Hungarian state does not promote vegetarianism

As Index.hu reports, a Hungarian parent (let’s call them Z) of a 7-year-old child (C) received a rather strange phone call: a woman from the Budavári Council’s Economic Technical Supplier and Service Provider was inquiring about whether the child was still on a vegetarian diet. The child started skipping meals with meat, simply because he was disgusted by it, so it was not a conscious decision. The parents, until last year, did not even know that it is possible to request a vegetarian menu for the child.

J’s family was in a similar situation: their whole family is vegetarian. In the kindergarten it was simply solved by taking the meat off their children’s meals, so for example, if the menu was meat with rice, they only got rice.

In Z’s case, the school changed provider, and from then on, they were unable to provide the children vegetarian meals. It could only be solved in case of the parents showing a doctor’s note on the child’s special diet. But in this case, the child did not have allergies or any kind of illnesses, he simply decided not to eat meat anymore.

Z decided to ask the paediatrician for a certificate, but he was told a specialist’s (a gastroenterologist’s) opinion is needed, by the next day.

It is almost impossible to get an appointment to a specialist who works with children within one day (or a week).

Z tried to get help from the parental community, but they have never heard of such an issue before. Then Z called the Budavári Council’s Provider. They informed Z that, according to a decree, the state does not find it right for a child to be vegetarian. The only way out of it is to claim that C does not consume meat for religious reasons.