My 12yr son is wanting to be a vegetarian...

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yjeva, Jun 2, 2:56am
What makes cooking special meals for somebody a bad thing? Perhaps she wants to cook what he would like. Cooking a special meal for someone in your family may be a burden for you and for many people, but some people get a lot of satisfaction from being able to do something extra for the people they love. There is naught wrong with it.

leah14, Jun 2, 3:48am
yay good on you for supporting your son. i turned veg at 13 and my sister at about 8. and now my partner and i have four healthy vegetarian children. you don't "need" animal fats at all. its easier to get what you need by eating an animal based diet but that's only because our society is geared up around dairy and meat. with a little research you and your son will be fine. i can't imagine forcing my intelligent young son to go against his well considered principals and eat animals if he's decided he does't want to. especially because he doesn't need to. good luck

uli, Jun 2, 4:33am
Here is an article for you to ponder:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/78/3/640S

ferita, Jun 2, 7:38am
Oh look, its the carnivore propaganda.
If you actually read the article you posted it said "Vegetarian, especially vegan".

There is a big difference between vegan and vegetarians and to make your stupid claims that "most vegetarians get sick" is absolute bigoted naive rubbish.

http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Health_benefits_a
nd_concerns

Read it and realise how naive you are.

kurtis, Jun 2, 7:47am
wow most 12 yr old could give a crap about not killing animals

kurtis, Jun 2, 7:48am
has your son read lierre keiths the vegetarian myth

ferita, Jun 2, 7:58am
The book you mention is called vegetarian myths yet the book is about vegans not vegetarians. The book has nothing really at all to do with vegetarians and I think the myth is the title of the book. Its an absurd book full of flawed thinking

wahinetoa62, Jun 2, 8:25am
its ok I dont buy into propaganda and as someone who is maori and comes from a family riddled with diabetes and obesity I am so proud that my boy is interested in healthy eating... maori metabolism is such that any fats are held onto tightly by our systems and so we do need to be more careful in the choice of fats... so he is now enjoying alternative meals... tonight he really enjoyed the pumpkin pasta and said it was like his ex fav. . butter chicken...

ferita, Jun 2, 8:38am
You can make him butter chicken by replacing it with tofu or vegetarian chicken (sanitarium make some chicken style stuff).

uli, Jun 2, 9:05am
wahinetoa62 diabetes and obesity is created by eating a lot of carbohydrates.

Anything starchy is turned into glucose (sugar) in the body and if not used by the muscles or stored in the liver (once both muscle and liver storage is full) is turned into fat and stored in the fat cells of the body for a "rainy day".

As in our current society we never have rainy days, but an array of supermarkets and lots of carby foods to chose from - so we keep filling up our "storage areas" but never get to the point of removing and using any body fat.

The metabolism is the same for any human - Maori or otherwise. It has nothing to do with eating fat, but with eating carbohydrates. So while the Ex-butter chicken would have given your son some meat and fat (with very little insulin response), the new food regime is giving him carbs with carbs (pumpkin and pasta) plus a high insulin response.

So if you are worried about gaining weight or getting diabetic later in life - this new eating regime will make him gain weight more easilythan the old one.

However that is most likely the last thing on your mind right now as you are learning about the "health benefits" of soy and other non-meat protein sources.

I wish you good luck in your endeavours and hope your son will be happier and healthier in future.

ferita, Jun 2, 9:26am
What a load of rubbish.
You really love pushing your canivore agenda dont you.

yjeva, Jun 2, 9:37am
That is such nonsense.
"Studies show that vegetarian diet which emphasis on low fat, high carbohydrate and high fibre foods has a beneficial effect on carbohydrate metabolism, lowering blood sugar levels. Therefore can substantially lower risk of type II diabetes and other health problems like obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer than non-vegetarians. "

yjeva, Jun 2, 9:39am
and from the Mayo clinic -
"Changing to a vegetarian diet probably won't cure your diabetes. But it may offer some benefits over a nonvegetarian diet — such as helping to better control your weight, reducing your risk of some diabetes-associated complications and possibly even making your body more responsive to insulin. "

yjeva, Jun 2, 9:41am
and from the US National Library of Medicine-
"We propose the hypothesis that a vegetarian diet reduces the risk of developing diabetes. Findings that have generated this hypothesis are from a population of 25, 698 adult White Seventh-day Adventists identified in 1960. During 21 years of follow-up, the risk of diabetes as an underlying cause of death in Adventists was approximately one-half the risk for all US Whites. Within the male Adventist population, vegetarians had a substantially lower risk than non-vegetarians of diabetes as an underlying or contributing cause of death. Within both the male and female Adventist populations, the prevalence of self-reported diabetes also was lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians"

yjeva, Jun 2, 9:43am
and again -
The British Medical Association (1986) has stated that vegetarians have lower rates of obesity. Appleby et al (1998) as part of the Oxford Vegetarian Study concluded that non meat eaters are thinner than meat eaters.

cgvl, Jun 2, 10:17am
actually the carb on carb comment made by Uli is correct. Its a fact diabetic in particular that carbohydrate is the source of raising blood sugars however there are good and bad carbohydrates.
In my opinion a vegetarian diet which is carefully sourced and worked on can be good but and its a big but if it contains too much carb and not enough protien sources then yes you will gain weight which could lead to diabetes. Another factor in the diabetic issue is to do with family, most type 2 diabetes is intergenerational, for instance if your grandparents, or parents have/had diabetes then the likelihood of you getting it is increased.
If you are happy with him #1 going vegetarian then I would reccomend getting hold of Sarah Brownes vegetarian cookbook, it has some really great recipes in it and also get in touch with your nearest 7th day Adventist church, as they often run cooking classes for new and or people interested in vegetarian cooking.

cgvl, Jun 2, 10:23am
Oh while I think of it a fellow worker (from many years back) was a vegetarian 7th day adventist and I spent some time with the family. I noticed that they used Goats milk, butter, cream and cheese, all of it totally tasted like cows milk products and the mother used to make to die for hamburgers that you would swear had meat in them.
I use the skim goats milk when I can afford to buy it, much prefer it to cows milk. I find the whole goats milk too rich, I do not like the soy based milks and have yet to taste the rice one, but the smell puts me off it.
You can make butter from nuts too, and some very nice ones as well.

bedazzledjewels, Jun 2, 6:55pm
Ha ha! Uli is NOT a carnivore! I only know one person at present who is eating just as a carnivore - that is meat and only meat, nothing else! And that person is feeling amazing healthy!
Also the book IS called "The Vegetarian Myth" NOT myths.

ferita, Jun 2, 7:04pm
Whatever the name of the book its absolute rubbish and propaganda. I have read the book and it has nothing to do with vegetarians. It is about vegans and they are different.

I dont see why you meat eaters are so intent with pushing your inaccurate beliefs down peoples throats. Us vegetarians dont go into all the threads that have meat mentioned telling people to be vegetarians, so why do you people think its ok to push your bigoted agenda in the vegetarian threads?

Take your meat eating lies elsewhere. This is a vegetarian thread not a meat one and we dont want to listen to the deluded rantings of agenda pushing meat eaters.

uli, Jun 2, 9:15pm
The only people ranting along in here that I can see are yjeva and ferita.

Everybody else is trying to give some good ideas.

In fact it would be great if those two posters did a bit of study on human biology and how carbs are being used in the body before pulling out wholesale statements about vegetarians in general without any reference to the amount of carbs they are eating.

The carbs have nothing to do with eating meat or not. You can be totally vegetarian or even vegan if you like - on a low carb diet.

It is the amount of carbs you eat over your lifetime that produce diabetes, heart disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and obesity later in life (well in some American and NZ kids now also early in life) - not eating meat or fat.

But that means you need to actually look into the reality of the body metabolism - and understanding it too - instead of copying and pasting general statements like "The British Medical Association (1986) has stated that vegetarians have lower rates of obesity... " - which says nothing at all about their eating or exercising habits does it?

fmgirl, Jun 2, 9:22pm
I can't believe people have such an issue with not wanting to eat meat.
Good on this ladies son for not wanting to eat meat, a well balanced vegetarian diet will give him all the nutrition he needs.

If he were my son I'd be supporting him too, and if anything cooking a couple of vege meals each week for the whole family.

You can debate vegetarianism vs eating meat all you like but that's not what the OP is about.

fmgirl, Jun 2, 9:23pm
I did a vege night class too run by an Indian lady, the meals were delicious she went one step further and used all organic produce and ingredients - this was out of my budget but the flavour is unmistakable.

frances1266, Jun 2, 9:41pm
Dr Neal Barnard wrote an interesting book on treating diabetes with a vegan diet if any diabetics are interested.
Uliwhy do you persist with your anti vegetarian stance. I am so tired of you jumping on every vegetarian thread pushing your meat eating agenda. I presume you are a farmer because I cant think of why else you insist on 'dictating' your anti veg propoganda to everyone here.
As I have said before go to the Opinions thread and start a debate there but keep your nose out of the vegetarian threads.

ferita, Jun 3, 1:48am
LOLWUT?

Now you are bring carbs into it? This has nothing to do with carbs at all it has to do with your anti vegetarian agenda. You stated that people on restricted diets are more likely to get sick. This is absolute rubbish. Take your bigotry elsewhere, we are not interested in hearing your pro meat propaganda.

fmgirl, Jun 3, 4:02am
fiddy