Vegans : some questions for you !!

[xise]

I don't see how you are making a mistake. No introduction is required at an early age. I have a childhood friend who was raised vegetarian. He ended up trying all meat in college. He continues to eat chicken to this day. In my opinion, not being introduced to a red meat at an early age is similar to not being introduced to any given food at an early age. Many people have tried new and exotic foods later in life (escargot anyone? octopus? caviar?). Others don't like trying new foods.


Either way, it's free will. Although there is an argument that this is an "essential lesson" in some way. But let's examine each case:

(1) Your daughter is the type to try new foods. She'll try red meat eventually - she's not missing anything. There's no problem here. If she realized she "missed out" it could be an important personal lesson for to try things for herself. She may not learn this lesson in such a strong manner if you introduced her to red meat at an early age.

(2) Your daughter is not the type to try new foods. In a certain way, you could be impinging on her free will choices by forcing her (or strongly encouraging her due to the nature of the parent-child relationship when she is a child) to try a new food since we've given that she's the type of person not to try new foods. However, this scenario turns on the fact that you don't consider trying new foods an essential lesson to be taught to children...which brings us the next case.

(3) You believe that trying new foods is an "essential lesson" (or some similar essential lesson that would argue for using your sway as a parent to encourage her to try red meat). Perhaps it is not a free will choice as much as it about teaching your daughter open-mindedness towards new foods and that this is a proper thing for a parent to teach a child (not something I necessarily agree with, but I can see this perspective). In my opinion on a broader perspective, children by virtue of their being born expect to be taught things by their parents while also respecting their free will out non-essential lessons. It's up to you to decide that this is a value important to teach her. (Certainly it's not alone in a vacuum as respecting all life and believing that showing this respect via of dietary choices is an "essential lesson" could also argue the other way - although I don't necessarily agree with this statement either and it does not totally apply to this case since she eats certain meats - just to show that there are potential values on both sides).

All in all, I wouldn't worry about it. She'll try red meat later on if she wants to, whether you want her to or not. Disclaimer: I grew up eating all sorts of meat, but I've been vegetarian for the past 2 years (with longer periods of vegetarianism in the past).

Cheers and welcome to the forum
xise


p.s. There are no real general health concerns about vegetarian (veggies+diary such as milk or cheese) or even vegan (no animal products what so ever) diets. There are vegan NFL record setting running backs - see Arian Foster, winning vegan bodybuilders, and vegetarians in India who have been vegetarian for thousands of years without any noted health effects - see Jainism. However, you do have to try harder to eat healthy on vegan diets since so much of our society structured toward non-vegan eating (being vegetarian isn't really that harder these days). Also, personal body needs can occasionally argue for a different diet; every individual has unique dietary needs such as gluten intolerance, allergies, lactose, diary intolerance, shellfish allergies etc, so it's important to always monitor one's health on any sort of diet.