kids on a vegan diet... a rant

[Dancing Lotus]

Ok so the Vegan thing is going great for Hubby and I , it's the kids I'm ready to kill.

THEY HATE EVERYTHING. Every single meal is a struggle. I have even made great strides to find kid friendly recipes. It's not the meat that's the problem it's the dairy. Most of their old favorite meals involved dairy. I tried to make some of them with vegan substitutes but it's always a no go. And my 4 yr old just wont touch anything with beans. Tonight she went so far as to make herself throw up. YES I'm sure she did it on purpose.
The kicker, it was a meal she ate just fine before. Red beans and rice in a burrito.
I know that it's difficult for kids to change eating habits. I know they didn't ask for this. I know I'm the parent and they have to do what I say, but I'm at my wits end and just want to have a good cry over it.

I know they will come around but in the mean time I really don't know how much more complaining I can take.

rant over

[Contrary Housewife]

I found that when I dropped dairy from my diet years ago it was best to just make the change clear cut and not use substitutes. Not that there were substitutes back then, but I later found out most dairy subs really taste pretty bad.

It was the same when DH went low carb, we just dropped high glycemic carbs from the diet and didn't look for things like low carb pasta or cookies. There was lots of other food to eat.

Kids can be completely unreasonable about changes to favorite foods, so sometimes it's best to have completely new recipes. Good luck getting them on board.

[mek42]

I agree - the cheese substitutes are definitely not the same as the real thing.

Good luck!

[Palooka]

Have you tried making dishes with nutritional yeast? You can make a lot of 'cheesy' things with that. You might want to check out "The uncheese cookbook."

I also agree with CH that it might be better for no substitutes.

Hang in there. I'm sure they will come around.

[pollypurebred39]

Maybe this will help? they have recipes and a forum.

VegFamily magazine - Raising Vegan Children, Vegan Pregnancy, and Vegan Recipes

http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=148.0

http://www.naturallyvegetarianrecipes.com/

http://vegankid.blogspot.com/

http://www.parsleysoup.co.uk/list.php?category=kids

http://www.veganlunchbox.com/

http://www.notmilk.com/veganrecipes.html

[Dancing Lotus]

Maybe this will help? they have recipes and a forum.

VegFamily magazine - Raising Vegan Children, Vegan Pregnancy, and Vegan Recipes

Vegan Kid-Friendly Recipes

Naturally Vegetarian/ Home

adventures in the life of a 10 year old Vegan Kid...

Cherry's Vegan Recipes - Children's

Vegan Lunch Box

Links to Vegan Recipe sites

Thanks! I haven't seen most of these but I do love the Vegan lunch box

[ms.mel.who]

I think all kids complain, even if you are serving meat and mac and cheese. My kids are sometimes looking for a button to push with me, they know it is important to me to be vegeterian, so they talk about how much they love hot dogs or something silly.

When we made the transition to veggie, I said this is what we are having if you like it - great, if not - make yourself a PB and J. A PB and J with organic peanut butter on whole wheat, spelt, or multi-grain is a great meal. They slowly came around and now eat or at least try everything.

My kids favs:
Garbanzo bean tacos in taco shells
Pasta with red sauce and TVP
Brown rice with Braggs and Brocolli
veggie corn dogs (morningstar - I don't know if they are vegan)
Chilli with bulgar wheat or TVP (my kids love corn, so I throw some frozen corn in there)



Oh and I bribe kids with dessert, maybe I won't win for parent of the year with bribery, but it works.

Good luck to you!! What a fun adventure!

[Greebo]

If I'm understanding you correctly, you've radically changed their diet for reasons 4 year olds aren't capable of understanding. What kind of reaction were you expecting? Kids don't like drastic changes and this one is pretty drastic.

[Dancing Lotus]

Ah Greebo, I'm not crazy I didn't think they would be happy.
Nor have I taken things from them 100%. This weekend they went to a BBQ and ate a hot dog.
What I want them to understand is that in this house they will not be served.
What I didn't expect was Vomiting over some beans. Beans that they have eaten many times before without any incident.

I'm just getting a little stressed between balancing everyone's desires along with my dietary and budget concerns. I knew this wasn't going to be easy but can I not take a moment to blow steam about it?

Also I didn't do this over night. It stared with just one thing and inched into two then three. They didn't notice anything for a long time. It's just the dairy that's proven to be the hardest.

My reasons for not wanting dairy are lengthy.
Animal cruelty being one.
Hormones being the other.
I have experience MAJOR health benefits since eliminating dairy. Why wouldn't' I want to be as kind to my children as I have to myself?

[Greebo]

Hey, i did say *IF* I was understanding you correctly.

Thanks for clarifying. Let em be hungry - they won't let themselves starve to death.

[Dancing Lotus]

No, no you asked a perfectly good question. You were absolutely correct, children do not like change. You did say "if" and I saw that.

[mek42]

My reasons for not wanting dairy are lengthy.
Animal cruelty being one.
Hormones being the other.
I have experience MAJOR health benefits since eliminating dairy. Why wouldn't' I want to be as kind to my children as I have to myself?

Ok, two ideas, one less facetious than the other.

First the (kind of) joking suggestion. Tell them if they want dairy they can buy the cow, take care of it, milk it and make their own cheese. That takes care of the two reasons you listed, but there may be other reasons that would make even this option a non-starter. If the neighbors complain, tell them it is a working pet and name it Cheesegiver or something equally ludicrous.

Second, maybe see if they like Thai flavor with light coconut milk? You can use very small amounts of yellow curry paste for flavor without the heat. Or if they like spicy, go ahead and crank it up with the red curry paste. Unless you are sure you like spicy, use about half the amount of red curry paste the recipe calls for - the full amount is somewhere between American medium and American hot.

[Libby]

If its with drinking milk - have you swapped in flavoured alternative milks (almond, rice, soy etc)? Try mixing 1/2 plain with 1/2 flavoured and slowly lessen the amount of flavoured until they get used to the plain? The alternative milk will def have a diff taste which the flavour is there to help hide but by drinking a mix of the two they'll adapt to the alternative milk taste in the background and one day the flavour will disappear and they can drink the plain alternative milk.

I hope that made sense.

[IntlMom]

Ann, I've been thinking about this thread for a few days now. I am sorry you are having so many issues with your kiddos not liking what's going on in the house. I just want to encourage you with this thought, however:
You are very VERY lucky that you and your DH are on the same page about your diet! I could not attempt what you are doing in my home. My DH is VERY MUCH not on the same page with me in my attempt to create a more green environment in our home. (remember, he works in the agriculutral pestiside industry) He and I battle on every issue that I bring up. He questions my food purchases (how much more did I spend on that organic such-and-such? etc...) He thinks my recycling is a mess in "his" garage (never mind that he leaves his underwear on the floor every day he takes a shower!) and now that I have gone vegetarian - he thinks I've "lost it" and he is always condeming me for my food choices and telling me all the reasons that I am wrong.

SO - lucky you!

[vigilant20]

Would it be such a bad thing for the kids to be on a vegetarian diet? It sounds like that would solve your problems.