Parents are learning how to accomodate vegetarian family members.
If you’re a meat-eating family and your teen wants to stop eating meat, chicken, and fish because he or she wants to explore being a vegetarian, there’s no need to freak out.
Your teen may want to try to eat more healthful foods. He may be concerned about the environment, or want to do less harm to animals. Your teen may see vegetarianism as a way to lose some weight also.
So there are lots of reasons your teens may want to explore a vegetarian diet…
But what about you?
Often, because parents are unfamiliar with the vegetarian diet, they revert to worrying.
The 2 main reasons parents worry about their kids and teens wanting to be vegetarian are…
- They’re worried about having to make 2 different things for dinner. (This can be solved by inviting your teen to make her own vegetarian meals.)
- They’re worried that their kids won’t get the proper nutrition.
We’ll take a closer look at this second issue because your worries can be put to rest with a little research and education. And that’s one of the best things you can do if your teenager wants to become vegetarian – educate yourself.
For instance…
Look at all the places your teen can get protein while eating a vegetarian diet:
North American vegetarian teens eating varied diets rarely have any difficulty getting enough protein as long as their diet contains enough energy (calories) to support growth. Cow’s milk and lowfat cheese are protein sources; however, beans, breads, cereals, nuts, peanut butter, tofu, and soy milk are also some foods that are especially good sources of protein. Only fruits, fats, and alcohol do not provide much protein, and so a diet based only on these foods would have a good chance of being too low in protein.
There are so many things in that list that your teen can choose from in order to get good protein sources. And you probably already have some of them in your kitchen right now, right?
There are even things your teen will be able to eat out (while at restaurants and on-the-go) that will make it easy for him to get what he’s looking for while also being nutritious:
Apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, peaches, plums, dried fruits, bagels and peanut butter, carrot or celery sticks, popcorn, pretzels, soy cheese pizza, bean tacos or burritos, salad, soy yogurt, soy milk, rice cakes, sandwiches, frozen juice bars.
Other places your teen will LOVE if they are wanting to explore the vegetarian diet are places like:
- Whole Foods
- Mexican restaurants (where anything with meat can be substituted for beans. Just check the ingredients first because sometimes beans have LARD (animal fat) in them.)
- Taco Bell (substitute beans for any of the items)
- Burger King (has a veggie burger patty)
- Subway (Lots of veggie options)
And there are amazing websites out there with quick and easy vegetarian recipes.
The more you can educate yourself about how the vegetarian diet works, (you can even consult your pediatrician, a nutritionist, or a dietitian if you have more questions) the more you’ll be able to support your teenager who wants to become a vegetarian.
This is an opportunity for you and your teen to connect about something important to him or her. You can either get on their side and support them wisely, or you can turn it into a source of conflict.
It’s up to you.
Your Turn: How would you handle it if your son or daughter wanted to become vegetarian? Or how DID you handle it if it already happened?
Vegetarian Nutrition For Teens [ VRG.org]
