Vegetarian Mums and Babies!

[kirsten1985]

:wave:

I decided to start a group for all those veggie mums and kids stemming from a discussion on weaning for veggie babies on here.

So...how many veggers are out there?!!

I guess we can talk about all sorts of stuff, what we feed our babies/children, why we chose to do it this way, any good tips for meals, do we grow our own veg etc etc. I'm sure there's loads more!

Intros first!

I'm Kirsten, 24, and I am going to start BLW with Freya is about 3 weeks. I have always been veggie (with a 2 year testing the water meat eating phase in my teens) and I am wanting to give Freya a healthy start to her life regardless of whether she decides to continue with it when she is older or not. My DH Jake is not veggie and loves his meat . He is a bit put out that we won't be giving Freya any meat, but nevermind, sure he will get over it.....

Anyone else?

 

[jen1604]

Wooop!Good work starting the group Kirsten

I'm Jen,20,I've got a little girl Ophelia who is 15 months old and a little boy on the way.I've been a veggie about 10 years and both of my kiddos will be too.If they want to eat meat when theyre actually old enough to understand where its coming from then thats fine with me but for now we all do just fine without it I've been very lucky that Ophelia is the least fussy girl ever and will eat anything and everything and her favourite thing to eat is actually steamed broccolli

We've also been lucky that we have a great HV who raised all her kids veggie so she's always been tons of help and we've never had any negative reactions from anyone else.I think the in-laws would quite like to say something but they know not to even attempt to question the fact that my house and my family are meat-free

Ok,I'm blabbering,thats all for now,looking forward to meeting lots of other veggie mums and their babies xxx

 

[PeanutBean]

Yay!

I'm PeanutBean and I'm 30. Byron is my first baby, he's 10 and a half months. I've been veggie since I was 9 and DH has been veggie about 5 or 6 years now. We are raising Byron veggie as we feel strongly against eating meat. We're not vegan though (needs must) so he gets eggs and dairy. If when he's old enough to choose he does choose to eat meat then we'll accept that of course but we hope to be able to instill in him a strong degree of respect for animals and that he will want to stay veggie.

I'm not sure whether we've really talked about him begin veggie with anyone but we've not had any negative responses. My parents are veggie (except for fish) and my sister is too and raises her boys veggie even though her husband isn't. DH's parents are a bit nuts about it, they don't understand what we could possibly eat if not meat but to be frank we wouldn't be interested in their opinion even if they did choose to express it to us!

 

[kirsten1985]

Hi Jen and PB! Yeah my mum is veggie and raised me and my brother that way. My MIL is veggie, but because she 'doesn't like meat', not out of respect for animals or anything. So, she think's Freya should eat it, but she thinks Freya should do a lot of things, so that makes no difference!

Freya will hopefully eat eggs and dairy, but as I am intolerant to both we will be waiting a few extra months to give them to her. Which means I am almost vegan but not out of choice, as I used to enjoy eating eggs, and we have chickens, so have looooads of them.

I think it's rally funny when people wonder how you survive on 'vegetarin' food (as if it if something specific, lol) and how you can eat a whole meal with no meat. My DH is the same until he realises that almost all his meals contain no meat element!

I am practising cooking with lentils to get the protein content for Freya when starts to eat stuff like that. I have never cooked with them before, so will be fun. I'm thinking casseroles and curry?

 

[jen1604]

Yep I also put lentils in like a ratatouille type thing And Annabel Karmel does a good lentil recipe for when you start weaning Freya,although I think its more like a puree so maybe not much use if youre doing BLW.I'll still try and look it up though,might be useful

I try and force myself to eat eggs every now and again but if I think about where they've come from it tends to stress me out.For me eggs always seem like they are the blurry line between whats an animal product and whats an animal.If that makes sense?xxxxx

 

[jen1604]

Here's that lentil recipe --- https://www.annabelkarmel.com/age-r...ay_holiday_recipes/babies_food_lovely_lentils

What I would do if youre doing BLW is still puree it a little bit but leave the sweet potato,etc more chunky so she can pick it up..xxxx

 

[Drazic<3]

Hey girls,

my name is Katie. I'm 22 and I have been veggie for about 5 years and am currently expecting my first bubs. OH eats meat, but agrees with me that we should raise bubs veggie as he doesn't eat meat in the house.

I have a lot to learn! I think I am a pretty crappy veggie as it is! But need to make sure I get everything now I am preggo and be in the habit for when bubba is here! Great thread!

 

[Drazic<3]

Oh and I should probably add that I would marry Jen if she didn't live millions of miles away from me.

 

[kirsten1985]

Yeah that makes sense to me. I am torn between health and moral beliefs when it comes to things like milk and eggs. I only found out I was intolerant to eggs about 3 years ago. We have always had our own chickens, so that is the only reason I eat them. I would never, ever eat a battery chicken egg. As for milk, my intolerance stops me drinking it on it's own, but I am ok with cheese and chocolate. I don't like the idea of milk not because it comes from a cow, that in itself is pretty natural to me (in a one cow per family kind of way) I just hate the mass milk production thing, and the conditions of some of the dairy cows I have seen make me angry. So I take a calcium supplement. I do eat a bit of cheese though, despite having strong beliefs about vegetarianism I am not one to refuse food in a public place or at someones house because it has been in the same room as a sausage or because it has a minute ingredient in that I don't want.

Thanks, any lentil recipe is good, I need to learn!!!

 

[PeanutBean]

In find eggs a bit of a line too so I know what you mean. Egg white has to be totally solid or it makes me retch and though I like runny yolks I sometimes feel funny about them. Better scrambled to be on the safe side! I couldn't eat egg when I was pregnant. I tried once or twice but just looking at them was too much for my stomach.

We make a sort of cottage pie thing we like with red lentils, tinned tomatoes, garlic
(plus whatever veg or other pulses we fancy) and then mashed potato on top and cheese. It's relatively simple to make, everything in a frying pan then into a dish and add potato. We found with chick peas and garlic something was a bit much for Byron's tum but aren't sure yet if was the beans or the garlic.

I'm a rubbish veggie too. I don't like many veggies but those I prefer are the kings like spinach and broccolli. But we eat quite a bit of pretend sausages and things which I reckon are still too salty for Byron so we can't always eat the same meals.

 

[Fossey]

Hi,

Great thread!

Intro -

I am Bex and have been a vegi for nearly 31 years. Have never eaten meat and I thank my parents for bringing me up that way. Being a veggie is based on not eating animals apposed to health reasons. We were all brought up respecting animals and apposed to all animal cruelty which is how I will be bringing my daughter up. My husband eats meat but he is happy for this as he knows how much it means to me.
I am a lacto-ovo vegi so dairy is in for us. I tried being a vegan once, and I lasted about 1/2 a day after I tried soya milk.

I basically give Liss whatever I eat now, although she has nicer things as I am dieting grrr

 

[Seraphim]

Oo yay!! :happdance:

Crikey, this just reminded me I'm nearly 29 Married with our first little due in just over 3 weeks... living on dartmoor (just).

I'm the other side of the relationship to some of you... my husband is the veggie (one who eats a bit of fish). I don't eat meat at home, and really only have it on rare occassions out of convenience

It really tickled me to hear about veggie mums-to-be getting special quizzing about iron levels etc, as nobody would think to quiz me about it but I've had maybe 2 or 3 meat-meals in nearly 9 months

Our daughter will be veggie, and to be honest I think as she grows up, this will challenge my weak-willed 'convenience' issues - but that's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it.

Hubby is the best cook ever - if I could buy his cooking when we're out I'd have nooooo problem

I get more rattled to peoples ideas about vegetarianism than he does - but the way food production is going, I only see veggies growing in number.

I guess the attitudes and practicalities of it are more thought provoking for me because I have no worries about him cooking for LO - he's been keeping me super well fed for 10 years I love his cooking, and he's happy to try new thing with different veg and pulses - it's always yummy.

We've ALWAYS wanted to grow our own food, and again, I think LO and the home focus will bring that about. We'll both enjoy being out there digging in the mud with her when she's old enough In the meantime, we have a lovely neighbour who drops us all sorts from his garden...

Thanks for starting the thread!

 

[jen1604]

Seraphim you have just reminded me that I was meant to be ringing on Monday to find out about my iron levels Pregnant lady brain!

I've always really wanted to start growing my own veggies,but failing terribly with it...I either plant them then forget them or I plant them and then Hendrix our pet rabbit digs them all up.I need something realllly easy to grow that rabbits aren't interested in!

PeanutBean that cottage pie sounds yummy,I might attempt to make that.Although not today,today is chickpea and tomato and many-other-vegetable soup day

And Kirsten,I'm the same as you on hating the mass milk production I'm one of those sappy veggies that actually gets pretty upset about it all if I think about it too much and sometimes I just have to try and push it to the back of my mind so I dont go crazy about it all!
xxxxxxxxx

 

[PeanutBean]

I have to completely ignore the dairy issues or I'd never eat anything!

jen are you likely to have low iron? Did you know the iron tablets routinely prescribed are usually gelatine coated? I can highly recommend Spatone if you need supplement. It's an iron rich water from Snowdonia and it improved my iron levels way more than the tablets and also comes without the nasty side effects.

 

[jen1604]

I didn't know that actually....so sneaky how they just put gelatine into anything they possibly can!I had low iron when I was pregnant with Ophelia but I only took the tablets for about a week (because of the lovely side effects ) and then just tried eating tons and tons of iron-rich foods and that seemed to do the trick
Is Spatone easy to get hold of because that sounds ideal really!Do you think health food shops would be the best place to look?I'll Google it xx

 

[PeanutBean]

Yes you can get it from Boots and maybe some Tescos. I don't shop there so don't know if it was true but someone told me that. You might be able to get it on prescription. Someone on here did back when I was preg but she was in NI. It's fab. When you're pregnant you take a sachet twice a day just tipped into some juice. My iron and blood count rocketed when I took it and did little to nothing after 3 weeks on the tablets.

 

[soliloquise]

hello.. i am a vegan and my daughter will be bought up vegan if i can manage it too. i hope that my daughter will never want to eat meat but if she does i will make sure that she knows the suffering that goes on and that animals are not there to be used by us so to be respectful about it. i have been veggie since 14 and vegan only recently because i know that the dairy industry is also part of the meat industry and i just couldn't bear it anymore. i miss cheese tho. glad to meet others

 

[jen1604]

Hi soliloquise!
How old is your little girl?
I've heard its a lot of work to make sure kids get everything they need from the vegan diet so well done to you if you can manage it!I'm not sure I could. xxxxx

 

[nkbapbt]

Hi!

Im Nicola and my son is Lakai, he was born 16 weeks early...and is now 8 months (corrected age, so going by his actual due date)...Im 30! Ouch =P

Ive been a veggie my whole life, my parents didnt make me eat when I refused after seeing elephants being killed on TV for food (I dont know what the heck I was doing watching that on TV at 3 years old...I dont know! LOL)..anyways.

Basically now I want to offer Lakai the same chance to make up his own mind. I have nothing against eating meat if done ethically of course. But my hubby eats it and that's ok with me. If Lakai choses to eat it, I will cook it for him.

I really need ideas on what to give him meanwhile instead though...

 

[PeanutBean]

Have any of you given your babies meat substitutes yet? Byron had a little bit of Tivall drumstick tonight and tried some Cheatin' Bacon a few days ago. I'm worried about the salt content of them really. Does anyone know when it's ok for him to have things like that?