We had lamb for dinner tonight. Anna kept asking for “more of that meat!” and we told her it was lamb. “Oh, Lamb!” she said. “Like my lambie!” (small stuffed animal). “Lamb is delicious!”
We have deliberately chosen to speak truthfully and explicitly to her, from the beginning, about where our food comes from. Just as she knows how fruits and vegetables come from trees and plants, she knows that animals are killed for our consumption. She knows this and yet….I still wonder if she is going to, at some point, experience an “Ah-Ha” moment about it and feel sad and refuse to eat it. She loves animals….she understands (well, as much as a 3 year old can understand) death, but she also really, really loves to eat meat.
house of waffles.
We are the same way with meat and where it comes from. Hannah loves figuring out at the meat counter what meat comes from which animal (weird kid) but I’m not sure there’s a connect yet either. I do explain that we do eat baby animals like lambs and calves (although we don’t actually eat that type of meat) – just don’t want her to end up like my brother who at 29 still didn’t know that veal was baby cow….