Sunny Side Up Nutrition

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7 Tips for When Your Teen Says They’re Going Vegetarian

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What’s the concern with teens going vegetarian or vegan?

When a teen wants to go vegetarian or vegan, that can be a red flag. Anytime a teen wants to make a change in they way they’re eating, it’s a signal for us parents to slow down and get curious. And though being vegetarian doesn’t mean someone has an eating disorder, we do know that those with eating disorders were more likely to report having been vegetarian or vegan.

What’s a flexitarian?

About 10 years ago, my now 16 year old declared she wanted to be a vegetarian who ate hamburgers, bacon, ham and sausage. Naturally, Chad and I found Caroline’s declaration both hilarious and smart! Our amazing child was telling us she didn’t want to eat foods she didn’t like (she’d never loved chicken or beef unless it was a hamburger). And that she wanted to continue eating foods she loved. Without knowing the term for it, she declared herself a flexitarian which is how I advise parents and their tweens and teens to think about it today.

An important note: my use of the term flexitarian is more broad than the Merriam-Webster definition: “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish.” I define flexitarian as someone who’s interested in eating more vegetarian and vegan meals while continuing to eat the foods they love.

7 Tips for when your teen says they’re going vegetarian or vegan:

  1. Be curious if your teen expresses interest in changing the way they eat. There’s no denying plant based diets are good for our bodies and our planet. However, adolescents are prone to all or nothing thinking and that can lead to rigid behaviors around food. Ask some questions: Are they worried about their weight? Are they worried about health? These reasons are red-flags. We know that teens who diet are at increased risk of developing an eating disorder. If they answer yes to either of these, schedule to meet with an experienced, weight inclusive, non-diet registered dietitian for guidance. As we know, there’s so much pressure on people of all ages from diet-culture. What messages are they getting at school, from coaches, from friends and family? Again, be curious about why they want to stop eating meat, chicken, fish, dairy, eggs? What are they reading? What are they hearing in school? Who do they follow on social media?
  2. Is it their love of the environment or animals or both? Encourage them to find some non-food ways to be more environmentally conscious and engage in social justice issues. 
  3. Avoid praising or criticizing your teen who wants to go vegetarian or vegan. Eating a certain way is neither good nor bad. For instance, a person who chooses to be vegetarian or vegan or flexitarian or “to eat clean” or eat more whole foods is not better in anyway than a person who eats meat, pork, chicken and fish in their diet.
  4. Offer to explore meal ideas together and then weave those meals into your current dinner rotation. Explore quick and easy ideas for vegetarian or vegan lunches they can easily make themselves. See below for links to some recipes and cookbooks.
  5. Avoid cooking only meals you think your teen will eat. Because they’re still growing, it can be hard to meet their needs if they cut out foods they previously ate. (Yes, even after adolescents get their period, they still grow)! Make that pulled pork, or roast chicken or stir-fried beef and veggies. And sometimes make a vegetarian side – like baked beans to go with the pulled pork, or white beans and farro to go with the chicken. Serve the stir-fried beef and veggies over rice with a bowl of edamame. Your teen can eat the veggies, rice and edamame.
  6. Avoid allowing your teen to make themselves different meals from what the rest of the family is eating. Assure them you’ll make meals that will have enough to fill them up. Or, have them make a side like a bean dish to go with the meal. Yes, we want teens to be helping with some of the meal prep at times and making some of their own meals. However, teens have a lot going on and still need us to provide much of the structure of planning and preparing most meals. At times, they seem like adults and at times like toddlers. Teens still need us to provide some structure around meals.
  7. Encourage them to think of themselves as flexitarian. We know teens think rigidly at times which can leave them feeling like they MUST eat only X or Y. Being flexitarian allows them to feel free to eat a burger when that’s what sounds good to them. Or a grilled cheese or a bowl of ice cream or the bacon that smells SO good or the steamed pork buns they’ve always loved. I’ll say it again: teens are still growing and it can be hard to meet their needs if they cut out foods they previously ate and enjoyed. 

Vegetarian recipes and a few cookbooks

Check out these simple vegetarian recipes on our site:

What’s your favorite vegetarian or vegan recipe? Leave a reply below!

Let’s Talk About Sugar

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by: Le’Vena Tan, Nutrition Masters Student & Guest Post Writer

From sugar taxes, listing added sugar on nutrition labels, to words like ‘’toxic”, ”poison”, ”evil” constantly being used to describe sugar, sugar gets a lot of bad press from public health professionals and the media as being the food to avoid. Recently, I saw a social media post about dietitians being advocates for carbohydrates/sugar, because of misconception and fear surrounding sugar propagated by diet culture.

What is sugar and why is it important?

Sugars are broken down forms of carbohydrates. They supply our body with energy necessary to perform our day-to-day activities, resting, eating, thinking, moving etc. Sugar is a great quick source of energy to help restore our blood sugar, especially when it is low. An added bonus, sugar tastes good! There are three different types of sugars: simple sugars (monosaccharides), disaccharides (containing 2 sugar molecules) and complex sugars (polysaccharides). 

The science behind sugar metabolism

Add sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice to berries

Glucose

Glucose is the simplest form of carbohydrate and the preferred form of energy for most cells in our body, especially the brain. After being absorbed into the body via the intestinal lining, glucose is broken down by the cells in our body to provide energy for essential metabolic processes and our daily activities. In excess, glucose is stored as glycogen, the storage form of glucose, or as fat in our body. 

Fructose and Sucrose

Fructose and sucrose are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Fun fact: table/granulated sugar are examples of sucrose, manufactured from sugar beets or sugar cane. Fructose is a simple sugar just like glucose with a different chemical structure. Sucrose consists of equal parts glucose and fructose. The body has to break down sucrose into glucose and fructose molecules in order to use it for energy. It’s important to note that most sugars are typically consumed with fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals, which helps our body fight against diseases. 

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is typically found in packaged foods and beverages. It is commonly 55% fructose and 45% glucose in beverages and 42% fructose and 58% glucose in baked goods and other foods. Similar to sucrose, HFCS needs to be broken down into its glucose and fructose molecules. 

Our body processes sugar the same way, regardless of its source (naturally occurring or from manufactured, processed foods). But, there are some differences in the metabolic pathways glucose and fructose undergo in our body, even though the end-product of both are basically the same.

How do our bodies break down fructose?
  • First, fructose is mainly broken down in the liver.
  • Second, fructose has to undergo additional steps before entering the same metabolic pathway as glucose to provide energy to the body.
  • Third, unlike glucose, fructose doesn’t trigger insulin secretion, whose role is to regulate our blood sugar and hunger and fullness cues. Fructose intake can affect our hunger and fullness cues by increasing our desire and appetite for food and decreasing the satiety signal of our brain 1,2. 

A word of caution:

it is helpful to know the science behind how sugars are metabolised in our body. But, it is even more important to note that we do not consume sugar in isolation and our diets typically consist of a variety of foods. The mechanisms of how food is broken down in our body is highly complex and hinges on many factors. For example, eating an apple with peanut butter (adding protein and fat), our body processes the fruit sugar differently than eating an apple alone. More reasons to not agonize over our sugar consumption.

Favorite Everyday Salad

What does this all mean? 

I think this means that we shouldn’t go around labeling some sugars as good or bad. It doesn’t serve us to make rules about which sugars are better to avoid or worry about how much glucose or fructose we are taking in, or avoid sugar all together. These actions have the effect of making sugar all the more desirable, which contradicts the initial motivation in the first place. Black and white rules make us feel guilt and shame about our eating, which doesn’t lead to increased health and well being. 

Instead of Using Rules

If sugar isn’t all bad, then how can we think about sugar? 

Remember that everybody’s biology, genetic make-up and history with food is different, so you can have very different reactions to different types of sugar to your friends or family.

Instead of thinking about food in a dichotomous, (good or bad) way, you can decide how sugar fits into your food intake. Trust your body. It has a lot of wisdom – and internal information is just as important as the external information we get from science, if not more so. Explore how your body and mind feel when you eat different sugar-containing foods.

Ask yourself:

  • How does this (sugar-containing) food taste on my tongue? 
  • Does it taste good? Or is it just the idea of it that tastes good? 
  • How do I feel (physically and emotionally) immediately or a few hours after consuming it? 
  • Do I feel differently if I eat it with other foods? 
  • Am I hungry to eat this or do I want it because I usually don’t allow myself to eat it? 

Giving yourself the opportunity to explore how you feel after eating sugars, helps you understand your response to them and, maybe, get more satisfaction out of your eating experience. Being curious, rather than using rules, helps us eliminate the guilt and shame that can come from black and white rules. Tuning in, may help you identify the sugar-containing foods that you love and maybe others that you don’t really enjoy at all. 

Le’Vena Tan is a graduate student in the Department of Nutrition at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a lactation student in the Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative (MRT-TI) under the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute. Her interests include pediatric and maternal nutrition, breastfeeding, responsive feeding, intuitive eating, Health at Every Size® and public health, especially food insecurity. She hopes to practice from a weight-inclusive lens and to utilize her knowledge in public health to help better the community. She enjoys engaging in creative pursuits and would like to incorporate some creativity in her work in the future. Le’Vena can be contacted via email at levena.unc@gmail.com.

Citations:

  1. Lowette, K., Roosen, L., Tack, J., & Vanden Berghe, P. (2015). Effects of high-fructose diets on central appetite signaling and cognitive function. Frontiers in nutrition, 2, 5. 
  2. Luo, S., Monterosso, J. R., Sarpelleh, K., & Page, K. A. (2015). Differential effects of fructose versus glucose on brain and appetitive responses to food cues and decisions for food rewards. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(20), 6509-6514.