No Carb-o-Tarians...SERIOUSLY!

The oldest came home a few weeks ago and said she wanted to be a vegetarian.  WTH! What 13 year old wants to be a vegetarian. I thought this was nuts because I am not a vegetarian, nor to we have anyone we're close to that is. We come from a LONG line of game hunting carnivores who think salad is what food eats. (Think Duck Dynasty, and you've met my extended family). She seemed to be pretty serious about this, so I needed to understand why.

I thought for sure this had to be a trend with all the kids because Lord knows if one friend does it they all have to try it.  I started asking other moms if their daughters wanted to be vegetarian too. They all said NO. This was odd in my mind.... Although she's pretty independent most of the time, she's getting to the age that she follows trends more.

So after I asked enough moms to realize this was her idea, it really worried me. What was she planning on eating, other than not meat? We were all going to be changing our diet to accommodate this. Last year another mom told me her daughter was on a vegetarian diet because of her "new friends", but really didn't like vegetables, so all she ate was cheese pizza and Mac and cheese... Holy cow! How do you manage that?

My first response was "we'll try this, but you are not becoming a carb-a-tarian." She agreed, and tried to go no meat "cold turkey" (pun intended). That was a rough few days for everyone. Her diet was jacked up which meant she was jacked up. Moody, grumpy, the whole nine yards.

She left for the weekend to see her dad and I asked her if she told him about being a vegetarian. NOTE: He's not all that impressed with folks that don't eat meat; he's a full-on carnivore. Needless to say, she didn't tell him. Her strategy was she was just not eating meat there. (We'll see about that.)

After a week or so, I asked her again why she wanted to do this, she kept playing the health card. She gave an example of an uncle who lives in another state that's vegetarian. So I didn't push it. I told her to research protein alternatives and let me know what she wanted to try. I really wanted to be supportive even of there was no way in hell that I could pull it off. I really like meat.

We tried a few things over the course of a week or two, and she was still struggling with being hungry and moody and finding enough protein in her diet. (Lord knows we don't need another reason to be moody). Finally, one day three weeks into it, she finally caved and decided she didn't want to try it any more. She 'fessed up that it was her science teacher!! They had a lesson on all the different bacteria that was in undercooked meat and it freaked her out so bad she tried to be vegetarian.... Instead of just asking questions about how to cook meat! I absolutely love middle school science teachers! Not!

I told her we would try protein alternatives if she would like to, but there are ways to cook meat that you don't get some stomach-eating bacteria.

But this is how crazy my life is...