How to Inadvertently Turn Your Child into a Vegetarian

Everyone is dying to know how to do this, right?  Here's how we're doing it: we eat meat, we eat fish.  That's it.  Olivia is doing the rest of the work on her own.  She thinks about her food in ways I never did as a kid, and is definitely leaning toward not eating meat or fish.  We don't live on a farm, so she's not getting friendly with the animals before we eat them.  She's never had the unfortunate experience, as did my mom, of having her pet (Mortimer the Lamb) served up for dinner.  But she is still a little bit freaked out about meat.

A few months ago, when I had grilled some tilapia for dinner, Olivia asked, "Is this a real fish?"  We told her that it was, and she asked, "Who deaded it?"  For a number of reasons, I was glad I hadn't been the one to "dead" it.

My parents came for a visit shortly after the deaded fish incident.  One night my mom was preparing to roast a chicken.  Olivia saw it in the pan and asked, "Is that a real chicken?"  When we told her it was, she said, "I'm not going to eat that."  And she didn't.

One of my favorite questions has been, "Is this meat from a real meat?"  She didn't have any idea what animal it came from, but wanted to know if it was real.  It was.  She didn't eat it.

Last night I made teriyaki chicken for dinner.  This is the conversation we had just before I put it in the oven.
O: "Is that chicken from a real live chicken?"
Me:  "Um, actually, it's from a real dead chicken."
O: "And those are its legs?"
Me: "Yes."
O:  "And we're going to eat them?"
Me: "Yes, and they're going to be so yummy."
And then at the dinner table, with a chicken leg on her plate:
O: "Is this the chicken's leg?"
Me: "Yes."
O: "And this is where its foot was?"
Me: "Yes."
O: "And look at this, Mom."  She showed me where the leg used to connected to the rest of the body.
O: "Mom, I think I'm a little bit too scared to eat this chicken."

She heroically ate one bite.  Can you blame her, though, when she's thinking about that poor, dead, mutilated, marinated, cooked chicken?

It's a good thing I don't like lamb.  I don't know what she'll do when she realizes that people kill and eat lambs.  Probably never let Lamb E. Lulu out of her sight again!