Vegan baby

I think it’s really important that little children get a full diet:

You can source milk from cows that keep their calves at foot (freeze the milk if needed to use little and often)

you can source meat that is raised and killed on the farm.

your can source eggs that are raised in small groups outside, with a varied diet

Your child’s gut biome NEEDS a full range of foods at an early age. Not loads, but definitely some.

I would find ethical products and store them in the freezer if needs be, to make sure my child gets little and often

i wholly support your decision to be vegan as a grown adult, but I think a vegan diet for a little kid does negatively effect their growth and health in the long term x

Another one chiming in to say that breast milk is definitely a dairy product. Although that doesn't mean it can't also adhere to vegan ethics.

Personally, I think it seems quite difficult to ensure a baby/toddler gets a well-balanced diet without any animal products whatsoever, but if a parent is willing to make sure they do, then why not.

Veganism always seems a little backwards to me, though, as I'm sure vegans aren't as strict in making sure that they don't use any products that involve the exploitation and suffering of humans, including children. Like putting the cart before the horse. But that's by the by.

It's about not exploiting animals. In my interpretation of veganism your rescue hen's eggs would be fine. In principle I would eat eggs from my own hens if I had them. In reality I think they would turn my stomach after so long not eating them but that's a different thing.

We brought our children up vegan, so yes, I think it’s fine. We got advice from a dietician but I knew what I was doing as I’d been vegan for years and read a lot about meeting nutritional needs for children who are vegan. Our children are adults and older teens now and are healthy.

Breast milk is vegan. I wasn’t being exploited, I wanted to feed my children with my milk.

Get professional advice if you’re unsure of anything, but ignore people who have an opinion for the sake of it with little actual knowledge.

Know what does have bulking agents in it? Plant based milks!

If you are going to do it anyway make sure your baby is getting vitamin D, iron drops and B12. Personally I think it’s a bad idea, children go through rapid growth and we are meant to be omnivores. Theres some evidence that it can affect growth I would go vegetarian at the max and let them have some dairy. My best friend growing up was vegetarian (didn’t eat eggs either) but her parents fed her eggs when she was little despite not eating them for religious reasons themselves.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10934552/

How is any animal's milk a "bulking agent"? So when I breastfeed my baby I'm giving him a bulking agent?

Here's the definition of a bulking agent:

A bulking agent is an additive used in food, pharmaceuticals, and other industries to increase volume, weight, or thickness without significantly altering the taste or nutritional value. These substances, such as cellulose or starches, act as fillers to improve texture, mouthfeel, or structure in processed foods and products.

No milk from an animal is a bulking agent. That kind of language is so deliberate to try to make natural foods sound like non-food products. That's cult-like propaganda.

I’ve always genuinely wondered this: if I have a ex battery chicken and keep it in my garden as a pet and treat it very well, if I eat the egg it will produce, is that ok with veganism? Logic would say no as it’s an animal product but this thread is suggesting yes, as that chicken is not being exploited, it’s being loved and will produce that egg whether I eat it or not. So is veganism about not using any animal product in any way at all, or about not exploiting an animal?

Google says it is dairy.

Breast milk is definitely dairy, but is considered to be vegan because it's given with the consent of the mother, as opposed to cows milk where the cow gets no choice in the matter.

Cows' milk is a bulking agent specifically meant for calves. It's not really meant for human consumption anyway otherwise, in theory, we could drink the milk of any other mammal, but we generally only drink milk from cows and goats.

This is what the OP wrote:

"My child is 6 months old, it quite literally is entirely up to me to choose what they eat. I’m vegan, therefore I’m not going to buy and prepare meat and dairy products am I, defeats the whole point of being vegan because I’d still be supporting those industries with my money"

Sounds like she has already made her mind up to me!

😂 "it's not for you". By that logic we shouldn't eat anything that comes from nature. Everyone arguing about whether breast milk is dairy or whether you can ethically drink milk are missing the point entirely - there is a baby here whose future health will be decided by a moral rather than nutritional decision. I knew someone who was vegan so fed her cat vegan pet food. As an obligated carnivore the cat developed severe illness and died. That's animal cruelty. Where does that sit in the vegan ethics? Babies also have nutritional needs that absolutely cannot be met with an entirely vegan diet without supplementation.

Speak to your GP.

That could be said about almost any post on here and a big assumption about her motives. Asking for views doesn’t automatically mean someone is trying to soothe their conscience.

It’s fine as long as you know what you’re doing (pediatric nutrition very different from adult). It’s not easy in the West, and it’s very time consuming. If it’s not time consuming that means you will either be giving the baby a very restricted diet or you will be resorting to UPFs and/or substitute products which are worse than the original thing. So, yes it’s fine but please do thorough research on pediatric veganism. It’s not the same as yours.

OP, you might find this helpful from First Steps Nutrition. They have a whole guide about a vegan diet for under 5's.

Vegan infants — First Steps Nutrition Trust

The milk is not for you. It's not ethical to take the milk. And even if it was, who has pet cows? Where are you proposing that people get 'ethical' milk from?

She also isn't asking for real world options at all. She's just looking for folk to back her point of view so she can alleviate her conscience after disagreeing with her friend.

I was not suggesting she own a cow. I was simply refuting the lie that all dairy is exploitation.

I can't think of a case in which a child with a vegan diet died where abuse/neglect wasn't also involved such as failing to seek medical attention and/or feeding a child a tiny amount of food such as only raw vegetables and seeds which isn't a typical vegan diet.

There's also plenty of cases which involved a child dying from malnutrition or other complications due to parental neglect too from withholding food/failing to seek medical attention and the child didn't have a vegan diet.

In my opinion it’s fine for a baby to be vegan, provided you’re well versed in their nutritional requirements. Milk is still their main source of nutrition until they are 12 months.

The debate about breastmilk being vegan is unnecessary.

Surely, any diet where you have to have supplements added, such as how would vegan babies survive without beefed up iron fortified stuff, seems unnatural. Surely, give a diet that naturally contains what babies/children need in a complete sense, and then once they reach adulthood they can decide if they want to go another way and have a diet which needs to include supplements (which is a perfectly fine decision for an adult to make btw).

I'd ask your GP or HV if it's okay. Going back about 5 years ago my friend was advised not to put her child on a vegan diet until she was about 3 (vegetarian was fine).
However if you're confident you can meet your babies nutritional needs then why not?

I’m not vegan. I was just pointing out that ‘own a cow’ isn’t practical advice for most parents. OP is asking about real world options, not hypothetical ones.