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What Does It Mean To Raise an Ethical Eater? - Part 2

By Sonalie Figueiras

Note on this Series — “How To Raise a Climate-Smart Eater”: All of these thoughts below are meant to be suggestions and openings, not hard and fast rules. They come from me processing how I want to raise my kids on the topic of eating. They are not meant to cause any stress or anxiety, or hold folks up to an unreachable ideal. There are days when my kid will only eat cereal. There are days when my baby refuses all pureed veggies. It’s a journey and it’s messy. We do the best we can, and we celebrate that.

In Part 1 of this essay, I wrestled with the very concept of food choice ethics. Most of us believe ourselves to be ethical, and many of us, when prompted, would likely say that our food choices are aligned with our values.

I cannot tell you what to believe, feel, or espouse any more than I can tell my children. What I can do is share ideas and suggestions on how to help children better understand where the food they eat comes from. This, in turn, empowers them to develop their own moral compass around how to eat, which is, in my view, the best we can hope for.

• Take your children to working animal farms (like White Oat Pastures) so they can better understand how cows become hamburgers and pigs become ham. Whether or not you agree with eating animals, it’s important to know and honor the origin of animal foods. A caveat here: most younger kids, when confronted with the reality of how chicken nuggets are made, will struggle with the idea.

• Grow food with your kids so they understand where edible plants come from, AND how difficult it is to grow food: it takes care and expertise and time and resources (like water and sunshine). This will, at the very least, build within them an appreciation for the value and preciousness of food, which will make them less likely to be wasteful.

• Introduce your kids to farm workers. Go to a farmer’s market so they can meet the people who grow and sell food. This is especially good to do after a grow-your-own-food project, because having seen the effort required to grow food, they will value the role of farmers even more.

• Watch (age-appropriate) documentaries / animated films (e.g. Food Inc) and read books (like 100 Things to Know About Food) about 1) where food comes from and 2) the relationship between what we eat and climate change together as a family and then discuss them. This is a great way to learn about complex topics and to engage in multi-layered discussions about the ethics of what we eat. It will encourage them to make up their own minds based on their own reactions to what they read/watch.

There’s a balance to be found here. Every meal should not become a lecture. Food is political, yes, but it is also about joy and indulgence.

The end of a long day, when everyone is tired and cranky, is not the right time to tackle these discussions. Neither is a sunny afternoon when your little one is enjoying a summer ice cream cone.

Pick a lazy Sunday evening when you are cooking together and everyone is relaxed. Or use contextual opportunities like a farm visit or going to a farmer’s market. And make sure you talk about these topics in an age-appropriate language. Teenagers and toddlers require different approaches.

As parents, we are, more than anything, guides and curators for our children. We cannot force our beliefs on them. We can only hope that we provide them with a solid foundation on which to build their own frameworks for what’s right and wrong.

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Our Favorite Reads

Curated by Sophie Egan

In every issue, we share 3-5 good reads— think: the best climate-smart shopping/eating/nutrition advice and thought-provoking essays.

• “The Scratch Cooking in Schools Solution: A Policy Roadmap for Boosting Children’s Health, Learning Outcomes, Environmental Sustainability, and Local Economies.” Here at Climate Kitchen, we don’t expect you to work on policy, per se. That said, it’s critically important to the things you and we care about: how to feed kids in ways that are good for them, others, and the planet. So much of how our children are socialized in terms of norms, palates, and preferences happens in the school setting, so whether we like to admit it or not (I’m still in the denial stage myself!), what we’re doing on the home front only goes so far. We invite you to check out this first-ever snapshot of the most high-potential solutions to improve school food in America. If even one of these policy ideas speaks to you, consider talking to your school, or even your district or local representatives. Parents’ voices carry a ton of weight in the school food world.

• “Climate science isn’t giving your kid anxiety.” Tl/dr: “the mere existence of scary climate scenarios is not what’s causing chronic climate-related emotional distress in young people. People in power not doing anything about climate change is what’s causing that distress.” Worth a read!

• “Eat More Beans.” I’m with the nutrition experts losing their minds over Americans’ bewildering obsession with protein. It’s completely unnecessary. Yet I know it extends to kids, too, so all I can do is say: Get the whole family to eat more beans! Really hard to argue with, and this resource makes it super fun. 

• “What Do You Hope Your Child is Like as an Adult?” Full disclosure: This link has nothing to do with food! Or climate. Or health. Except the widespread consensus that getting your kids to eat their peas is not the pinnacle of parenting it might seem. ;) I found this to be such a compelling reframe on many of my day-to-day challenges with my kiddos that I had to share. Plus, Sonalie and I both enjoy reading Emily Oster’s ParentData on the regular.

Your Questions - Answered!

As part of the feedback we received since our launch, we got many questions from readers about climate-smart diets, so we created this monthly reader question section. Send us all your questions here.

“Dear Climate Kitchen, our household is vegetarian, but many of my children’s friends are not. When we host playdates, do I need to serve them meat?”

This is such a great question and very much in line with the theme of this week’s essay. It’s a question I personally struggle with as an adult. I run a plant-based household. I love entertaining and cooking for people. I am half Punjabi, which is a part of India famous for its hospitality and generosity. I was raised to always to ensure that guests had plenty to eat and the best we could afford. For decades, that meant meat. Today, I run a plant-based home. Every time we throw a dinner party or I plan my son’s birthday, I wonder: should I be serving meat/chicken nuggets? How do I square my love of feeding others and giving guests what they want with my environmental choice not to cook meat?

The answer is: I make my choices so delicious that they don’t notice! For little ones, it’s very easy to find plant-based nuggets, fishless fish sticks, vegan sausages or meatless mince, so we use those to make kid faves like spaghetti Bolognese or lasagna. We also make a mean fried rice (I am Asian after all!), and all little ones love Oatly’s chocolate milk. So in the six years we have been hosting playdates, no one has ever noticed we don’t eat meat.

-Sonalie Figueiras