VEGANGELICA

Richie, I've thought of some meal ideas (that don't include animals killed by natural causes or any others). I also want to tell you how wonderful I feel it is that you are being supportive of your youngest daughter's choice to be lacto-ovo vegetarian!

If you haven't done so already, I recommend you try adding beans instead of meat to any dishes you make. I think that many young vegetarians may turn to fatty cheese and other dairy products as their main protein source (along with grains), when it would be more healthful to replace some of the dairy products with beans (and vegetables).

I started off using canned black beans and garbanzo beans when I chose to be vegetarian years ago. Later I progressed to cooking whole pots of beans, which you can do by soaking beans for 24 hours well-covered in water, pouring off the water and rinsing the beans, then covering the beans with fresh water and bringing them to a simmer, generally for around 2 hours but more or less depending on the bean size.

Stews and other soups like minestrone that include beans are an excellent meal option, since you can cook a soup and then add either beans or meats later. Bean chili and corn bread is a nice choice since it includes beans and people are used to the idea of meatless chili. Burritos can be made easily with beans or meats.

If your child is like mine, she probably likes to eat what she sees other kids eating at school. So we sometimes buy Boca (vegan) original "Chik'n" meatless patties, which I feel taste very good. However, I have read on the Harvard School of Public Health's website that it is best to limit soy servings to 4 or fewer per week due to the estrogen-like effects of some compounds, isoflavonoids, that are in soy, and so I wouldn't recommend eating soy products more frequently than that until more is known about the long-term impact.

I recommend two recipe books:

(1) "Vegan Vittles," by Joanne Stepaniak. Your daughter might like this, because the book ties in to Farm Sanctuary, a wonderful organization that rescues and cares for animals discarded or rescued from factory farms: http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Vittles-.../dp/1570670250

(2) "Vegan with a Vengeance," which a vegetarian man whom I met yesterday while he was working in a Outdoors Equipment store recommended to me highly: Vegan with a Vengeance | Post Punk Kitchen | Vegan Baking & Vegan Cooking

You probably already know this, but your daughter may benefit from a multivitamin that includes vitamin B-12. If you haven't visited the Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition website, then I recommend it for dietary and nutrition information:

Protein: Moving Closer to Center Stage - What Should You Eat? - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health

Calcium and Milk: What's Best for Your Bones and Health? - What Should You Eat? - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health

I also recommend the American Dietetics Association's position statement on vegetarian diets, which is rich with useful information. Here is the webpage that provides the abstract along with a link to the PDF of the full document: Vegetarian Diets

Richie, I want to comment on my reply to your "can't we all just get along" post above, since I think my reply probably came off sounding very harsh.

I agree with you that being judgemental of someone can emotionally hurt that person, and that is a concern. Is it possible to judge a person's actions (approve or disapprove of them) while still caring about and liking or even loving the person as a whole? I think the answer is yes, but it does create friction.

If I saw my child kick a dog, you can bet I'd be judgemental even as I love him. I would tell him not to do it and would encourage him to think how he would feel if he were kicked.

If I saw an adult kick a dog, I would probably feel a lot less love and a lot more anger and fear: I *would* judge the person.

In my view, eating animals is a variation of kicking them, because animals are often raised in harmful ways and then of course people kill them (and that's not kind). And if the animals *were* leading happy lives (cooped up inside buildings, as pigs and chickens are in Iowa, and so I doubt their lives are as fulfilling as they could be, but let's just pretend), then killing a happy animal isn't kind either.

So while some vegetarians will say they don't care if other people eat meat or not, I can never say that, because I *do* care. If meat-eating weren't a life-death issue, then it wouldn't bother me, but it is, and so in my opinion it is reasonable that people who care about animals will feel concerned about what or whom other people eat. I don't know if there is any way around that.

Good luck with your meal planning and, again, I'm so glad you are supportive of your daughter. I wish I'd known such support when I was a child.

Applause!! Thank you, Batlord.

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