Intro

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I just joined this group last week and thought I would post an intro. I

tried to answer the questions sent out with my welcome letter but the email

address didn't work? (parents <parents or something

like that, I hope you know which I mean).

 

My name is Cindy and I'm 28. I live in England with my husband, 33

(henceforth known as DH) and son, 3 years (DS).

 

I have been vegetarian since the age of 13. I am also periodically vegan

because I have a skin condition which is made worse by dairy products -

although I find it hard to stay vegan when I am chief cook and bottle washer

dealing with the food for 3 people all of whom eat different things, and

usually end up going back to vegetarian since it's " easier " (yes I know this

is a pathetic excuse but I'm working on it!).

My husband is a dyed in the wool carnivore, and the day he goes veggie will

be the day I die from shock.

 

When our son was born we had to reach a compromise about his eating. I

agreed to let him have access to meat if his dad agreed not to force him to

eat it. Generally we do this by cooking extra of whatever DH is eating, just

in case DS wants some. Then when he's old enough to understand he can make

his own choice which way he wants to go. At the moment DS is not keen on

meat (yay!) and usually turns down whatever DH offers him (unless it is

sausages or fish fingers, which he loves).

 

But then he also turns down whatever veggie meal I offer him too (boo!). I

find that a lot of the things are too spicy, contain unusual ingredients he

doesn't like, or else they take too long to cook (I have a 30 minute window

between getting home and him needing to eat NOW! or he goes past it and is

too cranky to eat)

 

So unless DH is eating sausages or fish fingers, DS usually ends up eating

plain rice/potatoes/pasta (with no sauce), with plain boiled carrots/green

beans/zucchini/broccoli/sweetcorn/peas, or baked beans. He does like cheese

(as long as it isn't cooked or melted) plus yoghurts and fruit (bananas and

strawberries mainly). He HATES all ready-made veggie " fake meat " foods like

veggie burgers, veggie sausages (apart from the ones that taste like hot

dogs) and the like, and to be honest I don't want him to live on those

anyway as they're not a lot better health wise than fish fingers or sausages

(in fact other than those two he doesn't really like any other meat junk

food - burgers or chicken nuggets or whatever).

 

I'm not panicking too much about his nutrition yet. I'm of the opinion that

overall he eats OK, there are vitamins and minerals and protein and so on in

there, so he's not deficient (and I give him a multivitamin to make sure). I

know that at nursery he eats whatever they give him (because they all eat

the same thing and there is like a sibling rivalry thing going on there I

guess!), although this generally means meat since their veggie options are

all full of melted cheese which he hates. But I do want to offer him

something more interesting than " boiled veg and rice " that he tends to live

on. I'd also like to be able to give the school ideas for things to feed him

that aren't meat and aren't full of melted cheese, so he gets more choice

there. I need to find ideas for quick, easy and cheap vegetarian food that 3

year olds will eat. It's all very well promising to let him make his own

choice between meat or non meat, but if I can't ever find interesting veggie

things to offer him then he'll end up eating meat just because it was the

only thing that looked appealing!

 

Cindy

 

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