Fiction: Vegans are so limited in what they can eat.
Fact: Truth is, most people have very limited diets with very little variety. It’s not until you cut out the staples of your diet that you open yourself up to the thousands of far more interesting flavors and textures offered in vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes and nuts, that you’ve yet to experience. As they say, “necessity is the mother of all invention.” Well, you need to eat and if you remove the fatty and processed staples of your current diet, you will be forced to find alternatives or you will die. You will be forced to be creative and discover meals that are far healthier for you. There are thousands of them to choose from.
Fiction: You can’t get the protein your body needs without eating meat.
Fact: Vegetables, beans, grains, nuts, and seeds can easily supply your body with the amino acids (that’s what your body really needs, not protein) it requires. It’s much harder to get them from sugars, fats and alcohol. I’d be much more concerned about meat eaters getting enough of the essential vitamins and minerals their bodies need than a vegan getting enough protein.
Fiction: My kids would never eat if I only made vegan dishes.
Fact: This has to be the worst cop out a parent could use. There are a lot of things your kids would never do if you didn’t step in as their responsible parent and make sure they did. It’s your job as a parent to help your kids grow into happy, healthy adults. How many adults struggle with weight and health issues because their parents didn’t instill healthy eating habits in them when they were children. Just because they don’t like bland, poorly cooked broccoli thrown on the plate alongside a hamburger and creamy mashed potatoes, doesn’t mean there doesn’t exist a well prepared vegetable option your kids would like. It’s your job to find just a few of the thousands that exist.
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