I'm blessed with kids that will eat ANYTHING...they're favorite foods include broccoli, tomato, onion, chicken, steak, pork chops, lettuce, etc.  Pretty much I can make a full course meal and rest assured they're getting all their food groups in.

Since when should the word 'vegan' be censored?

My family's policy is eat whatever is served to you basically.

I think kids eat just about anything, I did pretty much. However, if a child is passionate about not eating meat I don't think they should be forced too. But Vegitarian parents should at least give their kid the option of eating meat instead of banning it from the beginning.

I don't eat meat, and my oldest does not eat meat.  My husband does, and my middle daughter does.  My children are allowed to make their own food choices, as long as it is mostly healthy, I do not care what they choose to eat.  It is very rare that we all eat the same thing for meals.

our dentition consists of various kinds of teeth, such as incisors, canines and molars. these serve various purposes such as cutting by incisors, grinding by molars and ripping into meat by canines. that is precisely why we were given different types of teeth by God! of course the atheist will say that we were evolved this way to eat all kinds of food sources.

whichever way you explain it, it means that we should eat various food groups. until humans 'evolve' to have only molars or incisors, we should not be eating like cows or rabbits 

note to mothers out there, i'm sure you already know about what i'm going to say but i feel compelled to mention it:

i was never forced to eat anything i didn't like as a child. i also saw some strange behaviors when it came to food (i.e. if meat had a bone in it my mother wouldn't eat it, even if she cooked it). i'm about to be 20 years old and i just tried celery for the first time two days ago. i can't eat lettuce, raw tomatoes, onions or carrots (at all), and many other vegetables. i've never eaten  a salad, i've never eaten mayonaise or miracle whip and there are many other foods on my "can't eat" list. it's a simple matter of my mouth and brain can't handle them. the texture, the taste, and the sensations make me feel sick.

most of the foods i actually like are terrible for me. bread and butter, junk food, etc. i mostly eat grilled chicken, yogurt, fruits and some veggies (i have to force myself!)

ok, end force-your-kids-to-eat-everything-please rant :).

To play devil's advocate, I will say it might be difficult for young children to make a truly unbiased and independent decision about something like this.  Kids will want to do what Mom and Dad do, and can't really take in all the proper information and make a mature decision about it till they're a bit older.  We as parents influence our children probably much more than we even realize, and they will try to emulate us in whatever form they can (until they reach the teenage years, at least, when we'll become like a plague... ).

However this isn't really much different from all other decisions parents make for their children, and as long as the parents are making sure to select an alternative diet for their children that still provides them with all the nutrition they need to grow, then I see no problem.  Meat in and of itself isn't this wonderful thing-- it is an easy source of many nutrients like iron and protein, but there's other ways to get those, too.  When they are old enough then the kids can make a decision about whether they want to stay vegetarian/vegan or not.  I know many people who have gone back and forth a few times.

The important thing is to be healthy and take in what your body needs.  How you get that shouldn't really matter. 

veg*n= vegetarian and/or vegan.  It's not a censor.  I think that's what it means, anyway. 

Personally, although my parents are not vegetarian themselves, I almost wish they would've raised me as one.  It turns out that Brown's disease runs in my family, making my decision to be vegetarian a very good choice.  (I'm also susceptible to kidney stones and currently considering veganism.)

As an only child my mom would make me separate meals, but only easy ones, and then only after I switched to vegetarianism.  Before that, if I didn't like what she made, I had to scavenge around the house for an alternative . . . or, what I did much more frequently, fill up on the non-meat sides.

I'm not big on force feeding kids.  The earlier post where the mom said if her kids didn't eat their dinner, she'd save it and make them eat it for breakfast--I was horrified.  I do have my son try a bite of everything we have, even if he just touches his tongue to the food.  If I see him gag, that's a sure sign to back off.  But I persevere, and sometimes he'll eat something he wouldn't before..  There is always something included in the meal that I know he can eat, and if he's still hungry later he can have PB&J.  But not while we eat.  As for the vegans, as long as they are making sure their kids get enough protein, why not.  

@already_dead@xanga - "I think parents should expose their children to a variety of food when their young."

I agree. I try to expose myself and thus my family to new things often. My husband and kids had eggplant for the first time last month for example. I love to cook so I'm often coming up with new things to make. However, offering them the food is different from forcing them to eat it.  That was what I was trying to get at.  

My parents forced me to eat Everything that was served, because we lived overseas. When eating at other people's houses, we were sure to encounter much more challenging foods than at our own home. If we learned to eat everything at home, we were more likely to behave when something foreign (baked squid, stuffed intestines, etc) was served to us. This did cause problems, because they spent years forcing my sister to eat eggplants and melons, which she hated. Turns out she's allergic. I definitely think there's ways to take your children's opinions into account when cooking, but once the meal's on the table, they should learn to eat it.
Also, my parents almost never cooked meat, because it was too expensive, so I grew up with a taste for grains, legumes and vegetables. When I left home, I was almost sick at how much meat I was served all the time, and I was on the verge of an eating disorder.
now I'm much more well adapted, but I hate preparing meat, and unless it's an accent in a meal (bacon in your split pea soup) as opposed to full course (steak), I won't want to eat it.
As much as I would like to, I will probably never become a full-on vegetarian, just because of what my mother taught us: I'm too polite to make others change, or give them suspicions that i am uncomfortable with what they serve me. Being a vegetarian makes people nervous, and feel unworthy, like you're judging them for eating unhealthily. I got tired of people trying to treat me specially, or being mean about it because they thought i was being haughty.

@mamafox - I think you're getting offering and exposed confused. Offering food is different from exposing children to food. Offering is a choice (i.e. You were offered a promotion). Expose is not a choice (i.e. You're exposed to toxic chemicals). I see exposing children to a variety of food as forcing them to eat them. My mother always made sure we tried the food and tried it again. There have been many times I didn't like things at first taste, but love them now. 

I'm an omnivore, but I think the double standard is wrong. I think the parents can feed whatever they want until the kid can make their own decision. At the center I used to work with, this kid told us that he was a vegetarian (Mom was, Dad wasn't, his own choice (he was 4 at the time)), but one of the subs didn't know and served him something with me. He liked it so we told him it was meat, and he said, 'It's okay for me to eat that.' So the teachers told him that he wasn't a vegetarian. He said, 'Okay.' I noticed that usually younger kids don't really eat too much meat anyway. Maybe because it's a little tougher to chew? We offer many different kinds of foods, and don't really force M to eat anything if she says no to it.