I coaxed my vegan grandchildren into eating sausages and chicken – is that so wrong?

A few days ago my granddaughter Molly made a confession as I walked her home from school. She looked at me sheepishly and confided, “Grandma, I tried a chicken nugget yesterday!”

She’s 13, so you might think this is unremarkable, but for me the news was seismic. Because Molly has been vegan since she was six, a decision my eldest daughter Nicky made that I completely disagree with.

I asked Molly what she thought of her first taste of meat in seven years – the only thing she can remember – and she said it was ‘pretty good’.

I had to hide my euphoric grin. I can’t say this openly, but I long for my grandchildren to stop their vegan diet, which is tearing our family apart and, I’m sure, damaging their health.

I even deliberately tried to persuade them to eat meat.

Can you blame me? Taking care of their diet has become hell, especially since I pick up school and cook their tea twice a week.

Nicky’s other child, Theo, has been vegan since he was born seven years ago and is now an outspoken mini-activist. When I take him to the supermarket, he loudly refuses to go down the ‘dead animal aisle’ when I have to buy meat.

I tried to tell him that it is normal to eat meat. One time the grocery store offered free mini chicken snacks, and I tried to get him to eat a little bit, but he wasn’t having any.

Kids veganism doesn’t stop at food: it extends to hair products, moisturizers, shoes, clothes, bags – you name it. The only exception to my daughter’s strict rules is that she agrees to taking medications that contain animal products or have been tested on animals.

Sleepovers have long been problematic because I have to monitor everything Molly and Theo eat and drink, as well as take out the vegan soap and shampoo I keep in a cupboard for them.

I scrutinize every label on food and toiletries, which is time-consuming and tiring. But spending time with them is so important to me that I dare not refuse this palaver.

When I ask Theo: ‘Do you want to try a sausage, I won’t tell mom?’ he looks at me in horror and says a very firm ‘no’.

It would be easy to introduce some animal products into his diet to see if he noticed, but I couldn’t bring myself to betray his trust. My god, it’s tempting sometimes.

I can’t even talk to him freely. When I ask the adults who wants ‘normal’ milk and who wants oat milk, while I’m making a round of coffee, Theo puffs up and says, ‘Why do you say it’s ‘normal’ when it comes from a baby cow?’

And it’s not just the kids making up a storm in a coffee cup.

When my husband Mike, a devout carnivore, started grilling sausages and chicken at a family barbecue last weekend, the vegans in our group – Nicky, 37, our other daughter Maisie, 27, Molly and Theo – complained loudly about the smell of ‘dead people’. animals cooking’ and huffed inside to the kitchen, slamming the door behind them.

As always, I was in the thick of it, looking at the wreckage of our precious time together.

How did our once calm family become a difficult, unpredictable battleground? It all started in 2011 when Nicky was pregnant with Molly. She watched a TV documentary about animal welfare and instantly went from roast beef lover to a fervent vegan.

We hoped it was just a phase, but when she arrived at our house with new pots and pans for me that animals were “not supposed to be cooked in,” and demanded that I use them to prepare meals for her, I realized that she meant it.

As a medical professional (I now teach obstetrics), I was concerned from day one about her decision to become vegan, mainly for health reasons.

When Molly was born, Nicky assured us that she would raise her on animal products and that she would make her own choices about veganism when she was older.

That said, I remember her telling the health visitor that even if she was running low on breast milk, nothing would convince her to use formula because it usually contains cow’s milk.

During pregnancy, she had low iron levels, a health risk often associated with veganism. I was worried that Molly would also become anemic, but when I told Nicky, I was told, “She’s my baby!”

By the time Nicky gave birth to Theo, she was a solo mom and decided she didn’t want the hassle and expense of preparing multiple meals.

She asked Molly, then six, “Do you want to be vegan like me?” to which Molly, who didn’t understand veganism, said, “Oh yes, please, Mom!”

That doesn’t feel fair to Molly, but every time I’ve raised my concerns with Nicky, she simply dismisses them.

Meanwhile, our youngest daughter Maisie decided to become vegan a few years ago.

We’ve always been such a close family, and we’ve never fought like we do now. I hate rowing, but I feel so strongly that Nicky is making the wrong choice for her and her children’s health, and Mike despairs that we have to give in to them.

Vegan food is also very expensive. With Maisie still living at home with us, her vegan grocery additions increase the bill by £20 a week, more if she runs out of toiletries.

Maisie also has a cat, which she now claims is vegan, but I felt so guilty when I saw the poor thing drooling when I ate a tuna sandwich the other day that I secretly let him eat the crusts.

My son Daniel, who is 33, and his wife dismiss his sisters’ veganism as “nonsense” and feed their toddler slices of tender steak.

Still, Molly’s recent confession has given me reason for hope. She knew I would support her choice, and she further confessed that she has quietly introduced animal products into her diet, including cheese pizza. Luckily, Nicky appreciates that Molly is at an age where she spends more time with her friends on the weekends, and that this makes it harder for her to be vegan when they’re indulging in ice cream and fried chicken.

My biggest concern for all of them is still the health implications, as vegans are often deficient in nutrients such as calcium, iron and vitamins A and B12, as these are difficult to obtain from a diet that does not contain animal products.

Over the years, Nicky’s had blood tests that revealed a vitamin B deficiency and she has repeatedly suffered from troublesome canker sores. She now takes a vegan supplement and has deliberately increased her intake of green leafy vegetables such as broccoli and spinach to boost her vitamin levels.

Meanwhile, Theo has always had an abnormally high number of colds, which Mike blames on Nicky because he is vegan, a comment that causes huge arguments between them.

I’m also concerned that Molly may become deficient when her period starts and her iron levels fluctuate more.

For me, the biggest frustration is being in the middle of it. Even having coffee with my daughters is a minefield because not everywhere vegan alternatives such as oat milk are offered.

We’ve been to cafes, restaurants and tea rooms where we’ve sat down, read the menu and then had to get up and leave when the vegans started complaining.

Of course I support all my children and grandchildren in the choices they make and I love them very much. But I long for the days before veganism arrived like a disruptive member of the family, when family life was simple and everyone fought good-naturedly over the last piece of roast beef on Sundays.

Names have been changed.

As told to Sadie Nicholas