Monday, May 24, 2010

Madge and Vegetarianism

I've written here before about our family tradition of reading from the book 365 Manners Kids Should Know every night at dinner. It really makes for some fun and funny conversations. (The topics, however, are very apropos and I think Madge learns a lot.)

A couple days ago, we had an interesting conversation about vegetarianism. I had to preface the conversation by discussing what animals we eat. I had to broaden on Madge's reply of "turkey." (You can tell her favorite lunch meat.) The book made the point that it's the duty of those with special dietary needs (such as vegetarians) to inform the host of those needs in advance. I posed the question to Madge, "What should we do if we have a vegetarian over and we're eating some meat for dinner?" She replied, "We should tell them to try a bite. And if they like it, they should eat it. Otherwise, they don't have to. But they should always try it first." (I wonder if she's heard that line before! :)) She then went on that if our vegetarian friends didn't want to eat animals, they could eat animal crackers. Yes, Madge, I think they could eat animal crackers. What a crack-up! You definitely liven up our dinner conversations, Madge. We love you. Here's a shout out to all our vegetarian family members and friends.