In Hungary, it is the women who are more health-conscious, and it happens quite often that the wife suggests that the family turn vegetarian. Men tend to be more conservative, especially when it comes to food. Unfortunately the life expectancy in Hungary is one of the lowest in Europe, and it is even worse in the case of Hungarian men. The most frequent causes of death are lifestyle related.

A slow reform has been developing since the end of the '80s, but most people do not make any dramatic changes until they have some fatal illness.

I think vegetarianism offers more variety than meat-eating. We eat things that others have not even heard of: millet, buckwheat, chard, parsnip, tofu and a lot more kinds of vegetables and fruits. In order to enjoy vegetarian food, one needs to be creative and ready to experiment. And of course, it is worthwhile to try the old recipes of our grandmothers, too.

My son is a good eater; he likes everything, and he is strong and happy. I nursed him until he was 15 months old, I almost never give him any sweets, and we adults avoid them, too. Vegetarianism for me does not only mean that we do not eat meat. It also means that we use healthier food and cooking methods. I never deep fry anything, for example. (It is a pity that in restaurants, if you ask for vegetarian food, the ony things they offer is crumb coated cheese or mushrooms, deep fried in sunflower oil.)

I try to buy organic products as much as I can. There are only two bio-markets in Budapest, and they are open only once a week. These markets have their loyal clientele. We live quite far from both places, so I used to order home-delivered organic vegetables. But this service was not profitable for the bio-farm, so they stopped it a while ago. They are going to deliver vegetables to a few Waldorf schools in the future. If there are seven families who place their orders together, they might deliver for them, too, but we do not know vegetarian families in our neighborhod.

I also try to use less processed food products. This way I can make up for the higher cost of organic vegetables. (In Hungary, the cost is at least one and a half times higher than ordinary vegetables, so very few families can afford it. Thus the bio vegetables are exported and sold in wealthier countries.) I never buy canned food, even though it would be faster to make. I do not mind spending time cleaning spinach, beans, peas etc. One needs to be sort of humble to do this, but I have a better conscience this way. I am at home with my son; Hungarian law allows that. I sacrificed my job and a greater part of my salary for this time. But I feel that now my real job is to take care of the child and my family.

My son does not yet know packaged sweets, therefore he never makes a scene in the store like other kids of similar age. I am not sure how long I will be able to keep him in this "ignorance." As soon as he starts kindergarten it will surely change. Unfortunately child catering in Hungary is very bad for the health. The caterers are trying to please the average people, and people are quite conservative here. It is a good thing that cooking with pork lard is on the decline, but still people cook with an awful lot of salt and sugar, and there is no vegetarian catering as an alternative. If I want to keep my son vegetarian when he goes to kindergarten and school, all I can do is bring him home to have lunch. I have no idea how I will do this. The only school where children can have vegetarian food is the Waldorf school.

Regular school canteens are full of canned sodas and potato chips. This is what they can sell well, because this is what children are used to.

In our neighborhood people usually go to the market to buy vegetables. However, big chain stores are pushing down the prices very aggressively, so we might not have the old-time markets very long, as Hungary is developing towards the "West." Now that we joined the European Union, we are worried about our agriculture, because we are not able to protect it from the extremely cheap Western goods. It is frightening that the permitted level of chemicals in food products in the EU are higher than they used to be in Hungary, so from now on we are going to eat more polluted vegetables.

People actually know quite a lot about these food security issues, but they usually just shrug their shoulders, saying, "One has to die somehow." Even conscious environmentalists think that way. They do not realize that protecting the environment has to start at home, by protecting our own health. They do not realize how wasteful ecologically the consumption of meat is, how unethical the mass production of meat in big plants is, that the chemicals they use in farming accumulate in the bodies of animals, and that the meat contains antibiotics and hormones that the animals routinely get in meat factories.

Love of comfort and habits die hard. This is why I want to create good habits in my family, so that it will be normal for my son. Now it seems quite strange that we used to eat strawberries and grapefruit with powdered sugar when I was a little girl. Today I would not spoil their natural flavor for anything.

I try to tell others that it is not asceticism and sacrifice for us, but joy. We eat nice things and enjoy the richness of nature in our meals. The birth of our son was great inspiration for me to be more faithful concerning a healthy lifestyle. My mother-in-law once asked me when my son was one year old, when he would start eating what we do. I answered, hopefully, we adults will more and more continue eating what he eats!