i want to be a vegitarion. help!?

Question

i want to go veggie. but i have to tell my parents and i don't know how they'll take it! any advice?!?! i'm 14, and i've always loved animals. i tryed to be vegitarion once but my parents told me that i wasn't eating the right stuff. so i was also wondering if there is like a protein pill or something i could take? i already like a lot of vegitarion foods, like veggie burgers & salads & stuff. i'm also worried that my parents won't want to cook two meals. i'm not a bad cook but i don't know many vegitarion meals. so ya thx :)

Answer 1

Here are tips:

1. Take your time - my journey from meat eater took about a year.
2. Start out using some basic substitutes for the meat you are used to in foods where you won't even notice - ground meat replacements are available in the frozen food sections.
3. Leave meat off things that don't need it - pizza, salad, spag, etc.
4. Get some good cookbooks when you are ready to branch into more interesting foods - Moosewood books and New Farm Vegetarian are two of my favorites.
5. If you are worried about what to eat check out the book "Diet for a New America" it will cover many of the health questions.

Answer 2

I'm 14 too and a vegetarian [but eat vegan about 70% of the time] age means nothing, you are old enough to be healthy..the earlier the better!
You do not need to be a perfect cook, or even a good cook, heck you don't even have to "cook!"
you can eat and get enough of what your body needs from
vegetables
fruit
nuts
seeds
whole grain cereals and
whole grain bread
peanut butter
dried fruit [like raisins, etc]

and then you can eat beans, brown rice, whole wheat pasta..
those things are REALLY simple to cook, just get water in a pan to a boiling point and put them in there [beans for about an hour, pasta for about 10 minutes and rice for about 25mins]

and grill veggie burgers and smart dogs and all the meat substituted out there!

you will get the hang of it, and when you feel like being creative go to a vegetarian recipes website [there are TONS!, just goggle it.] and try some of them.

Have fun!! :)

Answer 3

wow. that same thing happened to me. i am now a vegetarian and healthy. there are suppliments you can take but i dont and am completely healthy. i eat eggs, lots of cheese and milk, tofu, and veggie burgers and stuff. i have a "vegetarian" friend but she just eats junk and is not healthy. here is a vegetarian food pyramid http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/images/vegetarian-food-pyramid.jpg make sure you get that amount of servings. and your parents wont have to cook two meals. you just cook the meat on the side. ex. if you are having chili dont cook the meat in it cook it on the side and add it once you get your serving. and if you are having hamburgers you can also cook a Boca burger (or other veggie burger) what i did when i decided to tell my parents is i talked to the most understanding and explained to her about loving animals and it is healthier and that we could transition into and so i had to eat some meat for a week until they got the hang of it. i hope this helps and i hope your parents understand. good luck and if you need anymore help feel free to email me [e-mail]

Answer 4

When I turned vegetarian I was thirteen and I don't think that your choice of being vegetarian should be afftected by your parents take on it. The key to being a healthy vegetarian is to have enough protein so don't take protein pills and eat Tofu of soy almost everyday. It is better for you to take in natural protein opposed to pills. Many vegetarian meals come from asian foods and rice plays a huge role in most vegetarian lives. Rice can be very good with many non meat products and you can even mix it with some tofu.

Answer 5

Well I am not a vegetarian but I can offer some advice. First are you going vegan or vegetarian? Vegans do not eat any product that came from an animals. For example a chicken lays eggs so they dont eat them. Or they dont eat cheese ya know stuff like that. But vegetarians will accept stuff such as egg and cheese etc... Anyways there are vitamins that you may need to take just check out this website it has loads of information and suggestions.

http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3002-becoming-a-teen-vegetarian

Answer 6

You will need to carefully monitor your protein intake. I know adults need around 50 g per day, but I'm not sure what it would be for a fourteen-year-old. Nature's Plus makes a protein drink called Spiru-tein, which comes in both whey and soy protein varieties and many different flavors. I believe they also make a chewable protein supplement, but the drink is better. Eat lots of peanut butter, eggs, and dairy products, and experiment with tofu. Tofu is great because it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with, such as stir-fry. Make sure you take a multivitamin as well. Good luck!

Answer 7

if you want to be a vegetarian your parents shouldnt stop you. just make sure you can prove ur eating the right stuff. if you can still get the right amount of protein & vitamins & everything, then you're getting what you need. they dont have to cook 2 meals either...a lot of meals can be cooked and then some of it can be set aside for you before meat is added in for everyone else

Answer 8

first of all, cook your own meals. your gonna have to learn sometime, might as well be now. you can find vegetarian multi-vitamins at most supermarkets, and eating soy or potatoes is good for protein. dont eat too much pasta. being a vegetarian is really simple.

good luck

Answer 9

If your mom thinks being a vegetarian is unhealthy, just tell her Jack LaLanne has been a vegetarian since he was a teenager. She should know who he is.

Answer 10

Protein and vitamins are present in sufficient amounts in ALL plant foods. http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/food_groups.html

If you want to become vegetarian, the best advice is to research healthy veg diets and have as much information available as possible before mentioning it to your parents.

When your parents were growing up, a lot of false information was taught in schools and spread throughout communities about what a body actually needs to be healthy.

You must never get into an argument with them about being veg. If they can't talk to you calmly and reasonably as adults, do not continue any discussion, even if they initiated it. If they can listen to you without belittling your ideas and disrespecting you based on your age, then please tell them everything that you have learned. The more negative experiences that you experience with your parents over it, the more difficult it will be to do what makes you happy.

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If you want to become a lacto-ovo vegetarian, the transition should be quite simple. Almost all meats have widely available commercial replacements. All that you have to do is replace any flesh in your diet (beef, pork, poultry, seafood) with meat analogs or just leave it out altogether.

You should keep in mind that a journey such as this can be quite short but should just be the beginning of a longer one to a plant-based diet with no animal products. This is because of the reality of factory farming in which animals that are kept alive to produce milk, eggs, etc suffer much more and longer than animals that are raised to a certain weight and then slaughtered.http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/
http://meat.org
Some people use the word "vegan" in reference to this idea, but be aware that that applying that label to yourself should always come with the inclusion of wise activism and advocacy.http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/index.html
Two extremely important examples of this are that you should never speak to someone about vegetarianism/veganism without their consent and genuine interest or as a comment on what they are eating AND your dietary beliefs should never be used as an introduction or explanation of who you are as a person. Veg*ism should be something that comes up AFTER people get to know you and they offer you a situation that makes it confusing to withhold the information/dicussion. Also, if you are presented something that you choose not to eat or you are
ordering food/eating together somewhere/picking the best place to eat.

When you you hold off on the subject until it's necessary and then act like it isn't a big deal at all, people are usually surprised and WAY more interested and curious than if you were to bring it up when someone's eating or just using it as a conversation starter.

Just to clear things up, the vegetarian/vegan diet is not composed of salads, vegetables, fruit and fake meat.
A balanced plant-based diet includes grains(breads, pasta, rice,cereal), legumes(soy, beans, peas, lentils), fruit and vegetables.
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/food_groups.html
http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/eating.html
Being vegan can be an art, one whose challenge is to take things that involve the suffering of the innocent and change them into something free of cruelty.

A vegan woman can create an ENTIRELY NEW,HEALTHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE OF HER. Many of these children stay vegan and grow up to be perfectly healthy adults. So just keep yourself educated about what you eat and don't let anyone tell you that a veg diet is lacking anything essential.

Technically the term "vegetarian" does imply that you don't consume anything that comes from the body of an animal that requires killing it. Many ingredients such as gelatin and glycerin are found in many candies, Fig-Newtons, and many of other foods as well as rennet found in many cheeses.
http://www.happycow.net/health-animal-ingredients.html
The best thing to remember is to take your time so that for example: when you are comfortable not eating beef and pork you can then give up chicken when you are sure you can make the commitment permanently.
Depending on your age or reliance on parents or regional options, it may not be best to give yourself a label. The important thing is to do your best to make progress and be committed to your compassion towards animals. Never put your focus onto what you or other people use to describe yourself.

If you meet someone that talks down to people for eating meat, dairy, etc or to you because they think they are "more veg" than you, laugh in their face and tell them they are a disgrace to the entire philosophy. People like this only hurt the idea of veg*ism AND the animals. The point of all of this is to live compassionately and and as free from cruelty as you can, all the while maintaining your health and a positive attitude. People who don't maintain either, need not open their mouths and represent our beliefs.

If you actually choose to read all of this, I hope it helps. If not, feel free to e-mail me if you have questions.

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I'm vegan and these are some of my favorite things to eat:

Breakfast: bananas, cream of wheat with brown sugar and soy butter, cereal, pancakes or french toast with real maple syrup, vegan "sausage" patties, smoothies.

Lunch: VEGAN "SAUSAGE" SANDWICHES, sandwiches with vegan deli slices(Tofurkey is the only one that's kinda funky), fruit, dinner leftovers, couscous salad, vegan sushi, potato or pasta salad.

Dinner: sloppy joes, "sausage" and gravy with homemade biscuits, Spaghetti and Trader Joe's "meatballs" or TVP, lasagna, Thai pad see ew, pad khi mao(drunkard's noodles), pad prig king, tofu+eggplant with basil sauce, yellow thai curry with tofu or vegan chikn and veggies and jasmine rice, Indian dal with homemade roti or dosai, channa masala, aloo gobi, vegetable or minestrone soup, pizza, STEAMED "PORK" BUNS with potstickers or spring rolls, sweet&sour/orange/lemon chikn, vegan pho or wonton soup

I use these sites to find recipes:
http://www.foodnetwork.com
http://vegweb.com
http://www.recipezaar.com