The Fine Print on Vegetarian Options

At my son’s school, today was orientation day for returning families. When it came time to talk to the lunch coordinator, I asked the same question I’ve been bombarding her with since the year began: Why aren’t there more vegetarian options? My 7-year-old chooses to avoid meat, and I dutifully support him, but with only two or three meatless meals offered over the course of a month, and peanuts off the table as an option due to allergy concerns, I wind up packing a LOT of cheese sticks and crackers.

She replied that it depends on your definition of vegetarian – some pizza companies still use mozzarella and parmesan made with animal rennet, so technically that wouldn’t really be vegetarian either. As I sat pondering how to respond to this non-answer, the mom next to me paused in her paperwork and asked, “What’s rennet?”

Rennet is what makes cheese cheesy. It causes the milk to coagulate and start to form curds. It can be made from calves’ stomachs, but it can also be made from microbes or vegetables. The latter kinds of rennet are vegetarian. Before my son proclaimed his stance on meat, I didn’t know stuff like that, either, but because I’ve had to supply my fair share of animal-free lunches and snacks, I learned from hard-core vegetarian families that things get tricky mighty fast.

For example, some yogurts, guacamoles and salad dressings contain gelatin so their textures are nice and creamy. Gelatin is made from pigskin, cattle bones and cattle hides, and you probably knew it was used to “gel” things like marshmallows and Jell-O. But that it lurked in some margarines and ice creams? Probably you didn’t know that.

Even more obscure are products like L-cysteine, which is used as a flavor enhancer and dough conditioner in some baked products. It’s sometimes made from – get this! – duck feathers or human hair. You’ve almost certainly eaten it in things like cinnamon rolls or donuts and perhaps in pizza crust or sandwich wraps. It can also be derived from vegetables or microbes, and more big food companies are switching to those based on consumer requests.

The Vegetarian Resource Group has an extremely comprehensive guide to these and other animal-based, vegetarian and vegan food ingredients on its homepage. The upside to knowing all this is that when your 10-year-old daughter starts talking about becoming a vegetarian, you can discuss with her all the ramifications of her decision – and all the options within the “vegetarian” lifestyle choice. For my son, we use pretty broad parameters. He simply doesn’t like the taste or texture of meat, which our pediatrician assures me is perfectly normal (and more common than you’d think). His choices have fueled many age-appropriate discussions about the importance of protein and vitamins and iron. And I don’t doubt that one day soon he’ll be asking about rennet and gelatin too.

But for now, I can tell the lunch coordinator that cheese pizza is just fine with me, thank you very much.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting