Is It Rude to Bring Food to a Party?

As a mother of four children, it is quite often that we get invitations to children's birthday parties. Usually this means the menu will not be of the vegetarian kind. Usually you know there will be either hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers or some other kind of meat.  In the past, I would usually feed my toddler before going to a party or function knowing that she will probably not eat the food there anyway.  I would feel bad because I knew that they had to buy food for the guests so I would feel rude not accepting the food.  I would tell them that she was a picky eater and that she already ate. 

But later on, I started to bring food with me just in case she got hungry.  In fact, I brought her food to her own birthday party! While every other child at her party ate the food they served, my daughter had her own meal that I brought. I'm sure people must of thought I was crazy, but I couldn't let her go hungry.  I sometimes wonder what people think when they offer my child food and I tell them "thanks but she doesn't eat that kind of food."  They must think I'm some crazy mom that shelters her children! But the truth is, I don't feel it's okay to just let your kids eat junk food because it has become socially acceptable. Now is the time to give them the best food for their future health.  I always tell people "she has plenty of time later in life to eat garbage if she wants to, but for now it's my time to make sure she eats well". 

So then is it rude for me to bring food to a party? I don't want to insult anyone, but if I know I'm going to a party that is serving hot dogs, I'm going to bring her something else to eat!  It's better than just not going, right? Should I keep bringing her food to eat, or just feed her before going and not eating while we are there? She has just started school so I know I have many years of birthday parties to go to so I would love to hear from others who have experienced this dilemma!

Toddler's Lunch Time

So it has been one month since my toddler started preschool and have adjusted to the fact that I can't control what she eats while she is there.  I don't like it, but I have accepted it.  Each day when I pick her up, I get a small piece of paper that tells us what she ate for lunch as well has her nap time and potty times.  Although this is great information to know, I just don't like when I see the food that she ate.  And every day she is so happy to tell me what she ate..."Mommy, I ate rice and meat"!  She is so proud to tell me that she ate all her food.  What can I do?  I have to tell her that I am so proud of her, even if inside I just want to tell her not to eat that food!  I guess it's better for her to be eating well at something than not eating well at all. But I can't wait until I can take over lunch time.

I am hoping that this will not make it more difficult when she begins kindergarten.  I plan to make lunch for her when she begins regular school.  I am hoping she will not reject the things I send her.  I would love to send her maybe a peanut butter and bannana sanwiches on whole wheat (my favorite), some fresh veggies with maybe ranch dressing for dipping and maybe some homemade oatmeal and raisin cookies for dessert.  If this fails, then I guess I will keep trying. I might have to do some research and find some new creative vegetarian lunches that young children will enjoy. If anyone has any suggestions that have worked for them, please send them my way!

My Dilemma - Preschool Lunch

After much though and debate, we have come to the conclusion that it is time for our toddler to begin preschool.  She has successfully completed potty training and is trying to learn everything she possibly can, so we knew it was time.  So today I spent my day going to preschools trying to find just the right one for my little princess.

I found that each school has some good qualities and some bad qualities.  It seems impossible to find one that meats all of your (well mine) expectations.  The one thing that they all had in common was the lunch menu.  Not one school offered a meat free option for lunch.  

Not only were there no meat free options, but they weren't exactly the healthiest options.  In fact, two of the schools I saw were serving lunch at the time I visited and they were both serving hot dogs. Hot dogs!! I think hot dogs are the worst food you can serve to your children! There is absolutely no nutritional benefit to eating them.  Even if I served my toddler meat, she would never get hot dogs.  But that is enough about hot dogs, I could go on but I will leave that for another post. 

I realized today that I am a vegetarian living in a carnivore's world! I have been reminded just how challenging it is going to be to raise a vegetarian child in our society.  Even though there are many options now for vegetarians, these options are not available in most places that cater to children.  I am surprised that a place that is designed to teach and educate our young, does not also teach the importance of a healthy meal with alternative options to eating meat.

Now I am sure that when they plan their meals they are thinking about what kinds of foods the children are more likely to eat.  I can understand how difficult lunch time could be with fifty children that don't want to eat their food.  I go crazy with just one! But I feel they could try better.  Why must they include meat every day of the week? They could offer at least two that do not.  Would that require too much thinking on their part?

So here's my dilemma. The school I liked the most, does not allow you to bring your child their own lunch.  They can only eat the food provided by the school.  So now what? Do I pick a school that I feel is not as good so I can feed her what I want?  Or do I sacrifice my vegetarian beliefs so she can have a better curriculum? 

Oh the dilemma!! I suppose I can tell them that she doesn't eat meat and ask them to not serve her the meat; but then she will be lacking protein in every meal and I can not send her anything to supplement her meal.  And we know that she is going to want to eat the same thing that she sees all the other children eating. I could sure use some advice right now from other veggie moms.  I would love to hear how other moms deal with this issue.  Right about now I am wishing there was a vegetarian or vegan preschool.  Could there be such a thing? Maybe I should start one!

Oh no, my husband needs an intervention!

My husband has had a meat relapse!  I'm not sure exactly when it began, but slowly he has been adding meat back into his diet.  When I first told him that I had made the choice to give up meat (never expecting him to do the same) he said he wanted to give it up with me. As happy as I was to hear that,  I honestly thought it would last about one day and I would hear the sound of bacon cooking for breakfast the next morning; but no, he actually stuck with it and I was indeed impressed! For many months now he as been eating all my veggie meals and complying with the vegetarian lifestyle. He was even bringing tomato and lettuce sandwiches to work as to not be tempted by the endless supply of meat options in the cafeteria in his office building.  I knew that this transition would not be an easy one for him but he seemed to be adapting quite well.

Well, it seems now that my husband needs an intervention! I think I realized this the other night when we order Mexican take out and I got the veggie quesadillas and he came back with steak quesadillas and beef tacos.  I have noticed him slowly eating some meat here and there, usually when we go out to eat because I don't bring any home. Now that I think about it, the last three times we went out to eat, he ordered something with meat. There was the Chinese buffet where I noticed some meat there placed oh so causally next to the noodles and spring roll, the Colombian breakfast that came with ham and sausage anyway so he would have to eat it, and then...the steak quesadillas and beef tacos at Pancheros, where they have a veggie option which is why I ordered from there in the first place.  It seems the meat addict has relapsed and needs an intervention before it's too late! How did I not see this coming? I guess it was going to happen at some point. I must give him credit though; he has lasted so much longer than I thought he would.  He did used to eat meat like a caveman!  Well, hopefully he has satisfied his meat cravings and I can get him back on track.  Maybe he just needs some delicious new vegetarian meals to help him forget all about meat. Maybe we need to stay away from restaurants. Off I go then to find some new veggie recipes to help keep my husband's cravings in check. Wish me luck!

Our New Favorite Veggie Meal-Stuffed Green Peppers

One of my favorite veggie meals to make is stuffed green peppers.  This has also become one of my husband's favorite as well.  I came up with this recipe while trying to come up with a substitute for his all time favorite meal, ox tails.  After we were married, I noticed that my husband loved to order ox tails everywhere we went to eat. If they had it, he would order it. But for some reason, he always found something wrong with them. They were never good enough.  So I decided to learn how to make them just the way he like them (the Cuban way with tomato sauce).  Well, after searching many recipes and after many trials, I nailed it! He loved them, and so did I.  This became my signature dish. The process of making this meal is a long one. It takes about 6-8 hours to cook them in the slow cooker to get them just right.  I would make them for him for just about every special occasion, birthday, anniversary, or just because it was date night. Well, I knew that when I decided to give up eating (and cooking) meat, that my husband was going to suffer a great loss for his ox tails.  So I thought about what can I make that can give him the same (well, as close as possible) feeling he gets from his favorite meal. 

I came up with Stuffed Green Peppers.  I know that your probably thinking how can a green pepper substitute a piece of meat.  Well, it's what's in the pepper that tastes so good.  I use the soy veggie crumbles (which is a good substitute for ground beef), brown rice, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, mushrooms, diced green peppers and corn.  Just about all of these ingredients, except for the corn, are used in the ox tail recipe so I figured I could make the flavor similar.  I used the same spices: cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and a little fresh lime juice.  And then there is the best ingredient, red wine.  I slowly cook all these ingredients together and stuffed the peppers, after boiling them for about 5 minutes.  Then put them in a casserole dish and topped with remaining tomato sauce and cover and cook for one hour.  Then I serve them with fried plantains, only because that is what I would serve with the ox tails because my husband loves them. 

The first time I served this to him, I was not sure what to expect.  I noticed he looked unsure about this new meal.  I could tell he wasn't sure he was going to like it. Well, he loved it!! I was so happy. I was surprised when my husband told me that he never thought that he would ever eat a whole green pepper, well he ate two. Success! This just insured me that I can take any meal that we used to love to eat and find a great substitute that we can enjoy just as much.  I am looking forward to creating and discovering more veggie meals for us to enjoy!