Advice needed! Moving family to veg diet

Question

We would like to move the family to a plant based diet. Problem is, we currently have a pretty heavy animal-based diet. Our young children (4 &😄had a really diverse diet as toddlers and over the years have moved into super picky eaters. 

I've been vegetarian before, for ten years in fact; my husband has too, for 2 years. The change will be pretty easy for us. I'm looking for advice for kids who have this disdain for most veg. We've never treated veggies as a negative, so I'm not sure where they get the negative attitude. Having said that, we haven't been diligent on enforcing them to eat multiple vegetables. 

Not looking for judgement, just some advice on changing perspective of kids to be more accepting of the wonderful world of veggies!  Has anyone here made the switch with kids? 

Thanks in advance!

RachelBales · Answer

Not sure what happened there with the smile emoji, but it should be "4 and 8"!

cameronrey · Answer

Hi there, 

I'm not able to offer great advice in anyway as I don't have any kids of my own but I have a little cousin who is now 5 and initially dreads being with me as I only make  plant-based dishes. I find the best way for me and him to be able to eat together is the classic "mum" trick of sneaking in vegetables in dishes where it is not obvious like sweet creamy style curries and savoury pies. Fried things like battered vegetables or potato vegetable croquettes always go down very well with ketchup. I also find recipes for carrot cakes, zucchini cakes, or bean brownies that allows me to add more vegetables in also goes down very well with him. 

Again I cannot relate to your situation and my examples don't sound like the healthiest thing on earth. This is the only way I can get my cousin to eat with me who normally cannot stand to see anything from the garden on the table (his favourite food is chicken nuggets).

tworedsocks · Answer

Hi Rachel - I second what cameronray said. Transition may mean lots of ketchup :)

We have five kids and they will eat anything if we sprinkle french fried onions or crushed tortilla chips (or nutritional yeast) on top. Of course there are also lots of tasty processed vegan / veget foods out there that helped our whole family transition. We still eat vegan breakfast sausage sometimes, and I eat Boca burgers.

Starting before we went vegan each person including adults has one 'kryptonite' food they don't have to eat. For one it is mushrooms, for another it is zucchini. Other than that, they have to eat whatever is prepared, and if they can't say something nice about the food they can just thank whoever cooked :)

Speaking of which, we tried to increase their time with us preparing fresh food. Not they somewhat enjoy chopping up veggies, measuring ingredients, etc.

Also we were trying to change our whole menu too quick, now we try not to have more than 2 new recipes in a week. 

Good luck!

GeorgiaGoesGreen · Answer

Hi I'm Georgia, I've been vegan for 18 months and have thrived on it - I will never go back to eating meat or dairy! If you need any help or support I have just created a instagram account dedicated to veganism and sustainability for wholesome content and motivation! If you're interested its: our_time_to_bloom x

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