My kid himself made a choice in favor of veganism.
The son frowned. He felt sick. And grandmother still tried to feed him a canned turkey.
“Look at you,” my mother-in-law reprimanded me. “Itself is almost transparent, and you are torturing the child.”
Feelings at this moment were twofold: on the one hand, I was very worried about the crying Savva, on the other, I was glad that he, like me, did not want to eat meat.
I came to veganism about ten years ago. At first I realized that I could not eat meat. Not even out of pity for animals, I just can’t – it’s disgusting. Then fish, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, butter gradually disappeared from my diet. And I can confidently say that I feel great. There are hundreds of products in the world that can replace meat. Not to taste, but in composition.
When I went pregnant, I had to hide from the gynecologist that I didn’t eat meat and other animal food. A Soviet-style aunt was always anxiously interested in whether I eat enough and varied – hemoglobin kept falling. I just waved it off that everything was in order, and I got the hemoglobin with buckwheat and beets. I was gaining weight according to the norms, my son was doing well. He was born as a healthy baby too, not large. And not with celery in my hand, as my meat-eater friends joked.
Savva has been breastfed for seven months already. Of course it’s milk. On the one hand, it’s not vegan. But this is mother’s milk, it is perfect for him. But I introduce complementary foods exclusively vegetarian. After all, Savva gets all the necessary protein from breast milk.
By the way, my husband is categorical, he does not share my passion for veganism. The husband hopes that very soon he will go with the grown-up Savely to a restaurant for a good steak.
But my mother-in-law is especially categorical about my diet. For some reason, “vegan” means to her the same thing as a fallen woman.
“You’ll ditch the child. If he grows up, let him eat at least one cabbage. In the meantime, it grows, develops, you have to eat everything, ”she is sure.
Natalya Ivanovna is constantly trying to feed Savva with some product from my stop-list. Either he dilutes the milk porridge, then he tries to quietly give him a jar of meat. After buckwheat milk porridge, we did not sleep for a week, Savva suffered: it looks like he had a tummy ache. The pediatrician was never able to figure out the reason. But a jar of turkey was the last straw, I won’t let my mother-in-law go to the child anymore. Savva took the mashed potatoes in his mouth, and immediately began to vomit. The vomiting was hardly stopped.
It turns out that my baby made his own choice – from the very infancy. You know, I’m very happy about that. Meat is not good for anyone! In addition, my son is developing better than his peers – his teeth crawled out early, he began to roll over and sit down early. The doctors are not overjoyed – an exceptionally healthy little boy. And I am sure: my way of eating, both during pregnancy and now, is only for the benefit of Savva. Let the meat-eating mothers peck me, but since the child is healthy and happy, then I am doing everything right.