To raise my child as a vegetarian?

[rstuk]

Both myself and DH are vegetarians and we would like our children to be vegetarians too for both health and ethical reasons, however I'm a bit unsure because all of the websites i've checked have conflicting opinions on whether or not this is good for a small child (digestion issues etc) and our parents (non/ex-vegetarians) think we're 'depriving' the child
Help anyone? i'm completely lost

I may have this wrong, but I think caste in India is inherited, and fixed for generations, so you can't improve your caste status by being taller - you get better nutrition/jobs/status because of your caste, and that makes you taller.

It is true that height tends to be correlated with higher salaries/higher status jobs in Western countries, and as parents with a higher income can generally afford better nutrition and medical care for their children, the next generation are also likely to be taller and earn more etc etc.

I'm a happy meat eater but do believe that the easiest way to give your children a healthy balanced diet is to ensure that your own diet is really good and then feed them what you eat. (Or a better version - I tend to wait until dd is in bed before hunting out the mini magnums!)

I'm a bit obsessed with iron levels (due toa massive PPH after dd's birth and the horror that the iron tablets caused) and red meat is a nice easy way of getting it. But there are lots of others (including dried apricots which are dd's favorite food ever!)

crescentmoon - the article says the first measurements were taken in 1946, and the article dates from 2001 and talks about the past 50 years, so the baseline would be precisely the wartime generation, turning 11 between 1946 and 1950. I would guess by the late 1950s, the effects of wartime and immediate postwar malnutrition would be diminishing, but the Japanese economy did not really take off until the late 50s/early 60s, so the main nutritional benefits and increased height would be noticed in children born from then onwards.

If a mother is well-nourished during pregnancy, and children are well-nourished from birth, I don't know if it makes a difference whether the protein sources are animal, dairy or vegetable. In my experience, I would say not (see above: two large babies (over 9lbs) who have been consistently tall for their ages) but of course anecdote is not the same as extensive data.

Some interesting discussion. But just to pick up on one point: aurynne said " Pregnant women who are vegetarian NEED iron supplements, I still have not met a single one who is not iron-deficient."

Well, I beg to differ. My Hb and Ferritin are fine, thanks, at 32 weeks, and they were last time too.

And as an obstetrician I see a lot of healthy non anaemic pregnant vegetarians all the time.

Ditto, I had my bloods checked pre- and post-natally and my levels were fine, and I've been vegetarian for a long time.

My son has a few allergys and I am weaning him at the moment. The dietician suggested I up hi s meat content and she was telling me that it's really unusual for anyone to have an allergy or intolerence to meat.

Not much to do with the conversation, but thought it was interesting.

I think height has a lot to do with being undernourished. Under Franco Spain had a couple of generations where the people were shorter due to undernourishment.

My iron and ferritin levels were fine in the singleton pregnancies but I did have to take iron in the twin pregnancy. I think it was less related to my vegetarianism than to the fact that it was my fifth pregnancy in four years.

Haven't rtft

just wanted to say

HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK MOST OF ASIA MANAGES?

Hully

" " Pregnant women who are vegetarian NEED iron supplements, I still have not met a single one who is not iron-deficient."

aurynne, you have now. Nice to 'meet' you.

May I introduce my healthy lifelong vegetarian children too.

Ah the old vegetarians are not healthy myth. Cos of course meat miraculously turns a meal into something highly nutritious no matter what it is. Meat eaters don't get malnourished at all

So I assume all the vegetarian pregnant women with healthy iron levels who post here "showing me wrong" are vegan, do not eat quorn, tofu, spirulina, and do not take food fortified with iron or B12 AT ALL (which are the ways for vegans to get their iron and vitamin B12 levels right). In which case I would be very interested in using you for one of our nutrition research papers, really, because you are a very select and rare population

Or perhaps they do some of these things, and they just did not read my post properly, or they feel they have something to prove.

(oh, and they do not take any supplements)

I'm not pregnant so would be of no use to you in your research by the sound of it but otherwise, yes, you'd be welcome, aurynne. When I was pregnant I fitted that description. I have nothing to prove apart from that I did read your post properly.

My DSs have four friends between them who come from entirely veggie families. We have another friend who raised her DCs vegan. They're all totally healthy and fine. I'd say more planning is involved and the vegan ones read up massively before committing though.

Aurynne - you still seem to be confused about vegetarian v vegan. In your original post you only used the word vegetarian; now you seem to be saying you are just talking about vegans?

Aurynne's original quote : "pregnant women who are vegetarian NEED iron supplements, I still have not met a single one who is not iron-deficient".

I am long-term vegetarian, and was not iron-deficient in my first pregnancy (no iron supplements); mildly low on iron at the end of my second (levels of 9.5 or something, so only just). Sounds like lots of other women on here were also fine.

we were a vegetarian family until my son tried some ham. He loved it so much he couldnt stop from running round shouting meat, meat , meat.

with such incoent enthusiasm my self depravation for 'health and ethical' reasons started to look a lot like posturing and fashion .. so we all tucked in and never looked back :)

We use vegetarian as you use vegan and call any other person who eats animal products by defining what animal products they eat (i.e ovolactovegetarian). Eggs and milk are not vegetable products. I should have mentioned that at the beginning.

I think you are looking for vegans, not vegetarians aurynne

I am no use to you as I'm veggie, not vegan. In addition, shockingly, I have been known to occasionally partake in cornflakes which are apparently banned too?

So what you want is vegans, who don't ever eat fortified breakfast cereals, or tofu? (Or spurulina, though I have no clue what that is any way...)

Surely you are the one with "something to prove", setting such ridiculous and arbritrary conditions. And you've contradicted yourself, too - if vegetarians can get sufficient B12 and iron via tofu, fortified cereals, spurulina and whatever else, let alone dairy, then surely your earlier quote "all pregnant women need iron supplements" is just nonsense.

Who is "we"? I've never heard of vegetarian meaning vegan before.

Scientists, VinegarDrinker. We are constricted by having to use precise terms. And as I am not a vegan or vegetarian, I really never worried about using the "popular" term (I till struggle to call someone who eats eggs a "vegetarian" to be honest). But hey, there are people who eat fish and chicken and still call themselves vegetarian...

Why would you call yourself a vegetarian when you eat eggs, milk, honey... why not call yourself a non-meatarian instead? :)