Should kids eat fake meats?

[realfood neil]

That Matrix thing is exactly right. Part of me wishes I could plug myself back into the matrix and forget what is going on. I do vegan campaigning, and sometimes I get tired and depressed about the lack of support, even from fellow vegans. I wish sometimes I didn't know what the real world was like, and could have just carried on managing a rugby club. But we know what we know, and we live with it. I couldn't live with myself if I went backwards, and I never will. I just can't understand how people do go backwards, what is going on inside their minds. They are worse than people who never knew the truth. They know the truth and choose to ignore it.

If you don't tell kids the truth one day they are going to want to know what "real" meat is all about. They will want to know what they have been missing all this time. They might try it like some kids try drugs and stay on it. If you bring them up knowing the truth and teach them the right way they will not want to try "real" meat. Nobody starts off having kids by worrying they will behave immorally so I don't think veg parents should be any different. If you credit your kids with some intelligence they will make the right choice. Giving kids the message that meat tastes so good you can't even taste a vegan version without being addicted to the stuff will just make meat more fascinating for the kid, and them more inclined to wonder what they are missing.

[feline01]

We certainly plan on telling our kids the truth about meat and if they express a desire to eat meat, we plan on arranging a trip to a slaughterhouse first. I don't think that just because we don't feed them fake meats that they will turned into crazed carnivores though. I repeat what I said earlier, my main issues with them are the fact that they are highly processed foods which I'd prefer the kids to avoid and because they are way too expensive.

Gotta admit, I'm a bit blown away with this sentiment that my kids, raised from birth as vegans, will turn to meat if we don't feed them mock meats.

[Realfood Mary]

Hi Feline

Don't worry, I think you are reading too much into what Neil says! As far as I can tell you are feeding your kids a really good broad vegan diet, relying not so much on fake meats because you don't like them - not because they are "banned." If your kids were to express an interest in tasting them you wouldn't tell them not to, would you? It is like my son, he has had one Linda McCartney's Deep Country pie since they went vegan again. I am not about to let him start living on them, they are junk! But now he knows what that kind of pie tastes like, and it is not an issue with him. He would still sooner eat sweetcorn on the cob, or home made sushi with avocado filling.

The problem would only be if mock meats were presented as something to be avoided on moral grounds. Health and finances are a different matter. At some point your kids are going to eat mock meat, and surely that wouldn't be a problem to you? And therefore it won't be a problem to them. They will carry on eating the healthy foods that you have accustomed them to in their childhood.

[Gorilla]

We certainly plan on telling our kids the truth about meat and if they express a desire to eat meat, we plan on arranging a trip to a slaughterhouse first.

forgive me if this sounds a little stupid, as i've never been to a slaughterhouse and have no desire to, but would the people in the slaughterhouse really just let you walk in there with your kids?? :confused: :eek:

nice one Mozbee BTW ;)

[Realfood Mary]

No, the slaughter guys would chase you with great big steely knives. I speak from experience here... not that I brought Séamus with me when I visited the bloody place. Well, maybe... I was a few weeks pregnant at the time, though it hadn't been confirmed yet.

Hmm. I would bring your children to an animal sanctuary, to meet animals rescued from farms. Séamus knows pigs and chickens personally and would no more eat a dead hen or pig than he would a cat, dog or guineapig. So make sure your kids know animals individually, adopt them etc, so they always know that a pig is an animal. That should sort it!

[puffin]

What were your reasons for going to a slaughter house Mary?

[Realfood Mary]

I'd gone veggie, and all my family were telling me that I was believing propoganda from books, and that it wasn't so bad for the animals. I knew they were talking crap, because the animals were still dying, but thought if I could tell them what I had seen with my own eyes they would have to believe me.

So I found a small local slaughter house near where I lived, rode up on my bike, and turned up at the door, saying I was writing a book and would they let me in. Fuck off love I was told. So I walked around, until I found an open door, and walked through it.

Thank god I took my bike, that's all I can say. I didn't get very far in (far enough that I could smell it, and you could hear it from a way off) before some guy in a once white body suit (you know the kind of all in one thing) covered in blood came out and started swearing at me. I was in an ante chamber of some sort, I tried to walk through the plastic flaps that hang down, and saw the silhouettes of bodies moving from a line - cows I think, but didn't get near enough to see. I could hear them screaming, but the bloke shoved me out, and when I carried on persisting he picked up a meat cleaver, and yelled at his mates to get me.

I never ran so fast in my life.

So technically I don't know what I am talking about, because I never got in. But I tried, and I know what those places smell like. Piss and blood and fear.