To Meat or Not to Meat?

I had a conversation with the mum of a dear friend recently who said she felt immense responsibility when deciding to feed my friend meat or not when she was a baby. I filed the conversation away, knowing in the future I would refer back to it. It wasn't something we had really discussed at all as the parents of a new child. The choice of pram was given more consideration. It stopped us in our tracks tonight.

For dinner tonight I was facing the dilemma. Him and I were having having steak fajitas tonight, so tortilla, raw peppers and cheese were already on the menu. Should I offer her steak though? We did, and the decision was based on the Baby Led Weaning philosophy that the Wee One will eat what we eat. I wimped out of the moral questions of meat, but I know I'll be trying my best to source more meat now that is from animals who have lived to high welfare standards. I've promised myself this many times, maybe I'll start listening now though.

The peppers were a huge hit. The yellow one in particular. I'm looking forward to roasting some vegetable for the Wee One to see how she reacts to them, peppers will be great for that. And the 2cm by 5cm slice of steak? Chewed and sucked on with relish. Left hanging out the side of her mouth on occasion when she decided to shove a breadstick on in there as well.

We decided to meat. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of a decision that most people take for granted. I'm glad we took a minute to think about it and the implications it has on the Wee One's own life. I hope I don't ever need to explain our decision to her, however I am glad we have reasons to give her. Whether our reasons are correct will be for her to decide in the future.