way to give our daughter the protein she needs. She loves edamame and tofu, beans, cheese and yoghurt. She’s coming around to eggs. No peanut butter yet, but I’ll wager she’ll love that, too. Our pediatrician had no problem whatsoever with our decision to raise her vegetarian, so long as we didn’t raise a “pastatarian,” as she called it. And your comment on Frankie’s health is something I can echo; since my daughter started going to day care at the end of last summer, she’s only been sick twice, whereas it seems her peers have had many more colds and fevers and ear infections. We have yet to face the challenges that growing up and attending birthday parties and baseball games will bring, but your post is heartening. Thanks.
Watch the movie Food, Inc. if you don’t know why people avoid eating meat. Those corporations treat their people (and the public) like they treat their livestock. They get away with such unethical behavior, all to make more money and feed our fast-food starved country a bunch of junk. Interesting. It IS a documentary, so I’m sure it is slightly slanted. Grain of salt.
Chris, keep the faith. My husband was raised vegetarian and he has never been tempted to eat meat or fish. I have been vegetarian since I was about 12 and I have just returned to a vegan diet (I ate eggs for my daughter’s first 10 months, since she got indigestion if I ate legumes and soy). I was vegan all through my pregnancy. I do put energy into nutrition (b vit supplements, conscious choices re: protein and vegetables, etc.), but it isn’t hard.
I figure we will raise her vegan and eventually give her the option re: dairy and eggs. I certainly intend she will never want to eat animals.
I don’t know where you live, but we are spoiled in Portland (OR) where there are great veggie options at nearly every restaurant and grocery store. Also, we don’t get flack from family since our parents are vegetarians (or nearly so).
If you get stick of the negagtive feedback, feel free to give Portland a try!