And we have always served a great variety of vegetables. We belonged to a CSA for many years, and of course the abundance of produce we received every week forced me to make large pots of delicious soups at the end of each week (which my husband and I ate but my kids did not really care for). My kids loved going to the farm and helping to pick the vegetables: it did not, however, make them eat these vegetables, in any form (pureed or not).
It is not natural when a person needs to get a weekly or monthly shot of B-12 or iron. Humans are omnivores, not herbivores (or carnivores). I am still unhappy that both my kids, now adults, are vegetarians (even though they eat many vegetables now). My daughter-in-law, a vegetarian too, was recently diagnosed with anemia and has been on a regimen of iron pills for the last several months. She's going to check soon to see if her levels have been raised.
My personal opinion is that, as a society, we eat too much meat ... but eating no meat is not a great policy for many people. Having to live on iron pills or tons of vitamins to make up for what nature intended us to eat is neither natural nor healthy, imo. I think we need to teach our children, who are of course sensitive to the death of animals, that this is part of nature: that animals themselves are built by nature to eat other animals, and that it is the chain of life. Small amounts of meat or fish several times a week, along with copious amounts of vegetables and fruits, is a sustainable personal and societal practice, and will help to keep the body in balance. That is how I personally choose to live ... even as I spend all day every Sunday making vegetarian meals that are both up to my culinary standards and that will provide healthy doses of nutrients to my son and daughter-in-law for their regular Sunday night (Mad Men) dinners with us.
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