What Matthew Ate Wednesday

This week I am changing up the "What I Ate Wednesday" post and instead, giving you what my four year-old son ate.

Though my husband and I eat fish and chicken a few times a week and occasionally eat beef, we have chosen to raise our children to be vegetarians.  Neither of our kids have ever eaten meat.  There are several reasons for this. 

1. It freaks us out when we see little kids (and especially babies) eating meat.  Meat is a dead animal.  We have no desire to let our kids eat dead animals, especially when our children are so young.  I could see a child foraging on his/her own, picking veggies or fruits and even chewing on grains, but not grabbing a cow or chicken and gnawing on it.  (However, we NEVER say anything to other parents about how they choose to raise their children or what they feed their kids.)
2. Our four year-old son thinks meat is gross.  When we have others ask him if he eats me he yells, "NO!"  One day, after I told him how bread was made, he asked how to make meat.  I can't describe the look on his face when I told him meat was made of dead animals.  "YUCK!"  He yelled.  They may choose to eat meat someday, but we don't offer it to them.
3. Our children have likely inherited our wonderful predisposition to heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes.  If they decide to remain vegetarians all of their lives, they have a greater chance of avoiding these diseases.  Giving them a vegetarian beginning may help them live much healthier, longer lives. 

Since my son is a vegetarian and we live in Nebraska, a state with more cows than humans, I often get asked what he does eat.



 Breakfast:  Oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins and orange juice.

 For a snack, he wanted Louise and Kenny's Swedish Rye Bread with butter.

(Okay, so he just asked for bread and butter,

then he asked what kind of bread it was after he ate it.)

 Matthew is usually too "busy" to eat lunch at noon.

Instead he eats at around 2:00pm. 

I offered orange juice, unsweetened applesauce,

and 2 slices of Louise and Kenny's Swedish Rye Bread.

You can see he already ate half a slice before I could get a photo taken!

For supper, I suggested a bean burrito

and an orange pineapple smoothie. 

He told me he wanted two bean burritos.

Matthew ate both of them and finished the smoothie.

He will only drink smoothies that have spinach in them.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Matthew is a very healthy boy.  He has great focus and his weight is ideal for his height and age.  He doesn't have any chronic health conditions except mild seasonal allergies.  He only gets a cold once or twice a year. 

Matthew's diet is kind of boring, but he likes it.  He gets very little processed food and rarely gets food with dyes or artificial flavorings.  He has only had 2-3 sodas or Kool-Aid type drinks in his life.  We started out feeding him like this, so there was never a struggle to get him to eat healthier.  Some days he even eats better than his father and I do!

What did his 4 month-old brother eat today?  Mommy's milk. ; )

If you have children, what do you feed them?

If you don't have kids yet, what kind of foods do you hope to give them?

• Be sure to come back tomorrow for Garlic-Cheese No-Knead Bread!