When Life Throws You a Vegetarian Kid… You Throw Out the Jell-O

We are learning as we go and are on one fun ride!

My daughter has decided to commit to a life of vegetarianism. She did not come to this decision lightly. It took her two years to fully change her habits.

Mostly because chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and maple breakfast sausage were too damn good for her to say no to.

She easily eschewed my hyper-locally famous turkey chili known for its hodgepodge of ingredients and the added kick from whatever pepper I can scrounge from a grocery store that categorizes bell peppers as spicy.

And we now have a new family recipe called “carrot noodle soup” which basically consists of everything in chicken noodle soup sans the chicken and broth. With more carrots.

I’d like to say that she is not annoying about this and does not preach to us about the repercussions of our bloodthirsty ways. But- hey- “did you know that pepperoni used to be a living creature, Dad? And someone had to kill it. For you. To eat.”

Yes, my dear. We know that. Your condescension and disappointment are not helping.

“Could you kill an animal, Mom?” She also turns her passionate questions to me.

No, my sweet child. I could not. If grocery stores ceased to exist and I couldn’t buy my neat little pre-butchered packages of meat and then store them in our super convenient and cold refrigerator, I would also be a vegetarian. I am a hypocrite who suffers from bouts of anemia and eating a damn steak every once in a while helps.

No amount of training with bows and arrows or guns would make a difference. The one time I took archery lessons I got stung by a bee while drawing the arrow (or the bow? I don’t even remember the terminology and words are important to me!!) and sent that arrow straight into the ground while my hand swelled up like an angry puffer fish.

Okay, okay. The arrow kind of flopped onto the grass, bouncing once or twice, before landly softly. My mighty archery skills couldn’t even penetrate a slightly muddy field freshly thawed in the spring.

I missed.

The ground.

Unless I could find a manly hunter who also respected me as a person and gave me autonomy while doing all the dirty work so we can enjoy some burgers… well, shit. I do have a husband who could probably manage all that. Even if he might not enjoy it (up to you to decide which part I’m referring to here). He’d have to be in charge of hunting. I’d gather things from our garden and collect eggs and cuddle with the chickens we’d inevitably own instead. Damn you, gender roles.

But I digress.

I’ve learned a lot on the vegetarian journey my eight-year-old is taking us on. I also have more questions.

1. Jell-O is not vegetarian. I knew that, deep down. But I harbor a deep hatred of Jell-O that has burned since childhood and an unfortunate case of food poisoning so I haven’t eaten or thought about it much since.

2. Gelatin is in every fucking thing. Not just Jell-O. Gummy candy, confections of all sorts, some cakes, vitamins, and even some wines!!! Seriously, Jell-O in my wine sounds terrible.

3. It’s in marshmallows!!! MARSHMALLOWS!!! Which I didn’t even think about it until my kid’s teacher emailed us frantically because she heard our daughter was a strict vegetarian and was scrambling to give her an alternative activity for a school project if that was true. We told the teacher not to mention the meat product and hand out those marshmallows so as to not break her heart before Christmas break.

I still haven’t confessed to my kid that marshmallows are off-limits yet. I’m more nervous to tell her this than I was to admit that we lied about Santa.

4. Is there any good substitute for chicken broth? Vegetable broth just isn’t as great. Unless I dump in extra salt. Which is problematic for other members of the household.

5. Nothing beats the power of creamy chicken ramen noodles. This is the food my kid makes the exception for if she is sick. Besides marshmallows but they don’t count because she is unaware animals sacrificed their lives for these delicious treats.

As always, my kid impresses me with her courage and passion, even if she makes me feel a bit guilty for eating that cheeseburger in front of her. And since we are not actually big carnivores, it has been easy to make a few tweaks to meals to make them accessible to everyone in the house.

If you have any tips, tricks, recipes, or advice on how to keep progressing with this newfound vegetarianism, please leave them below! Or amusing stories about your own kids’ preferences!

Now if only she’d respect our decision to remain omnivores…

If you enjoyed this piece, here are a few more of my takes on parenting:

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