i suspect

[alexis]

Hey y'all i just need a little rant here, my mom came to visit me from Hong Kong again and started nagging me about my sister the vegetarian..she swears that my sister is anemic because she got a little woozy one day and said it's all the fault of her being a vegetarian..i quizzed her on the amount of veg my sis eats and she says my sis eats only soy products and very little veg...i have a suspicion my mom's not letting my sister have access to the stuff she really need to stay healthy because she wants to prove the whole vegetarian thing wrong...first it was sneaking chicken broth and now it's restricting my sister's access to proper food...what next? Sometimes i wonder why on earth she does this kind of things to make things difficult for my sister..i've been talking to her until i've almost turned blue in the face but she sticks to her old theory that it's unhealthy and unnatural....grrrrr.....how i hate this kind of things...
Did anyone else have this kind of probelms? How did you deal with it? My siss is like 3000 miles away from me and we don't talk much...

[Robin]

hey Alexis,

How old is your sis?

I'm really sorry your mom isn't more supportive, that has to be awful. Just remember- there's always hope. My family went from mocking me to indulging in my vegan cookies- and my bro has converted to vegetarian (although he broke down and went to McD's- then felt sick all night! hehe)

Good luck-

[alexis]

my sis is 13...she became vegetarain after her homeroom teacher in Taipei showed them a video of how cows are killed for food...

[sarahrose]

That is so sad! I go to the PETA2 boards alot, and you would be surprised-most of the teens on there have these same problems. Maybe it would help to give your mom some information. The American Dietetic Association has a great position paper on vegetarian and vegan diets. You can find it by going to their web site and doing a search with the keyword 'vegetarian', or if you can't find it, I could send you a link. That is a good one because it is 100% unbiased and approved by thousands of M.D's and nutritionists.

[annie7]

Alexis,
Is it possible that your sister can stay with You?

[alexis]

annie7, there's no way my sister will EVER stay with me because I live in Singapore and she doesn't like the schools here, she needs to study in an International school so she will remain with my parents wherever they go...anyway i was visiting them a couple weks ago, she's started eating eggs because there's simply nothing else she can eat other than one kind of vegetable served at dinner and tofu, but she has started doing her own grocery shopping now so she's fine, but she can't wait 'till she graduates and heads off to Yale and start living on her own...my mother can really 'nag up a storm' when she wants to...lolx:p

[duckie1978]

I have to say I went through a similar situation. I read a book about animal rights in the 8th grade; went home and told my folks I would never eat meat again. My mom and dad refused to let me, refused to buy any vegetarian foods, or be supportive at all. Eventually they told me I could give up red meat but that was it. So I had to phase out meat and other animal products in stages because there was no other way I could get food. I hated eating it but there was literally no other choice. If I didn't eat it I would get sick, so I had a really difficult choice to make. Once I started working at 15 I was able to buy more of my own food so it got easier. I couldn't go vegan until college (of course I had never heard of being a vegan until then either). Tell your sister that, as much as it sucks, she may have to wait until she goes to college before she can really become completely vegetarian. Parents can take a long time to win over with dietary changes like this. I don't know much about Hong Kong or where your family is from, but is meat and that a central part of their diet or the country itself? I know my folks come from a meat and potatoes family and the idea of not eating meat floored them. They had always been told protein and most vitamins and minerals, basically every single nutrient that the body needs, comes from animals. They had also been told that vegetarians are always anemic and sick; they only knew one vegetarian and she is "out there" in their eyes as she is into herbal medicines and reiki. They have grown so much because of my twin sister (she became a veg shortly after I did) and I; they are far more open-minded than they used to be.

How much longer does she have to stay in Hong Kong with your folks?

[alexis]

i can't say that meat is a central part of my parent's diet but it does play quite a large part...and they've been living in China these few years so it's not like she can get imported food easily...anyway she has to live with my parents until high school graduation which is another four years away....