This week, one of my girls independently decided that she would not be eating meat for a week. Of course, she didn’t apprise me of this until I purchased $50 worth of skirt steak for our anniversary dinner with the family.
I was happy to hear of her efforts. I’ve been actively trying to switch from meat as the centerpiece of meals, to highlighting more veggies, grains and the like. It is not as if we are going fully meat-free, we’re just in the process of cutting down on our portions, or simply not eating it every night. That translates to more soups, stews, and grain-based meals, with smaller portions of meat, or simply no meat at all. We’re all into this change – well, almost all of us. Our oldest continues to wrinkle his nose on the nights when we go ‘meatless,’ so it has been a challenge to prepare something that will feed everyone’s needs.
It’s All in the Delivery
Aside from the process of finding satisfying recipes that use less meat or serve as hearty meat-free options, I realized that it’s the words I use that make or break the perception my son has of my meatless options.
For the past few years , when Monday rolled around, I’d announce that I was serving up a Meatless Monday meal. My son quickly caught on to the fact that Monday meals would not be something he wanted to partake in. He no longer would ask, ‘What’s for dinner?” but rather, “Is this another meatless meal, Mom?”
I have to say that it has been a bit of a struggle. I’m juggling the likes and dislikes of each person and trying to accommodate everyone’s needs, just so we can have an enjoyable mealtime.
But lately, I’ve removed the ‘meatless’ from my mealtime explanation. Rather than naming my mealtime choices as ‘meatless’ I’m simply moving forward with my efforts, and It is serving me a bit better. By focusing more on what is on the table, rather than what isn’t, I’m finding greater acceptance of my efforts – even from my son.
I’m glad my frustrations didn’t keep me from continuing my efforts to reach my goal. While we may not be finished with our journey to eat less meat, but at least were taking small steps needed to accomplish our goals.
