Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teach your teen to make her own food. She can still eat with the rest of the family, but don't let your child force her chosen diet upon the rest of the family. She can prepare several meals ahead of time if she doesn't have time to make her meals daily.

This. You should not have to cook vegan meals. Let her do the work to cook vegan and see how much she wants to do it.

Right. Kids with intolerances, allergies and picky kids should not be catered to either. Just like the vegans. No exceptions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. Just curious: Are you still vegan? I'm wondering if this is a phase or a genuine commitment.

This made me LOL. I became vegetarian at age 11. 35 years later, my parents asked me if I was still going through that "phase". Yes, not only did I never once stop being vegetarian, but I eventually became vegan.

My vegetarian phase has lasted 40 years.

OP- please try to compromise. Have some, maybe 2-3 entirely vegan dinners for the whole family each week. The other nights she can either eat a veganized version of the main dish, if it's not easy, or an acceptable alternative. A meal should contain a protein, a few servings of vegetables, and a starch. Plenty to choose from. You, or you and she together, could make a big batch of something easy and vegan that she likes at the beginning of the week she can eat on those nights. I have tons of easy ideas: spaghetti and many other pastas, beans and rice, bean salads, fajitas, quinoa salad, pasta salad with vinaigrette and chickpeas, etc. Let her fend for herself 1-2 nights a week.

For what it's worth - I have the opposite situation in my house. I'm not vegan, I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian, but my teen is not. The compromise is that he buys lunch at school or when we eat out he can choose meats. I've recently started letting him have some meats that don't need to be cooked, like lunchmeat, smoked salmon, frozen pizza with pepperoni, etc. in the house to accommodate him. He chooses to eat vegetarian at home probably 75% of the time because that's how he was raised. But I've compromised with him as well. I will not allow raw meat to be prepared in my kitchen though, that's where I draw the line. This works for us; try to find a reasonable compromise that that works for your family.

One of my kids became a pescatarian at 14 (and still is at almost 20). My other kid doesn’t care for most seafood but loves chicken and steak. I modified some meals so that I could sub proteins in each servings or add it to otherwise vegetarian meals. I also batch cooked and froze individual portions of things like soups and chili so that if the rest of us were having a meat based meal, I could pull something out for DC to eat at family dinners.

The sudden change must be so stressful. It is so difficult to cook for a family at times, and dietary limitations can be so tricky.

If I were dealing with this, I would always have something during family meals that she CAN eat (sometimes a main, other times side dishes) but I definitely would not eliminate family favorites or have every meal be entirely vegan, by any meals.

At this age, she should be definitely able to assist with any cooking needed to supplement her family meals (since there will be some things she cannot eat). I’d also have vegan convenience meals on hand (frozen dinners etc) for her to grab and eat with green salad on those busy nights where there isn’t time to accommodate multiple dishes or extra items for her.

Anonymous wrote:Teach your teen to make her own food. She can still eat with the rest of the family, but don't let your child force her chosen diet upon the rest of the family. She can prepare several meals ahead of time if she doesn't have time to make her meals daily.

This. You should not have to cook vegan meals. Let her do the work to cook vegan and see how much she wants to do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is her reason for this, OP? I’d definitely be concerned that this is a proxy for an eating disorder.

She's concerned about the treatment of animals and the environmental impact of non vegan eating.

How would she feel about doing doing some vegetarian meals if you and she look at the sources of your animal products to ensure they're coming from places that prioritize animal welfare and minimizing environmental impact? And then maybe split the difference and do a few vegan dinners and a few that are vegetarian optional, using ethically sourced ingredients?

Either way you could do a few vegan dinners a week and make double batches, so there are leftovers for her for subsequent non-vegan meals. Also look to things that can easily be adapted, as others have said - say a shrimp stir fry for the family and a tofu stir fry for her with the vegetables pulled out for the tofu portion before the shrimp is added?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were vegan dinners off the menu in the first place?
Life is long. Expand your palate and your repertoire. Learning is good for you.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I never meant to imply that vegan dinners weren't on our menu. We do, in fact, have several recipes that either are vegan or can be made vegan. But there is also another realm of food that I make that is vegetarian but not vegan, and I'm sad that those recipes won't be in my regular rotation.

If you have recipe suggestions that will help me expand my palate and repertoire, please share them.

They can still be in your rotation if the rest of the family likes them. I have one family member who is vegetarian and another who eats low carb with lots of meat. They are always welcome to make dinners for the family. Otherwise we have a large variety of
meals and if we are having something they can’t or won’t eat they can modify, eat leftovers or make something for themselves.

As a parent, I would treat this like any other variant of "kid is a picky eater."

Your job is to prepare healthy meals for your family. Do this. You have no obligation to cater to your child's every whim. If your child does not like what is being served, then use it as an opportunity for him to learn to prepare his own meals. The fact that he doesn't like what you prepared for the rest of the family is Not Your Problem.

I would commit to cooking 2-3 vegan meals a week (or meals that can be easily modified so hers is vegan but everyone else has meat). Agree to have 1-2 vegan sides for all other meals and let her know she’s on the hook for cooking for herself otherwise. Keep easy staples like PB&J and pasta and marinara on hand.

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. Just curious: Are you still vegan? I'm wondering if this is a phase or a genuine commitment.

This made me LOL. I became vegetarian at age 11. 35 years later, my parents asked me if I was still going through that "phase". Yes, not only did I never once stop being vegetarian, but I eventually became vegan.

Make sure she supplements with a b12 vitamin and possibly a D vitamin. Otherwise fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were vegan dinners off the menu in the first place?
Life is long. Expand your palate and your repertoire. Learning is good for you.

Rather supercilious comment. Why would vegan meals be on the menu if nobody in the family was vegetarian?

Right! This makes no sense. A lot of families may have a vegetarian meal in rotation but having a truly vegan meal in rotation if you’re not vegan isn’t really the norm.

Open you mind, you might like it.

As should the vegans expand their diet. Why so restrictive?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were vegan dinners off the menu in the first place?
Life is long. Expand your palate and your repertoire. Learning is good for you.

Rather supercilious comment. Why would vegan meals be on the menu if nobody in the family was vegetarian?

Right! This makes no sense. A lot of families may have a vegetarian meal in rotation but having a truly vegan meal in rotation if you’re not vegan isn’t really the norm.

Open you mind, you might like it.

Just keep an eye on it. Becoming vegetarian and then vegan was definitely the way I was able to hide my ED from friends and family for so long.