To Eat or Not to Eat Meat

A little about ME,

When I was in high school , I made the choice to become vegetarian. My mother told me that you "HAD" to eat meat in order to get protein and that I wouldn't be healthy if I didn't. She told me that as a little girl I would only eat the bun, onions, pickle and ketchup on the McDonald's Cheeseburgers she would get me and that at around age 7 , I started asking for the hamburgers without the meat. I think she actually ordered it without meat for me once and it took them an extra 10 minutes to make one without meat, plus they all thought we were nuts and thus it embarrassed her. That was the end of that.

So as a teen, I decided to stop eating meat all together, no more chicken strips and no more lunch meat.....but mom politely told me "as long as you live in my house , you will eat meat". This made for the FUN high school years, fighting about food amongst all of the other things that teenage girls and their mothers argue about. College life was easier as I could eat what I wanted, since I was away from home, although it was usually processed food or my wonderful sandwiches made of Bread, Ranch Dressing, Cheese, Lettuce and Tomatoes. I lived on these sandwiches as well as Macaroni and Cheese, Baked Potatoes and Salad Bar items. I was not a healthy eater by any means, but I didn't have to chew any parts of an animal and that was fine by me!

Flash forward 20 years, I still don't like to look at meat nor touch it! Frankly, I don't like to CHEW meat. I was lucky enough to marry someone who understood me and would make it for himself. We have 3 children now and my DD 7 has claimed that she is a VEGETARIAN and will not eat baby chicks or anything else meat related nor will she eat beans, thus THE BIG PROBLEM, she needs protein in some form. My DD 4 LOVES all chicken and by chicken I mean "chicken is chicken" and "hot dogs are chicken" Turkey is chicken" and even "steak is chicken", she is her fathers daughter and that is fine with me. My 3 month old? too early to tell. What is interesting is that with each of my pregnancies I CRAVED meat, hamburgers,chicken, etc......and it didn't make me sick at all, they say my body must have needed it at the time. I didn't feel bad about eating meat during my pregnancies and just chalked it up as being a FLEXITARIAN. (being mostly vegetarian but eating meat when I wanted to or out of convenience)

So today, I stay away from meat completely. My husband and youngest daughter are true carnivores and my oldest is a self proclaimed vegetarian at the age of 7. I fed my daughter everything as a baby and toddler , as not to influence her one way or the other and now she is making a choice not to eat meat.I accept her decision and I will continue to help her make healthy choices from all of the food groups and make sure that she gets all of the nutrients she needs.

Is your household vegetarian, vegan or flexitarian? Is there also a meat eater, if so how do you balance it all?