Were you raised vegetarian? Did your parents give you a choice?

[Veggiemama]

Just wondering if anyone was raised vegetarian? Did your parents ever let you Make your own decision about whether or not you wanted to continue living a veg*n lifestyle?

 

[I Heart Corey Haim!!]

I wasnt raised veggie....but my parents always tell me that I loathed meat from such a very young age and just didnt wanna eat it and they never made me....they say they knew I was gonna be veggie before I did....

peace, love and laughter

 

[AeryFairy]

Nope, wasn't raised veggie. My parents are both big meat-eaters. My mum tried to stop me going veggie, actually.

 

[mlp]

No, I wasn't raised veggie. In fact, a few years after I went veg (in my thirties), it started irking my mother and continued to do so on and off until her death.

 

[lucky_charm]

I was raised veggie (from age 3). Parents did give me a choice but I don't recall at what age it was first made clear to me that the choice was there... Somewhere between 5 and 8? I didn't have any desire to eat meat though, actually I thought it was disgusting.

 

[Lord Snot]

No. I wanted to go vegetarian a few times when I was a child, whenever I started thinking about what meat was, but my mum did the shopping and cooking and she didn't have the knowledge or inclination to make veggie food for me. I don't blame her, I know she didn't do it out of malice, but I regret the wasted years.

 

[yakherder]

I spent a good portion of my childhood in little town in Alaska with no roads and only a seasonal grocery store, as my stepfather was a commercial fisherman. So no, I wasn't raised as a vegetarian, or given much of an option It was fish and hunted meat or canned whatever else we could get. I don't regret it though. It made me who I am.

 

[RascalsMom]

Definitely not, I was raised in a family of hunters. I didn't go veg until I was 14, and definitely regret not doing it sooner.

 

[Jocelyn1]

I wasn't raised in a vegetarian family.
When I wish I was, sometimes I think that it may have pushed me into rebelling an eating meat.
I do wish I stopped eating it sooner, though.

 

[Second Summer]

No, was definitely not raised a vegetarian. I didn't know such as lifestyle and diet as vegetarianism existed until home & cooking class in junior high. Provincial Norway wasn't the kind of place where you'd typically see a lot of alternative lifestyles. When I went vegetarian at age 19-20, my parents were not enthused, but gradually they came to accept it and became quite supportive.

 

[thefadedone]

No, was definitely not raised a vegetarian. I didn't know such as lifestyle and diet as vegetarianism existed until home & cooking class in junior high. Provincial Norway wasn't the kind of place where you'd typically see a lot of alternative lifestyles. When I first went vegetarian at age 19-20, my parents were not enthused, but gradually they came to accept it and became quite supportive.

I wish home and cooking classes still existed when I was in high school. They should still exist today!

I also wish I was raised vegetarian. I'm envious of those who were.

 

[Capstan]

I was always served an omni diet by my parents. There was never a question in my mind about choice; I simply followed their lead.

When I was about ten, we had occasion to dine at a wealthy uncle's country club; the consensus of opinion there seemed to be that filet mignon was the highest culinary goal to which one might attain. I never thought otherwise until I was in my 30s.

I suppose if there was a choice on the table, as they say, it was, "take it or leave it."

 

[Josh James xVx]

I was already legally an adult when I stopped eating animals. I'm sure my father would not approve, but I don't speak to the man any more. My mother tolerated it at first, and eventually became vegetarian herself. She still is and has been for years now.

 

[Wolfie]

Nowhere close. I was raised in a family of livestock farmers, trappers and hunters.

 

[cornsail]

I was raised vegetarian. My parents never gave me nor denied me a choice as to whether I wanted to be vegetarian, because I never wanted not to be. It just didn't come up.

 

[MrsSchu2u]

Raised in an omni family, but always gave the meat portion of my meal to my dad or brother. Lived my life eating only the very occasional meat until I decided that there was really no place for it in my life.

 

[Penny79]

raised omni. not given a choice and/or it wasn't a topic of discussion whether i would choose to kill animals as they did

 

[thefadedone]

Nowhere close. I was raised in a family of livestock farmers, trappers and hunters.

Did it cause a lot of family conflict when you told them you are veg*n? I would assume it wouldn't have gone over too well with some family members.

 

[Wolfie]

Not really. My siblings tended to tease me at first and I heard a few "you'll grow out of it" but they got bored with that. My dad mellowed with each kid so by the time he got to me, he was kind of like live and let live. He used to make me my own veg portion of whatever he was cooking for dinner. My mom was ok with my going vegetarian but embarassed for some reason when I went vegan. Thought it was too extreme I guess. She didn't like it when I'd order stuff minus cheese and eggs in restaurants. But that was many years ago and now she eats almost any vegan dish I make and likes it. Now my nephews like to kid me and think they are oh so funny until I inform them I heard that line 5000 times before they were even thought of, much less born. One of my uncles, when he found out at a funeral, kind of walked away speechless but I don't think he was mad. He just didn't know what to say. I didn't see a lot of extended family after my grandma died (which was in my pre-veg days), but a lot of my cousins are now on my FB and no one has defriended me yet. But we have dogs in common to talk about, so we pretty much stick to that. We don't agree on much else, animal wise or politics wise. But hey, they're my cousins and we had a lot of fun together as kids.

 

[Lord Snot]

Raised omni. Huge meat eater, barely had a meal without meat ever. My family were quite traditional cooks, my nan would never even try pasta because it was too foreign and weird to her. My mum was more adventurous than that, thank goodness, but she still couldn't cook from scratch unless it was a meat-and-two-veg deal so we ate a lot of frozen and processed food.

I did try to go veggie a few times as a kid, the first time when I was about 7. It never lasted because my mum couldn't feed me vegetarian food and I didn't know how to cook or WHAT to cook. I finally made it when I was 18 and had the ability to cook for myself. My mum turned out surprisingly supportive, she would try my veggie stuff unless it was spicy and would sometimes request me to cook for her. Funnily enough it's my brother who is fussy about meat and doesn't eat very much of it, but he is really against vegetarianism. Mum is always interested in my meals because it could be something new to give him that he'll eat.