One decision I have always made for myself however is that I don't want to eat meat. I have been vegetarian since I was 18. My mum refused to let me be vegetarian before this point. She always thought it was 'just another phase' I was going through, and to be fair, there were quite a few of those, but as soon as I left home and went to uni, the meat went. I have never even been tempted to eat meat since then.
I was stood cooking this morning, making up a batch of bolognese for the children from finest beef mince, blood on my hands, I was feeling quite sick from it actually, but it got me thinking. A number of people have asked me whether I will bring up my children vegetarian but I don't.
The way I've always seen it, vegetarianism is a choice, one that I've made. My husband has chosen not to be a vegetarian. I have a friend who is a vegetarian and she has brought up her three children in the same way. Her husband doesn't eat meat in the house because she doesn't feel comfortable having meat in the house. Although I don't enjoy preparing meat, I do because I feel it's important that the children don't have it excluded from their diets just because I have made a choice not to eat it, and by preparing meals which do have meat in them means that we can all eat as a family regularly. My husband gets serious withdrawal symptoms if he doesn't get meat! But this has led me to wondering if I am in this case being a bit of a hypocrite? I'm still buying meat and supporting the industry after all.
My daughter is three now and is very aware that my 'chicken' looks different to hers. She really enjoys eating Quorn and I do give it to her, but I give her meat as well, despite the fact she isn't so keen on it. My son on the other hand is like his daddy and loves his meat, he can't get enough! I know that if either of my children decide that they want to become vegetarian when they are older and fully understand what this means, I will support them and allow them to do this as long as they get the nutrients through other foods in their diet. Until then, I will continue to do what I do, I'd rather be a hypocrite than have my children vitamin deficient, but how do other people deal with this issue? I'm sure I'm not the only one!
