Central Illinois Vegan

We love parties, just absolutely love them. Saturday we went to a party hosted by a very good friend, Nancy. She invited my family and I as well as the rest of the Mahomet Rotary club to her home, and boy did we have a good time. The party was mostly for the omnivores in the group, something that most vegans are used to and in no way offended by, but when attending non-vegan parties with children it is important to keep an eye on what your child is fed. Not everybody is up to speed on what vegan dietary restrictions are, and nobody blames those who act in error. Being vegan is counter-cultural when it comes to food, and there's no denying that... but cheese does have consequences.

At the party, the daughter of a very good friend of ours gave Badger some Cheetos. She was a very young girl and thought it was cute to watch the two-year-old eating Cheetos. She was right, it was cute. Excessively cute. Mind-numbingly cute. Unfortunately, being vegan his whole life, it wasn't healthy.

When we woke up the next morning we discovered that our son had gotten sick in the night. He was doing okay when we got him up, and it didn't look too terrible, but it was obvious by evidence in the room that he had been sick--I won't go into details to spare those with weaker stomachs. This was a learning moment for us though. The Cheetos are obviously a violation of our vegan ethics, but how do you tell a two-year-old to stop eating a tasty snack that he was given when you don't catch him until he's already eaten half of it, right? I'm guessing he had already downed a couple other Cheetos prior to us noticing, too, I find it hard to believe there's actually enough cheese in one piece to make him sick. We took the pieces he hadn't eaten yet away and let him finish the one he had, to avoid a fight.

I still think we made the right decision on that one, but I think the solution would have been to make sure that we explained to the girls what a vegan is as well. Not to go into the gruesome details, but to simply explain in plain terms that vegans do not eat anything that comes from animals, and that eating things that comes from animals tends to make vegans ill.

We still had a great time at the party, and Badger is fine--there wasn't any indication that he was particularly miserable. The people I am in Rotary with are such fantastic people that we were accommodated as best as they knew how. After all, most beer is vegan.

It's still important to remember though, cheese has consequences.