My kids love to test the strength of my vegetarian bond.  I haven’t eaten meat in 15 years and this baffles their carnivore-thinking minds.  Always offering me fictitious amounts of cash, they try to coax me out of my convictions.  “Would you eat a cheeseburger for $10,000?” 

Well the tables recently turned at our house.  While my seventeen year old daughter diligently researched an essay she was writing on the global impact of a Western style diet, she became disturbed by some of the facts.

 “Mom did you know that 80% of the antibiotics in the world go to livestock?” 

“Umm yeah I’d heard that one.” 

“And did you know that a cow can produce as much greenhouse gas in a day as a car?”

 Did she think I only read romance novels?  “Yes I’d heard that too.” 

“I wonder if I could be vegetarian?” she thought out loud.

Ahhh, the opening I’d patiently waited and hoped for, “Why don’t you try it?”

After a few minutes discussing more of the benefits and pitfalls of the veggie lifestyle, I caved. “I’ll give you $200 if you do it for a month!”  I yelled out like a crazy bidder at a Sotheby’s auction.

That was many babysitting jobs just thrown out on the table and she bit.  Two vegetarians now reside in our house.  Well at least for three more weeks. 

It’s a lot of money, but I really wanted her to stick with it.  She has made it a week so far, ate veggie burgers at school, and asked for no bacon on her salad when she went out with friends.  And she ate my black bean butternut squash stew.  I think it’s a win-win.  But she’s already talking about what she’s going to eat on February 1^st.  And it doesn’t include kale. What do you think?  Should I have offered her the money?