Food tolerance issues keep coming up. Last week I wrote about the challenge of eating as I eat while extended family eats, well, not as I eat, and of my concerns about him seeing unhealthy habits as part of happy family time.

Then, while wearing my hat as a chapter leader of Holistic Moms Network, I was confronted this week with the omnivore/carnivore vs. vegetarian dilemma.

Holistic Moms Network is a place where we recognize that everyone is on her (or his) own personal journey. We don’t judge or criticize anyone’s choices; we just support one another in education and awareness. Chapters are supposed to have at least two co-leaders, which helps build in balance. But I founded and have been leading this chapter group solo for the past year, waiting for someone to provide that elusive “but what about?” position. Though I’ve tried to offer a balance of topics, often the path most familiar has been the easiest one for this over-committed volunteer to travel in order to get speakers on board for our monthly meetings.

In our first years as a chapter, we’ve had one nutrition speaker, whole food chef and holistic health counselor Monica Corrado, who is an Honorary Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. We’ve had a few other speakers on other topics (and members) who have echoed a lot of the ideas of Price and of Nourishing Traditions author Sally Fallon, who created the Foundation. Included in this set of beliefs is the idea that most people need some amount of animal protein in their diet and that the current processed soy products marketed to vegetarians are problematic.

But we also have a lot of members who are vegetarian or vegan.

One of these folks made the suggestion to me that a future meeting cover vegan and vegetarian nutrition. In the most diplomatic of tones, she shared feeling like something of an outsider as a vegan among so many people who are talking about their cow shares and raw milk all the time. I responded in part by sharing my own experience with poor health on a vegetarian diet high in processed soy and gluten grains as my personal motivation for the choices I make now.

I also thanked her for sharing her concerns and emphasized that the last thing I want to do is make anyone feel unwelcome because of her food choices! I look forward to working with her to find a speaker or speakers for a future meeting that will address vegan and vegetarian diets, maybe with an emphasis on raw food.

But still, I was struggling with my past as a righteous vegetarian and wondering if I could avoid being a righteous omnivore.

Yesterday, I found the middle path. My son and I attended a library program featuring Robyn Ringgold, founder of Solar Publishing and author of a treasured favorite in our house, My Mom Hugs Trees, which I bought at the 2006 DC Green Festival shortly after Ringgold started up her business. I asked Robyn to sign a copy of her newer children’s book, My Mom Eats Tofu, “for my vegan friend.”

Robyn reiterated what she’d said at the reading, that the book is about a mom who, in addition to being vegan, eats a whole lot of different kinds of foods. The book, she said, does not promote one way of eating over another. My son chirped, “I want this one, too!” so, trusting that the book was not going to have him clamoring for soy (which tested positive as a sensitivity for him), I asked her to sign a copy for him. Who can resist supporting another mom writer and mompreneur http://theenterprisingmoms.com/?

Reading the book in the rocking chair last night, I feel made whole. My past life as a vegetarian and my present existence as an omnivore who buys local, sustainably-raised meat seemed no longer at odds. The book celebrates so many different kinds of foods, including a variety of beans and grains, sea vegetables, and fruits. And it shows the mom gardening, going to the farmer’s market, and participating in her local food co-op.

The point is that this mama knows and cares about her food. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Regardless of what anyone chooses to eat, it’s these values of knowing where our food comes from and a reverence for “the many fruits of nature” (as Ringgold wrote in her dedication) that I want my son to learn.

It’s nice to have that made so darn clear for me.

Jessica Claire Haney is a freelance writer, editor and tutor. Her writing has appeared in parenting publications and poetry journals. A former high school English teacher, Jessica is mother to one son and is passionate about holistic health and well-being and is a leader of a chapter of Holistic Moms Network.  Find more personal reflections on parenting at her blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama, and on DC Metro Moms Blog. Jessica also shares health reflections and recipes at Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families.

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