Help With Vegan Child

[TGT09]

I have a 3yo vegan dcg. Her family has only been vegan since May of this year so I use to feed her my normal food but now she gets food sent from home.

This year, I only have two 3yo's. My vegan dcg and a dcb whom I make lunch for.

For the past several weeks, vegan girl will not eat. She has consistently complained about not being hungry (after saying she was) after seeing her food (no offense but it is pretty gross looking). I NEVER say anything to her about how it looks, tastes, etc. If she says "I don't like it", I always say it looks good or I bet it's yummy.

Today, I set her plate down in front of her and dcb whom is having a pb&j sandwich. She immediately without touching any of it, says she's not hungry....up until the past few weeks, all summer and all school year last year I have never had a problem with her eating and she's always scarfed down food as a matter of fact.

I have approached mom (whom is one of my favorite and most helpful parents) but she almost gets defensive and I'm not sure why. I say "Sally didn't eat her lunch today" or "Sally only had a little bit of lunch today". I have even reassured her that I'm not talking "bad" about her food. Her answer has been consistently "we wouldn't send anything we knew she wouldn't eat." End of story.

I'm starting to get frustrated because that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just simply pointing out the fact that she's not eating for me. I don't like when kids don't eat and have problems letting children up before they've finished (yes, my own problem and I'm working on it). I don't ever want kids to go hungry.

I just don't know what to do anymore or how I can verbalize to mom that she's not eating for me without her taking it the wrong way.

Please help or give me suggestions on how to handle dcg without involving dcm.

Also, I know deep down that it's mostly because she sees what dcb is eating and would rather have that. She has even asked a few times if she could have something else....which I have to tell her no. I'm still allowed to give her fresh fruit and veggies. I even hunt out non-dairy things in the store that she can eat for snack. I supply the soymilk and everything. I never give her anything else at lunch time because I'm afraid of sending the wrong message that they can "choose" what they want and don't have to eat what they don't because they can have something else.

I love this dcg and her family so terminating solves nothing here.