Growing up with a vegetarian mum (and 90 per cent vegetarian stepdad) meant animals and fish never came into my category of “things to eat”. The look, smell and thought of them were repulsive to me (the foods, I mean, not my lovely parents). People often say, “Don’t you miss bacon sandwiches?” but you don’t miss what you’ve never had.
My partner Stuart eats meat, and is top-notch in the kitchen, so he’s the girls’ primary chef – though he also cooks an array of veggie food for us. Two different dinners a night, damn it! Thanks to him, our eldest daughter Amelie, 13, gnaws into a bloody steak with great delight. Sadly, the only vegetables she’ll tolerate are sweetcorn and peas, and even that’s through gritted teeth.
It’s not always easy for me. The other day I was overheard moaning about my four-year-old’s “dog breath” after she’d guzzled a beef stew. I’ll never cook meat from scratch for them either as I can’t bear touching the flesh. My limits are fish fingers and chicken nuggets (safely encased in breadcrumbs).
As a conscientious parent, I do feel I’ve got many things right – I’ve actively encouraged a love of reading and writing, as well as an entrepreneurial streak and an appetite for culture. By the age of six, my eldest had her own column reviewing theatre shows and by nine, she had her own mini-business making jewellery. By the time I was 43 and had had my third child, Belle, now four, admittedly standards had slipped, but weirdly she’s the best eater of all.
Being inherently greedy, it’s a mystery why I haven’t passed on my enthusiasm for vegetarian food to my daughters. Such is my passion, I even set up my own pop-up veggie food stall, Halloumi Room, with Stuart and two of our friends. In fact, when Stuart and I first dated 23 years ago, he won me over with his fabulous cooking – by our second meeting, he’d realised a homemade veggie curry was the best way to reel me in.
My girls do mostly respect my views on food. Embarrassingly, Amelie flatly refused to eat a McDonald’s that was served at a kids’ party when she was eight, because she knew how much I loathed the place. Fifi used to find it amusing to wave bits of meat near my face over the dinner table, but after a few growls, she knew that had to stop.
Getting your children to eat well starts at an early age. I was full of good intentions when my weaning journey began back in 2009. Thank God those days of orange goo are gone. As a new mum to Amelie, I’d diligently read Annabel Karmel’s entire back catalogue; I even went to her talk and obediently puréed every fruit and vegetable under the sun.
When Amelie hit toddlerhood, I was proudly freezing mini-chickpea stews and batches of fresh tomato soup. My speciality was to invent kid-friendly names for my healthy dishes to boost the fun factor – spaghetti with hidden vegetable sauce was nicknamed “Mickey Mouse Pasta” though she did draw the line at “Shrek sauce”, an ambitious experiment with liquidised spinach and broccoli. Who was I kidding?
In my quest to get the girls eating more veg, I consulted the school nurse who told me never to make a drama about veg and other healthy things being left on my daughters’ plates. “Just clear the dishes away without comment,” he advised. “Sometimes refusing food can actually be a way to get parental attention.”
Fellow parents, I can also report the nagging technique doesn’t work either. All that does is kill any hope of decent family conversation. One of my friends used what I call the “starvation strategy” – serve them a dish you predict they won’t like, then if they refuse it, don’t offer anything else and send them to bed tired and hungry. The next day, through desperation, they’ll eat whatever you serve. That’s cruel in my view and not for me.
A few things I’ve found do help are eating as a family whenever possible, having their friends over to join us (peer pressure is a wonderful thing), and I’m a fan of serving baby carrots and cucumbers in little bowls – my two younger girls like the cute factor.
School dinners were tricky at first, but getting the menu and talking the girls through what to expect and even trying to mock up my own versions of the dishes at home to familiarise them with the food was helpful. I’ve recently taught my eldest two to cook a simple pasta meal themselves. Next, I need to work on their repertoires.
I won’t give up hope. My dream one day is that my children might share my excitement over a steaming Thai veg curry – maybe my middle daughter will switch to a mainly veggie diet when she’s older, as the environmental benefits of vegetarianism already interest her.
Today around 2-3 per cent of the UK population is vegetarian or vegan, but the real figure is far higher as the last count was back in 2012 and over the past decade veganism, in particular, has exploded. Google searches for “vegan food near me” increased by over 5,000 per cent in 2021, so there’s been a powerful shift. And last year, over half a million people signed up to Veganuary, the most ever since the campaign began.
So at least if one day my daughters do convert, they won’t need to worry about falling victim to a flying sausage, like I did.
