It seems that nearly all parents, vegetarians and omnivores
alike, worry about what their kids are or are not eating. How
confident parents feel about what they are feeding their children,
how much they are consuming, and whether their needs are being
met nutritionally are directly related to their own experiences
with food. For American parents, these experiences are overwhelmingly
dominated by a meat-eating, fast food society. So vegetarian
parents, though confident in the decisions they’ve made
for their own lives as adults, may find themselves questioning
the idea of raising vegetarian children. Parents new to vegetarianism
themselves often feel especially lost when trying to put together
a balanced menu for their little ones. At issue here are two
things: basic familiarity with the wide variety of vegetarian
options to meat (and egg and dairy products for vegans) and
knowledge of vegetarian cooking. Once families familiarize themselves
with all the products available and learn to cook delicious
vegetarian food, thinking changes from “what we cannot
eat” to “what we can eat” and, eventually, to
“what we choose to eat”.
Populations the world over have been raising healthy vegetarian
children for hundreds of years. Yet when we mention the idea
in the Western world, it is often received negatively, or at
least with some doubt. Even longtime vegetarians and vegans
who know quite a bit about maintaining a good nutritional balance
for themselves, begin to doubt their ability to raise healthy
vegetarian or vegan children. Why is this?
Lack of support, knowledge and experience are the major factors.
If you have never been around vegetarian children, you may wonder
if it is even possible to raise healthy children on a meatless
diet. In light of this, one can hardly blame family and friends--
who no doubt know even less about vegetarian nutrition than
you do--for worrying. In addition, many health professionals
are ill-informed about vegetarian diets, fueling the fire of
doubt. And there are a lot of questions and concerns generated
by this doubt from those who care about these children. In the
face of all this adversity, one would do well to remember that
even the American Dietetic Association approves a vegetarian
diet for all ages, including infants and toddlers who are in
a high-growth stage of life. In their paper Feeding Your Baby
the Vegetarian Way, they state that “when their diet is
appropriately planned, babies can get all the nutrients they
need to grow and be healthy within a vegetarian eating style.”
Pediatrics, the well respected medical journal, reported on
a landmark study in 1989. Researchers studied 404 children at
the Farm, a Tennessee community that encourages a vegan diet
for all and found no significant differences in growth between
the vegetarian children who lived there and non-vegetarian children.
The vegetarian kids were slightly smaller than the average American
child from ages one to three, but by age ten had caught up.
This is not to say, however, that all vegetarian or vegan children
are thin or small. Still, if caregivers are not convinced of
the safety and healthfulness of a meat, egg and/or dairy-free
diet, parents may face opposition regardless of the obvious
health of the child.
Many who have disapproving families have to deal with others
giving their child forbidden foods, sometimes secretly. Friends
and acquaintances may inquire as to whether vegetarianism is
safe for kids, when they wouldn’t think to grill parents
feeding their children sodas or candy. Even doctors may question
the decision and often routinely order tests, furthering the
notion that nutritional deficiencies are common among vegetarian
children. Some parents choose to have these tests done (regular
iron checks, for example) just for their own peace of mind,
but it isn’t necessary across the board. Parents should
note that the concern expressed by members of the medical community
does not always stem from a disbelief in the positive properties
of a vegetarian diet. Rather, it often lies in a distrust of
the vegetarian parents’ knowledge of nutrition and willingness
to show diligence in maintaining a healthy diet for their children.
Raising healthy vegetarian children is possible and is not difficult
once a parent has done some simple research. It is research
that each person who chooses to become a vegetarian should do
for him or herself as well. Take your standard food chart and
simply substitute vegetarian or vegan alternatives, making sure
your child gets the recommended number of servings. When looked
at in this way, it becomes clear that the task at hand is really
no more difficult than feeding your average picky eater. Resources
exist in many forms available to anyone willing to peruse the
magazine or nutrition/cookbook section of the local bookstore,
to spend an evening surfing the ‘net, or to contact a local
or national vegetarian organization for information. A vegetarian
diet for children can not only be adequate, but abundantly healthful.
Melanie
Wilson is the editor of Vegetarian Baby & Child magazine
and
Vegetarianteen.com Online magazine. She is Mom to two gloriously
healthy vegan children. www.vegetarianbaby.com
a1co.com