Viva la mung bean
I am a vegetarian. I have been solidly so for the past 6 years but have dickered about with it, on and off, since I was 17.
Just for the record before I start my rant, I will state here that I am 36 years old and I have been solely responsible for feeding myself for at least ½ my life. And, let's be blunt, I am still very much alive.
So. If I hear one more person ask, "Have you thought about how your diet is going to affect Anna?" or, "Are you going to 'make' Anna vegetarian?" I think I may just have to get very stroppy indeed.
I love my daughter very, very much. No one else in the whole world is capable of loving her as much as I do. Her safety and wellbeing are always paramount in my thoughts and will be at least until she is an adult; I suspect it will continue to be so until I toddle off to face whatever there is to be faced when we die. All of my kangaroo's are present and correct in my top paddock. I find it terribly annoying and offensive when people ask me these questions because I can only assume it means they think that I am either lax in my mothering duties, or an absolute idiot.
OF COURSE I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT ANNA'S DIET! I did not just bring her home from hospital and dig out the encyclopaedia to find out which end did what.
It's especially galling when I think that most of these self same meat eating people might not be as healthy as us tofu munchers, because meat tends to become a catch-all food that often replaces vegetables and legumes, etc etc, in a healthy balanced diet. Especially in Australia, anyway, where as a nation we pride ourselves on having lots of exotic species of animal, and have found ways to catch and cook them all. So I imagine all of those good people eating some form of meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner don't often stop to think about whether they are getting all the vitamins and minerals they actually need. They just smother the lot in tomato sauce and shovel it in. Then they pass all this good food knowledge onto their kids, who grow up with a deep distrust of any green vegetable (anyone need some iron?), any raw vegetable no matter what colour (except sliced cabbage and carrot drowned in mayo – more saturated fat, anyone?), or any form of protein that doesn't come with a bone (how about a varied diet?).
And then they glare at me and struggle to keep the accusatory tone out of their voices when they question me about Anna's perceived lack of nutrition.
Everyone who eats is on a diet of some sort, most of them not of the weight loss kind. Mine just happens to be sufficiently different enough to have a label. Most long term vegetarians actually think quite a lot about what we eat simply because we have to find ways to replace what we miss from meat with other foods. We don’t just eliminate the meat and carry on, otherwise we'd all be keeling over quite often from anaemia and exhaustion.
As for whether I will 'make' Anna be vegetarian – I'm aiming to not make Anna anything at all. I will still find some room to love her even if she becomes the CEO of a company making a fortune from whaling and baby seal clubbing. Just like every other Aussie kid, meals will be prepared and she'll eat them at the table (or palm them off to the dog) with her family. She will have just as much choice in her diet as every other kid in Australia (which is really stuff all). When she's older she'll have access to as much information as I can give her about food and she can go from there – just like every other kid.
In the meantime, everyone else can bugger off.
Just for the record before I start my rant, I will state here that I am 36 years old and I have been solely responsible for feeding myself for at least ½ my life. And, let's be blunt, I am still very much alive.
So. If I hear one more person ask, "Have you thought about how your diet is going to affect Anna?" or, "Are you going to 'make' Anna vegetarian?" I think I may just have to get very stroppy indeed.
I love my daughter very, very much. No one else in the whole world is capable of loving her as much as I do. Her safety and wellbeing are always paramount in my thoughts and will be at least until she is an adult; I suspect it will continue to be so until I toddle off to face whatever there is to be faced when we die. All of my kangaroo's are present and correct in my top paddock. I find it terribly annoying and offensive when people ask me these questions because I can only assume it means they think that I am either lax in my mothering duties, or an absolute idiot.
OF COURSE I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT ANNA'S DIET! I did not just bring her home from hospital and dig out the encyclopaedia to find out which end did what.
It's especially galling when I think that most of these self same meat eating people might not be as healthy as us tofu munchers, because meat tends to become a catch-all food that often replaces vegetables and legumes, etc etc, in a healthy balanced diet. Especially in Australia, anyway, where as a nation we pride ourselves on having lots of exotic species of animal, and have found ways to catch and cook them all. So I imagine all of those good people eating some form of meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner don't often stop to think about whether they are getting all the vitamins and minerals they actually need. They just smother the lot in tomato sauce and shovel it in. Then they pass all this good food knowledge onto their kids, who grow up with a deep distrust of any green vegetable (anyone need some iron?), any raw vegetable no matter what colour (except sliced cabbage and carrot drowned in mayo – more saturated fat, anyone?), or any form of protein that doesn't come with a bone (how about a varied diet?).
And then they glare at me and struggle to keep the accusatory tone out of their voices when they question me about Anna's perceived lack of nutrition.
Everyone who eats is on a diet of some sort, most of them not of the weight loss kind. Mine just happens to be sufficiently different enough to have a label. Most long term vegetarians actually think quite a lot about what we eat simply because we have to find ways to replace what we miss from meat with other foods. We don’t just eliminate the meat and carry on, otherwise we'd all be keeling over quite often from anaemia and exhaustion.
As for whether I will 'make' Anna be vegetarian – I'm aiming to not make Anna anything at all. I will still find some room to love her even if she becomes the CEO of a company making a fortune from whaling and baby seal clubbing. Just like every other Aussie kid, meals will be prepared and she'll eat them at the table (or palm them off to the dog) with her family. She will have just as much choice in her diet as every other kid in Australia (which is really stuff all). When she's older she'll have access to as much information as I can give her about food and she can go from there – just like every other kid.
In the meantime, everyone else can bugger off.
posted by Helen at 10:22 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home