In response to my asking Annabelle what she wanted for lunch she said "Mama, I don't believe an animal should give it's life up so i can eat it. I want to be a vegetarian now".

We've been taking about it and six is young to start but hey, she potty learned pretty much on her own at two and a half so why not. She's been walking around with Pretend Soup under her arm reading it and pretending to use it as a cook book in her play kitchen. At the HFS today she cried out in joy "I LOVE almonds!"

So, I'm the mama of a vegetarian. Want to place bets on when she goes Vegan :D

Woohoo! Go, Annabelle! :waving:

my sister, who is 39, has been a veggie since the age of 5. unfortunately, she pretty much lives off of onions, iceburg lettuce, cheese, and pepsi. she's the kind of vegetarian that anti-vegetarians use as an example of bad health - so make sure your dd isn't one of those :)

Good for Annabelle! My girls have been vegetarian since birth(and so have I). We eat mostly vegan but if they ask for ice cream or pizza, I'll let them have it.

That is really neat. Are you vegetarian also?

I have a 5 year old that LOVES loves loves animals. That is her life. She hasn 't made the connection yet, but I'm sure she will by the time she's 9 or so.

Can I ask what you will feed her? Do you allow soy protein etc?

Chandi

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. We're reading Pretend Soup and I'm remembering I have a lot more veggie cookbooks than I had thought. I lost the gourmet one in the "divorce". But we have Pretend Soup, The Laptop Lunch User's Guide, Moosewood Low-Fat cookbook, The Moosewood Cookbook, Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Feeding the Whole Family, the Tassajara cook book and the Bread book, and finally the new Laurel's Kitchen. So i have a ton of books.

Soy may be a big issue for us. While Annabelle was breast feeding she was allergic to soy as I am. I don't eat it or cook it and we avoid products with it. At this point I'll have to test her to see if she has any reaction to it. The last I checked Soy was in setan (sp?) and that other non-meat thingie that I loved so much. Back before I got my soy allergy I was actually Vegan. Not a well eating Vegan, but Vegan non the less. Since i got the soy allergy I went back to an omnivore diet, thought I am still not big on meat.

Right now Annabelle is good with milk and eggs. I see lots and lots of scrambled eggs in my future.

You can make your own seitan with just gluten. And Quorn products are soy free. It's not as easy, but it's definitely possible to find meat substitutes that are soy free for those days when she just wants a chicken nugget. ;)

Of course, it's even easier just to skip the meat subs and make beans and rice, polenta cakes and tomatoes, dal and naan, bean chili with cornbread, minestrone with white beans, falael and pita, etc. :)