Re: Mom needs help w/13-year-old vegetarian


"Scooter" <juliekester@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:744d6b5a-a88e-4275-af60-dc01b3d628f2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My daughter has decided to go vegetarian. This seems to be not so much
a huge political stance as a determination that eating dead animals is
wrong/gross/not what she wants to do. Philosophically I'm fine with
that (although I'm not signing up), but as the person who makes meals
for the family it has me in something of a quandary, because I'm a
basic meat-and-potatoes kind of cook. Our vegetables currently range
from corn to carrots to green beans, but not much further. We eat
iceberg lettuce, for Pete's sake. I've never bought tofu in my life.
I'm afraid I'm gonna starve this kid.

Any advice from vegetarians or those who love them (or at least live
with them) would be appreciated. For reference, my eating audience now
consists of an adventurous carnivore (husband), a not-so-adventurous
carnivore (me), a not-at-all-adventurous meat tolerator (16-year-old
son), and the newly crowned vegetarian. We all like pasta, but I don't
think I can get away with that seven days a week. I know that I need
to replace the good aspects of meat (protein, iron, etc.) somehow, but
I don't know how.

I ate a vegetarian diet for years and never once ate tofu. My parents
served me tofu a couple of times as a kid and pppyuck!

Basically I ate whatever else my family was eating but I substituted some
hard boiled eggs or cheese for the meat. Assuming there was meat. There
wasn't always. I was also partial to huge salads with all kinds of raw
vegetables topped with some almonds, walnuts, pecans or pine nuts and some
canned kidney or garbanzo beans. If I found the meal really objectionable,
there was always a peanut butter sandwich.

Basically she just needs some kind of protein. Dark leafy vegetables do
contain iron. You should consider adding some of these to your salads. And
she might need a B supplement. Nutritional Yeast is high in B vitamins. It
lends a cheesy flavor. I add it to baked savory breads and pasta sauces.
Also as a pizza topping. Daughter likes it on popcorn.

You might also consider Bocca Burgers on occasion. They are soy based. I
don't advocate the use of soy very often because it's a potential allergen
and eating too much of it can wreck havoc with your thyroid if you're prone
to such problems, like I am. My family loved them though. I got the All
American kind. I gave them to meat eaters and they kept trying to figure
out what kind of meat they were. There are other alternate burgers made of
beans or mushrooms or a combination of the two. I think some taste good and
some do not. These are something the whole family might like.

You can also do a variety of soups with no meat in them. And a favorite is
grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. My favorite grilled cheese has
strips of onion and pepper in it as well as some thinly sliced tomatoes.


.