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"All are needed by each one. Nothing is fair or good alone" Ralph Waldo Emerson Ask The Savvy Vegetarian
Savvy Vegetarian Life Coaching:Whatever your difficulties in becoming vegetarian, individual coaching will help to increase your confidence, shorten the learning curve, and smooth the bumps in the road. Introductory Life Coaching Session: Private 15 minute phone consultation, $14.95! Sign upSchool For Savvy Vegetarians:Interactive vegetarian classes combining theory and practice in:
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Ask The Savvy Vegetarian: Teenage Vegan AdviceSavvy Vegetarian NewsVol. 1, Issue 1, January 2003Back To Newsletter IndexDear Savvy Vegetarian:"My 14 year old daughter came home about a month ago, and announced that she is now a vegan. She won't eat any animal products at all. Actually, she hardly eats anything, she has lost weight, and doesn't look very healthy. I don't know what to cook for her, I don't know what to do with her. My husband is ready to throw her out, and her brothers tease her all the time. Our house is a war zone. Do you have any suggestions?" Dear Mom:You have my utmost sympathy! I'd say the first thing to do is start communicating. If you can't all sit and discuss the issue without losing it, then try just you & your daughter to start. Get a professional counselor to help if necessary. There's a lot at stake here. The rest of you need to understand what's behind your daughters sudden decision to be vegetarian, and do your best to accept her choice, and respect her feelings. She needs to know how her new regime affects the rest of the family. For instance, you are being forced to feed her different food than what the rest of you eat, and which you don't know how to prepare. And I'm pretty sure you all feel upset about being cast in the role of evil meat eaters. To be fair, your daughter should take some practical responsibility for her decision, and learn to (gasp!) cook for herself. Be prepared to spend some time with her on this. You & she could pick out one or two beginner level vegetarian cookbooks, and try out recipes together. The whole family should agree to try them, keeping an open mind to new tastes. I recommend Laurel's Kitchen as a good place to start, because the recipes ar simple, and it has a lot of information on vegetarian nutrition. The Savvy Vegetarian also offers a 12 lesson course for beginning vegetarians which you could take together, and also personal coaching. If you're interested, click on these links for more information: School For Savvy Vegetarians, or Life Coaching The nutrition issue definitely needs to be dealt with. By going overnight from a meat-centered diet to a vegan diet, she is endangering her health, because her body can't make such a drastic change without consequences. She has been accustomed to getting nourishment from certain sources, and it takes time to adapt to eating different foods. The change should be gradual - two years is ideal. She is still growing, and the risk of malnutrition is very high. If she won't start with just cutting out red meat, then she should start with an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, based on a variety of whole grains, and including a wide variety of fresh fruit & vegetables, beans, lentils, nuts, & seeds, to meet her nutritional needs. Easy on the junk food & soft drinks. You should work toward a compromise, where she agrees to make the change gradually, while learning about being a healthy vegetarian, living harmoniously with non-vegetarians, and you all agree to support her choice. Live & let live, in other words. Good luck! Please let me know how it goes, Judy Kingsbury,
The Savvy Vegetarian
Index: Savvy Vegetarian NewsVol. 1, Issue 1, January, 2003Article: What is Organic Food and Why Should We Eat It?"Chances are very good that organic food, on the whole, is more nutritious than chemically grown food. It's certainly not true that adding chemical fertilizer to soil produces a product equal to organically grown, any more than it s true that living on vitamin pills makes you healthier than someone who doesn't take them." Ask The Savvy Vegetarian: Teenage Vegan Creates Chaos:"My 14 year old daughter came home about a month ago, and announced that she is now a vegan. She won't eat any animal products at all. Actually, she hardly eats anything, she has lost weight, and doesn't look very healthy. I don't know what to cook for her, I don't know what to do with her. My husband is ready to throw her out, and her brothers tease her all the time. Our house is a war zone. Do you have any suggestions?" Quick and Easy Recipe: Tofu Burgers:"Here's a sure way to get your kids or anyone else to eat tofu. This quick, easy & tasty recipe is a favorite with all our family & friends. It makes 8 good sized patties." Click here to ask questions or send contributions to Savvy Vegetarian News.Subscribe to Savvy Vegetarian News:
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