Why Our Family Is Giving Up The Vegetarian Lifestyle

Monday, April 1st, 2013

2 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

I figure today is just as good as any for us to make a major change in our lives. Tonight, you will dine on meat for the first time!

As for Mommy and me, this will be the first time we’ve had a non-vegetarian meal in nearly a year and a half. In the least, this breaks my personal nearly-monthly long vegan lifestyle.

Not only have your parents kept you from meat, but we’ve also deprived you of soda, fruit juice, most candy, artificial colors, and fast food.

But that’s not fair to you and I realize that now.

What a hypocrite I am to say you can’t have the same foods I had growing up. The fact that some of your favorite toys are the Stomper monster trucks I got from McDonald’s Happy Meals from 1985 really started making me think.

To say that you can never know the joy and splendor of opening a hot steamy bag or box containing not only great tasting food, but also a cool toy, that’s just really not fair.

So today when I pick you up from daycare, I’m taking you straight to the drive-thru and buying you a chicken nugget kids meal.

I just sort of feel embarrassed by this whole hippy stage in my life. (I even endorsed Ron Paul in the 2012 Presidential election! Can we say overboard?)

Looking back, I made way too big of a deal about the pink slime controversy last year. I need to just stop asking where our food comes from and let you be normal.

You’re a kid, for goodness sake! Be a kid!

I realize that a recent University of Oxford study shows that vegetarians live longer, have a lower risk for heart disease, are less likely to develop diabetes, and have a lower height-weight ratio than meat eaters.

Okay, so maybe our family would live longer… but would we have as much fun?

Time to find out!

Love,

Daddy

My Son Stuffs His Face (And His Shorts) Full Of Food

Monday, May 7th, 2012

17 months.

This picture right here is currently one of my favorites of Jack: He’s got a mouth overstuffed with wheat bread.

Sure, it’s not a very flattering picture of him; but it is hilarious because it totally sums up his current eating habits.

Like most toddlers, I assume, Jack has a fairly limited palette. When he’s wolfing down one of the few selections of food he will eat, he doesn’t understand the concept of pacing himself.

He can have a handful and a mouthful of spaghetti with a full plate in front of him and he still manages to mumble, “More?”

Sometimes in the morning after my wife feeds him his typical breakfast consisting of a whole wheat blueberry waffle or two, he will point to the box of Cheerios.

Recently she gave him a small cup of them for the car ride with me to his daycare. He was pretty quiet the whole 30 minute trip there.

Once we arrived, I opened up the hatchback-style door on my Honda Element and began unstrapping him from his car seat. I noticed the cup of Cheerios was empty.

As I lifted him up, Cheerios poured out of his shorts like quarters in a lucky Las Vegas slot machine.

Jack began laughing like a sneaky little squirrel. He totally pranked me.

I take it he wasn’t actually still hungry that morning.