Explaining meat eating to your veggie kids

[usagi]

Over the weekend I picked up the entire Little House on the Prairie series at a garage sale for $5.  I was imagining reading them to my daughter when she's a few years older.  Last night when I couldn't sleep I began the first one just to see if they are as good as I remembered.  While quaint and fun and written perfectly for a tiny kid, I couldn't get over the fact that the first 20 pages of the book describes in great detail all the animals they kill and how they are butchered.

I'm curious at what age that will be appropriate for a kid who will have grown up experiencing many of these animals first hand (we live in the woods) but without the concept of killing or eating them. At only 18 months it is already very obvious she is a great lover of animals and I want to continue to foster that. I don't want to deny her the knowledge being presented in the books or deny that most people eat animals but at what point does it go from anthropological information to traumatizing situation?

Vegetarian parents, how have you dealt with this sort of thing?

[catnip]

I read it to my vegetarian daughter at the age of 4. I spent a lot of time talking about how people in those times had very different technology and food choices than we do now, and how glad I am that we have the ability to eat a healthy diet without killing animals.

[Seana]

In my opinion, we're much better off than the mainstream parents who have to somehow dismiss the (very powerful!)  vegan messages of all those Disney Classics!  We're reading Charlotte's Web right now.  Much easier from a vegan perspective than the Little House Books!  (Although I just ordered the first one).  We just inherited a bunch of American Girl dolls and acoutrements, and are awkwardly trying to figure out what to do with some of the leather accessories.  (moccassins, tiny little notebooks, etc.) 

[caiesmommy]

I never found the need to "discuss" meat_eating w my now almost 5y old boy.

Were really the only veggies in the family so its been something we havent hidden. xyz eats meat we do not...these are our reasons. Done. Now ds is actually a hardcore advocate of not eating meat...hel ask people straight out why they do it. Hes quite interested in why they chose to eat meat and he tells them why he choses not to. 

I honestly wouldnt worry much. just have open honest talks geared towards their age and everything will be fine

[omMommaom]

DS (4) has been raised vegetarian, but is allowed to make his own decisions.  The rest of our family are omni, DH & I are currently lacto-ovo pescatarians.  We like to give thanks for food, and tell him what is in our food, and where it came from.  He gets to choose whether he would eat chickens, or pigs, or bugs, or fish.  So far he's not batted an eye, it's always "no."

  When he sees other people eat meat we explain it to him a couple ways. The most effective for him right now is.. we recognize that what is best for us is not always what is best for someone else.  So, while we feel great when we're eating fresh fruits and veggies grown from the Earth and Sun, other people like to eat other things.  And that's okay.  We are all different.  Isn't that great!