The Making of a Vegan

My son is vegan.

For this, I get a lot of questions like “Is it his choice to be so?” Duh? Babies can’t make choices.
“What if he craves for meat?” Duh, again! He can’t crave for something he hasn't eaten!

We introduced (and restricted) Philip Angelo "Gelo" to a vegetable diet as soon as he was ready for solid food at 4 or 5 months old. He was a cholic baby, lactose intolerant, and was fed soya formula since birth. The shift to solid, vegetable and soya-based food was easy.

Then more questions. “If he’s not allowed to eat meat, where does he get his protein”? Duh, once more. Soya is perhaps one of the richest protein sources. Besides he still eats eggs. How’s that for protein fix?

The questions kept coming.

What will Gelo eat in kiddie parties? What will he think of other meat-munching kids? How will you help him deal with peer pressure associated with his "different" food preferences? Why-what? Like being Vegan is an affliction?

Friends even warn that Gelo will blame us someday for depriving him of meaty pleasures.

But I’d like to believe he’ll thank us instead for not loading him up with cholesterol and carcinogens, derived from a meat or animal fat diet.

If ever he becomes a meat eater by choice in adult life, we’d be way passed the years when parents struggle with picky eaters which is really one of our issues.

Picky eaters are a growing legion in this fast food age, when the only thing edible to a child is something meaty and fried. My wife and I heard one too many horror stories from other parents whose children ONLY eat hotdog or fried chicken everyday and will not touch anything else. Other parents regret the fact that they introduced vegetables too late in a child’s life, when he has already developed a preference for meat (and only meat).

Our meal time was uneventful for about 2 years until Gelo began to wonder why there are 2 sets of meals on the table, one that he can eat, and another, he can't even touch.

I knew sooner or later, we had to explain.

“Meat is bad”.

Hard to say while daddy and mommy are chomping slab after slab of beef in front of him. Besides his fascination with Babe, Nemo or any other animal whose meat we eat will soon make daddy and mommy are no different from sharks or the big bad wolf.

After a series of lengthy discussions, we came to terms with our little dinner table crisis. If we couldn’t beat him, we might as well join him. Besides going vegetarian or occassional (but closet) carnivore has valuable health benefits.

And so, our Vegan conversion began.