This week on SpawnBetter we thought we’d lighten things up a bit and maybe sing a song or two. But what songs? If you’re singing with kids, it just takes one stray reference to Old MacDonald and you could be hit with a ton of questions about what those farm animals are doing there, exactly.

I posed this one to the Council of Vegan Parents:

“What do you do to veganize childrens songs? Or do you at all? For some reason “on top of spaghetti” was in my head this weekend, and I couldn’t think of a good substitute for that poor meatball. Have you revised any popular children’s songs? Does Old MacDonald run a sanctuary? Or have you selected a repertoire of songs that don’t mention farming and animal products? And hey, if this is the first time this idea’s come up, feel free to improvise!”

And answer they did.

Avoiding the issue altogether

As Kristie points out, “with so many songs out there, it’s not too hard to avoid the not so animal-friendly ones,” and Elaine will just make up words on the spot, even if they don’t make sense, should the need arise. Elaine also dips into the wide repertoire of non-children’s songs that are out there.

Depending on the vocabulary you use in your home, it might not be a problem anyway. I have many friends who refer to Earth Balance as “butter,” soy milk as “milk,” etc. Julie’s family is in that camp too, although she’s pretty sure her son has decided that it’s a soy meatball on top of the spaghetti.

This little piggy got noticed

OK, I don’t know how it happened, but I forgot all about “This Little Piggy” when I sent the question out. This proves a genetic abnormality, because it was pretty much the first song that everyone mentioned, what with the roast beef reference and all.

While tofu was the clear winner for substitutions, other alternatives included “this little piggy had popcorn” and “field roast” from Pippi, while Monica and Julie will just use whatever food their children have eaten recently.

Saying bah to wool

Al submitted his variant on a non-food related yet still vegan sensitive classic:

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
No sir, No sir,
None for you.

None for the master,
None for the dame,
None for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
No sir, no sir,
None for you.

I lost my poor wheat ball…

I now have it on good authority that wheat balls and neat balls can roll off of a plate of spaghetti like nobody’s business, and soy cheese is a perfect cover.

Old MacDonald gets a pass

Most of our parents left poor Old MacDonald alone, figuring that he either runs a sanctuary or just has a lot of animal friends, but Al took it one step further, and I can’t think of a more fun way to close out a fun topic like this:

A huge thank you to Pippi, Monica, Al, Doh, Julie, Kristie, and Elaine for their help with this one!

What about you? Have you veganized any classics on the fly? What’s the funniest one? Let us know in the comments!