Danka's World

My children know that meat comes from animals. Bacon and ham come from pigs. Hamburgers and steak come from cows. chicken comes from chicken. Fish from fish, and so on. They know all this, and have for some time.

Well, Adora got it in her head that she would like to be a farmer when she grows up. So we spent some time talking about farming. We talked about Grandma Sonia and Bruce’s farm and we talked about the life cycle of the sheep. What Adora and Grace know of the sheep is how cute the lambs are every spring when we go visit, and the funny sound of the bleating Mama sheep, and how the wool gets sheared off. She turned three shades of green when we began to talk about slaughter (we were eating lunch while we talked). We went on to talk about how the steaks in the shiny packages at the store came from real animals from real farms that really, really had been slaughtered so we could eat them. The reality of what they already knew began to sink in. They wanted details. They wanted to know how the animals were killed. I told them I didn’t know. I lied. We were eating lunch after all.

Grace sat in stunned silence. Adora made gagging sounds, declared she wanted nothing to do with farming, and wanted to end the discussion right this minute. I told her that it is important to know where your food comes from.

She said that she wanted to become a vegetarian. Grace agreed. They know about vegetarianism because some of their friends from school are from vegetarian families. I explained a bit about vegetarianism and how you can’t just stop eating meat, you have to eat other things to make up complete proteins, yada yada yada. Still, they want to go meatless.

I was a vegetarian for a few years, as a bleeding heart teenager (although I never really gave up bacon and would be willing to occasionally eat ground beef or cut up chicken breast if, and only if, it was cooked in a manner to disguise the meatiness of the meat – think stir-fry or spaghetti). As it was, when I met Matthew, waaaay back in the day, my family ate meat a few times a week and his family ate it three meals a day. Over the years we hit a balance and meat is included in most dinners around here. I even learned how to cook a pretty good roast and handle raw meat (I was squeamish about it for a long time). In the last eight months or so though, I have shifted my stance on meat again. I have purposefully begun cooking at least one meatless dinner per week, sometimes two or three, in a weak non-committal attempt to both reduce our family’s carbon footprint and reduce our saturated fat intake.

Now we’ve come full circle and I have two little girls who are beginning to make choices about how they want to live their lives. In light of my own past, and the fact that a big juicy steak still doesn’t appeal all that much to my palate (I’m fine until I start thinking about it in the middle of my meal and sometimes have to stop eating because my imagination grosses me out) I fully support their desire to explore other dining options. I have two hang-ups, though.

1. My poor, poor husband, who is a meat-itarian, and has worked so hard to incorporate veggies into his diet in the same way I have worked hard to become accustomed to meat. I will probably be having to cook double meals to keep everyone satisfied, which is something I swore I would never do. Oh well.

2. Re-learning how to cook. I have a few good meatless dinners in my repertoire, but I am going to need more variety, and I am going to need to study up on vegetarian nutrition. All I can say is thank God for the internet.

That being said – if you have any great vegetarian recipes that make a nutritionally complete meal, please pass them on!

Only time will tell if this will be a passing phase for our family or the beginning of a pretty major diet change. I don’t plan on going full-vegetarian myself, but we will certainly be shifting more to a vegetable and grains based plan around here for a while at least. Pray for my husband for patience and that all his needs will be met while us girls experiment in the kitchen.