to worry about my teenage daughter going vegan?

[Meechimoo]

She's 14.
She decided to go veggie about a month ago.
She now wants to cut out all animal products and be vegan.
I've had long long conversations about this with her and told her that I'm very concerned about it. I'm worried she'll end up with poor nutrition and get rickets or something. I'm worried she won't get enough calories from a vegan diet.
But she's 14, almost 15, and hellbent on being vegan. The way I look at it, I can't force feed her dairy, can I?

My husband, her Dad, is dead against it because he thinks this is a control thing and we shouldn't allow her to dictate this sort of thing. And he's worried at additional cost to our food bill if we have to get her supplements, soya milk, vegan cheese etc.
Are there any vegan mumsnetters with vegan teens out there? How do you do it? Is it ok? Are they healthy and enough energy? Should I just go with it and support her or put our feet down and say she can remain veggie but we're not supporting her going vegan??

I agree that we abuse animals and cause them unnecessary suffering but I think it is anthropomorphic to draw parallels between artificial insemination and rape.
Human sexuality is vastly more complex than animal sexuality, but still we treat animals as objects and ?ultimately I can't see that as anything other than morally indefensible

I think the issue of veganism and osteoporosis was dealt with by the very famous 'China Study' by T Colin-Campbell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

apologies for the wiki link, but it gives a great run-down of the outcome. It was a very famous study as it was based on research taken over a period of 20 years. I have read the book but it was very dense and research-focused and i struggled to finish it.

Vezzie I think you're projecting your own issues tbh, as far as I can see no one has asked you to justify your reasons for your lifestyle choices? You obviously don't have to but equally neither do I.

Gwynnie is a crap example to try to illustrate your point with Côte.

I'd bet my life savings that her malnutrition issues have far more to do with the Hollywood size 0 trend than veganism.

I have some almond milk in my fridge that has exactly the same amount of calcium per 100ml as the semi-skimmed I get for the kids.

Veganism is efficient compared to eating animal products, surely that is unequivocal?
Energy is lost at each trophic level, eating animal products adds an unnecessary trophic level.

Certainly feeding 7 billion is a challenge but it could be done if we were much more efficient, eating plants is more efficient than eating animals.

I suppose we could grow 'meat' in a more efficient way, some product which isn't actually an animal with a central nervous system, a sort of 'flesh plant'?

I've not read the whole thread and make no claims to understand anything but "basic nutrition".

A friend of mine faced OP's dilemma and initially compromised by insisting that her DD had 2 vegan smoothies a day. They worked out a series of smoothies which gave DD at least 75% of the nutrition she needed from vegetables, nuts, pulses, fruits, berries, seeds, dried fruits etc. The liquid in the smoothie was generally soya milk. They didn't use a blender but something called (I think) a Nutribullet which claims to be an extractor (you can put a whole orange in unpeeled etc). It took them time to find delicious smoothie combinations but they got there.

The DD ate whatever was acceptable to her from family meals.

The DD quite quickly demonstrated that she was on top of her nutritional needs and now looks after herself (still with one smoothie a day from choice).

Just a thought. It seems to have worked for them and, yes, my friend became really interested in the whole vegan diet.

Apparently Paltrow was (like most of us) very low in vit D. Would strongly recommend everyone, vegan or not, supplements. You can vegan D3 (d3 better than d2)

Failure to thrive on a vegan diet may well be down to the microbiome, it is very specific to individual diet and so a person who eats meat will have developed a microbiome optimized to help them digest meat.

That being the case it seems logical to make progressive rather than sudden dietary changes ?

Suzanne I take your point and we all will feel differently on that topic, but I very much view it as rape.

There has been lots of off topic stuff here hope it hasn't scared OP away.

That stuff about the smoothies is a really great idea

Hubb, I take your point too, as soon as I started to think about it I realized it's not at all straightforward...and as you say 'off topic'

Back to the smoothies. What worked, I think, is that mother and daughter made the "science" a joint project and so the DD's veganism moved from being a "problem" to a joint enterprise.

Cote

It may be something that's always happened. That doesn't make it right, not something I want to be part of. There are plenty of atrocities going on in the world that I don't want to do just because they occur anyway, or have always occurred.

Powerful hormones are used to force good quality cows to produce the type of embryo required. These can be surgically removed and inserted into a lower grade female. This is in the UK-no I haven't been reading American websites, I'm in the UK.

I said I cannot get my head around it being healthy to drink another species' breast milk. I haven't needed milk since I was weaned.

I know what wild animals do (ie kill/eat one another). They pretty much have to. I don't. So I won't.

Not all, no.Free range chickens aren't treated well. They're just treated marginally better than battery ones.

Real free range as in with plenty of room to exercise, sunshine etc is different to what 'free range' legally means in the UK.

I am not even acknowledging your last 'point'.

I am an avid runner, 24% body fat, in better condition that I have ever been and blood tests a few months ago confirmed I am in perfect health.

(Meat eaters can be malnutritioned, too).

B12 deficiency is a problem in the UK. Most of the UK is not vegan.

I just don't buy leather shoes. It's not difficult!

I don't buy the 'if left to their own devices' point either. They wouldn't exist if it wasn't for our intensive breeding, they don't just exist then we go and capture them and stick 'em in a factory.

DO you know that Gyyneth Paltrow got osteoperris because she was vegan?Not because she didn't eat properly period. She's tiny and much as they may deny it, A-Listers are under pressure to be very thin.

I must not be a vegan then, my bones are fine.

caked my point exactly.

Gobbin I sympathise. I really don't do that unless I'm asked for advice or genuinely interested people ask me.

Only thing I have to say is I suffer the opposite, preachy meat eaters (in fact I am getting it right now).

Hub that's the same way as I feel.

If you're using a celebrity as an example, cote what about comparing her to vegan celebrities (or otherwise)who are in good health at an older age, and do not suffer from any health issues?Surely that needs to be done if you're wanting a valid argument.
Soft music does improve the quality of a cows' milk.

I know a fair few people who suffer osteoporosis. None of them are vegan.

cakedcrusader, no I have not personally been asked to justify myself, but I do think that some vegans think that non-vegans just don't get it or haven't thought about it (I am sure many haven't). I think it is important when the OP is dealing with her dd (or when any of us are looking after children who are growing into adults) that the dd understands that (sympathetic) non-vegans appreciate the issues, because it is very complex, and because veganism can be very damaging for some individuals.

Living on plants is not ecologically efficient. The sahara desert was created by grain agriculture by the Romans to feed their armies "efficiently". More are being created and worsened every day. I do not know what the solution is. I can fantasise about living off the plants within, and animals that would live off, our natural forests (forests being what the UK was) - but how is anyone ever going to make this happen?

In winter, in UK, your local vegan diet would be pretty meagre and arguably unliveable. For all I know - I am admittedly guessing but it sounds reasonable to me - it might be much more planet-friendly to slaughter and cure the pig you have been fattening on your kitchen rubbish (and whose manure supports your vegetable garden) and let that keep you going, with your local cabbages and spuds, than to be sending out 5000 miles once a week for your supply of cashews and quinoa.

Admittedly for most of us we aren't looking at the distinction between being self sufficient with or without animals, but what kind of factory farming we are using to support us. It's kind of a disaster.

My 10 year old is vegetarian ( her choice ), I don't think you can force her to eat animal products if she doesn't want too, maybe talk to her and persuade her to eat dairy if it comes from a good source? My MIL says she's a vegan but she will occasionally eat animal products if she knows where it has come from ( free range, organic etc..).

Living on plants is not ecologically efficient. The sahara desert was created by grain agriculture by the Romans to feed their armies "efficiently

?Eating plants is more efficient than eating animals, that is indisputable.
You seem to be making a different point, ie that farming in general is ecologically harmful?
I am not disagreeing with that, but it is besides the point when it comes to comparing veganism with eating animal products ?
?

If I eat food myself I will obtain more calories than if I fed the same food to a pig and then ate the pig.

Reason being that the pig uses up many of those calories, it doesn't magically create energy and give me more food than I gave it ?

as I said, energy is lost at each trophic level

Vezzie, growing grains to feed animals which we then eat uses way more resources and creates a lot more waste than just growing crops for people to eat! I am concerned about climate change and sustainability but my number one reason for being vegan is because I don't think we have any right to use animals, in my eyes we all have equal right to be here and it is wrong to enslave them as we do. That is not to say that I believe anyone else has to do the same as me or that I look down on anyone who doesn't share my pov but that is my belief and my lifestyle reflects that.

I am going to step away from this thread as it feels like we are going around in circles and have probably scared op away

yep but you can feed the pig (or other relevant local animal) food that you can't eat. Also the pig or other animal provides manure for fertiliser.

Eg goats can eat scrubby vegetation which is essentially tough cellulose that humans (and even many other animals) can't digest. you can then eat goats. In the meantime they can fertilise your vegetables and you can have milk too (you can take some milk without doing it the horrible way where you force the goat to be pregnant nearly all the time and pump her with hormones)

If you believe killing animals is an absolute wrong, you would not contemplate the conversion of cellulose into human food via the goat turning it into meat. But I do not.

I get - and have repeatedly said - that this is all academic as this is not where the majority of meat comes from. But it is according to some sort of thinking on these lines that we can get back to protecting the planet. Industrial grain agriculture is an ecological disaster. Grains are annual grasses that require intensely artificial conditions to grown in any quantity. Such artificual conditions are at the heart of veganism. It is one way to do things but I think the wrong way.

It is easy to make an argument that many people could eat less meat and think more about where it comes from. But I think the opportunism, wrt to fish and game, of occasional meat eating that veganism entirely writes out, is perhaps the sanest way to bring necessary protein into the diet with the least ecological damage.

caked, I don't advocate growing grain to feed animals. my argument is almost the opposite of that.

I think the heart of where we differ is that I do not accord animals human or quasi-human status. I would privilege a human over an animal every time.

Actually caked's last post is a brilliant example of vegans missing the point when faced with non-vegan arguments. yes, you are going around in circles

Ok Vezzie, you're actually just being rude now.

I didn't mean to be rude. But your post is just as if I hadn't said any of the things I have said on this thread, or meant them. can't you see why?

I wouldn't be using Gwynneth 'specific carb hunger' Paltrow to justify any diet choice tbh. I suspect if she had pre-oesteoperosis it was down to more than the type of food she ate.

I've been Vegan since I was 16. I am now 47 (sob). I do not have rickets. I have never had rickets. I have 3 healthy DCs, two of them teenagers, one younger, all of them vegetarian, all of them healthy, intelligent, talented young people.

If your DD wants to go vegan, let her. She will be doing more for the planet than most people, and there is no reason why she won't be healthy just as a result of turning vegan. Marmite is a far more important supplement for her than soya milk, incidentally. Sooya marge apparently tastes no different than normal (the good stuff anyway) - my whole family has always had soya marge because it's too tricky running two tubs or marge in parallel. Almond milk is nicer than soya milk if she wants milk. It's not cheap true but in the big scheme of things, it's not expensive either.

I don't understand your point? I did not ask you to justify your reasons for eating meat and animal products but you seem to feel the need to keep posting your theories about ecological agriculture whilst saying that you understand that it is not the way it is actually done. I feel like I am being attacked for my beliefs tbh. As I have repeatedly said we each make our own choices for our own reasons, veganism is mine for animal welfare reasons, I do not need to justify that to you just as you do not need to justify eating meat to me.