Teenagers are very impressionable and tend to become more left-wing than their parents, because they are under the influence of their teachers, who tend to be more left-wing as well. This tends to make teenagers more in touch with environmental issues and other world problems. This can send teenagers off in many directions, and one of the most well-liked, especially among teenage girls, is vegetarianism.
This phase frequently passes for one reason or another. Sometimes the parents cannot be bothered to cater to their new diet and occasionally the teenager merely misses bacon sandwiches too much to keep up the diet. However, many do stick to their principles or come back to them later on in life.
Their children going vegetarian is frequently a cause for anxiety for parents, yet it need not be. If your teenagers adopt vegetarianism you will probably become concerned that they get enough protein, but that can be taken care of. Instead, be grateful that they will be missing out on all the rubbish food that most teenagers eat in these, their most formative years.
If your teenager wants to be a vegetarian, you should encourage it, even though it will cost you more time particularly if you do not know much concerning vegetarianism yourself. It will be a steep learning curve for you and your children in the starting.
One of the first things that a parent has to judge is to what degree does their child want to go. Does he or she merely want to give up meat or also give up fish or go the whole hog (!) and give up milk, dairy and eggs as well. These three levels make vegetarianism progressively more difficult.
One of the foremost problems about going vegetarian (particularly for developing teenagers) is vitamin deficiency. Meat is concentrated vegetable matter and is our main source of vitamins such as calcium, vitamin B12 and iron.
You cannot do without these vitamins and several others besides, so if you give up meat, you will have to take them in tablet form until you find or adopt a means of re-introducing them into your diet in food form.
There will be many new foods for your teenager to try in their quest to replace meat and some of these alternatives may be unpalatable, depending on your child's outlook on eating new foods.
Tofu is one. Some people love it and some people hate it, but it is a very handy alternative to meat. There are others, but it could be a long process of trial and error and your teen might just quit.
If your teenager wants to give up, it is almost certainly a good idea to make it easy for them to do so without them losing face or feeling that they have failed. It is difficult to undertake lifestyle alterations even at that relatively young age and who knows, perhaps they will return to (a level of) vegetarianism when they leave home and begin cooking for themselves.
This phase frequently passes for one reason or another. Sometimes the parents cannot be bothered to cater to their new diet and occasionally the teenager merely misses bacon sandwiches too much to keep up the diet. However, many do stick to their principles or come back to them later on in life.
Their children going vegetarian is frequently a cause for anxiety for parents, yet it need not be. If your teenagers adopt vegetarianism you will probably become concerned that they get enough protein, but that can be taken care of. Instead, be grateful that they will be missing out on all the rubbish food that most teenagers eat in these, their most formative years.
If your teenager wants to be a vegetarian, you should encourage it, even though it will cost you more time particularly if you do not know much concerning vegetarianism yourself. It will be a steep learning curve for you and your children in the starting.
One of the first things that a parent has to judge is to what degree does their child want to go. Does he or she merely want to give up meat or also give up fish or go the whole hog (!) and give up milk, dairy and eggs as well. These three levels make vegetarianism progressively more difficult.
One of the foremost problems about going vegetarian (particularly for developing teenagers) is vitamin deficiency. Meat is concentrated vegetable matter and is our main source of vitamins such as calcium, vitamin B12 and iron.
You cannot do without these vitamins and several others besides, so if you give up meat, you will have to take them in tablet form until you find or adopt a means of re-introducing them into your diet in food form.
There will be many new foods for your teenager to try in their quest to replace meat and some of these alternatives may be unpalatable, depending on your child's outlook on eating new foods.
Tofu is one. Some people love it and some people hate it, but it is a very handy alternative to meat. There are others, but it could be a long process of trial and error and your teen might just quit.
If your teenager wants to give up, it is almost certainly a good idea to make it easy for them to do so without them losing face or feeling that they have failed. It is difficult to undertake lifestyle alterations even at that relatively young age and who knows, perhaps they will return to (a level of) vegetarianism when they leave home and begin cooking for themselves.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on many subjects, but is currently concerned with French dip sandwich recipes. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Vegetarian Sandwich Recipes.