When Grandma’s “Healthy” Vegan Meals Sent My Kids to the Doctor—Twice

My mother-in-law is the kind of vegan who thinks olive oil is a gateway drug and that salt was invented by the devil himself. She’s also our full-time babysitter, which meant I spent every Sunday night batch-cooking perfectly balanced, kid-approved lunches—chicken strips, brown rice, fruit cups, the works—only to watch them disappear into her compost bin while my children were handed plates of plain, grey lentils and told to “chew slowly.”

At first I chalked the headaches up to seasonal allergies and the sudden weight loss to growth spurts. Then came the vomiting—after every visit, without fail, like clockwork. A pediatric visit delivered the punch-line nobody wanted: both kids were underweight, iron-deficient, and running on fumes.

The truth surfaced on a random Tuesday when I slipped out of work early and let myself into her kitchen. There she stood, scraping perfectly good food into the trash while my eight-year-old picked at a mound of unseasoned chickpeas. She didn’t even flinch when I asked why; she simply shrugged and said, “Animal products clog their chakras.”

I cancelled her babysitting privileges on the spot, changed the locks, and spent the next week re-introducing my children to the radical concept of flavour. Grandma’s response? A flurry of texts calling me “ungrateful” and threatening to report me to “the vegan authorities.”

I’m sleeping just fine. My kids are finally keeping food down, their colour is back, and the only thing greener than their vegetables is my mother-in-law’s complexion every time she sees us drive past her window—on our way to a restaurant that seasons its food.