To think veganism is not for children?

[ohhhhlivia]

Yes, I am aware that it is perfectly possible to have a healthy vegan diet at any age. I know that.

However, it is more difficult and easier to get wrong if you want to be vegan. It still is restrictive (even with all of the new stuff coming out) as in you need to tell hosts, check menus in advance etc.

It's a barrier that has to be overcome. I don't understand why you would do that to someone who has no choice in the matter.

Lots of kids go through a fussy phase too, add veganism in and surely you're at a high risk of health problems?

I think what I'm getting at, is that childhood nutrition can be hard enough as it is, so it just feels wrong to make it harder for reasons that do not directly benefit the child.

@crispycrisis absolutely not! But, living on the outskirts of London, doesn't really afford me much opportunity to practise either! I'm sure if I was stranded and starving in the wilderness for days/ weeks on end (think Bear Grylls style) I would certainly give iTunes best shot!

Like I said in my original post, the ethical sourcing of meat is a whole different argument and one that I hear. However, we live in a place where many cannot even afford a balcony, let alone enough land to rear livestock... how are we meant to get meat in our diets if we are not buying it from shops? The alternative is, obviously, to be vegetarian/ vegan and I've already stated my views on this.

@crispycrisis *give it my best shot. Not iTunes!

It’s recommended by NHS etc that children under two are not fed an exclusively vegan diet, although perhaps it is okay if the mother breastfeeds until two? As for children over the age of two, a vegan diet can be very nutritious and healthy. It can also be unhealthy if it is not well planned. The medical advice nowadays for young children and adults these days is to keep consumption of medical products to a minimum. And there is increasing evidence that even moderate consumption of animal products has serious health consequences, including but not limited to increase in heart disease and various cancers. There are many types of terrible diets. A well managed vegan diet is not one of them.

animal products not medical products!

'why make something hard harder with no benefit to the child?'

Maybe some people see themselves and their child as part of a larger collective? Maybe they feel like a little bit extra effort on THEIR part is worth it for a wider benefit to the environment and the planet and for the future of the next generation (which is incidentally THEIR CHILD's generation)
Maybe they think that a little bit extra effort is worth it to live within their morals?
Maybe they think that their child might grow up to be compassionate and aware of the food they eat whether they choose to be vegan or not.
I am not currently vegan and nor is my child but it is bloody obvious in 2019 why many people choose to be.
Also to those saying a supplemented diet isn't healthy. Animals are often supplemented, loads of the food you eat is fortified with additional nutrients. In fact unless you eat a raw vegan diet with no additional supplements, the chances are you are all eating food supplemented with nutrients whether you are aware of it or not.
It makes me laugh when people say 'veganism isn't natural or healthy because of b12' b12 is found in soil and dirt, it is bacteria and many animals are supplemented with it. It doesn't come from animal flesh. Vegans have existed and thrived in cultures throughout the world for thousands of years.

“Biology dictates that humans are not designed to be vegans. I would not raise a child on a vegan diet, nor eat a vegan diet myself.

1.) TEETH. All omnivores (ie humans) have incisors, molars and small canines. Carnivores have much bigger canines. Herbivores have no canines at all.

2.) EYES. All animals that need to hunt have eyes in the front of their skull (ie any animal that eats meat as part of their diet). Think lions, dogs, humans, etc. All animals that only eat vegetation have eyes on the side of their skull- think sheep, horses, guinea pigs, etc.”

Dear oh dear. I’d pay more attention to the relative size of intestine of a human vis-à-vis for example, a lion, than I would our pathetic excuse for canines in terms of what modern humans should and shouldn’t eat. The gorilla has some pretty fearsome canines - they don’t get much meat though do they? Of course, humans are able to eat meat, but they are biologically far better suited to a plant based diet. There is a growing body of evidence that hunting and consumption of animals by human was very much the exception rather than the rule for vast parts of human history. Regardless, if your aim is for fast consumption of load of calories (great for making a quick dash from that Sabre toothed tiger)and a shortish life span, then by all means keep on the dairy/meat.

@Cam77 we are not comparable to lions, as they are carnivores. They have huge canines because they only eat meat.

The scientific evidence is there- why would humans be the only mammals who have evolved with the wrong teeth and eyes in their skulls?? Can you name any other mammal with canines/ forward facing eyes that has a herbivore diet?? Gorillas are not herbivores and choose meat/ vegetation dependant mainly on their location.

Modern life may have made it easier for us to survive on a plant based diet (as we no longer have to live in a state of feast or famine, therefore removing the need to consume large amounts of calories in one go) but that by no means means that humans are better off not eating meat. If we were meant to have meat-free diets we'd have NO canines in our heads at all, regardless of the size of them... just like a sheep or an elephant or a giraffe or any other animals that lives EXCLUSIVELY on vegetation.

Gorillas are omnivores when omnivorous food is available. Their diet is majority plant based but not exclusively so. That sounds like a pretty good template for a human diet to me. The problem isn't that humans eat meat at all, despite what militant vegans would have us think - it's that we eat too much of it as a percentage of our diet. As usual, the extremes of both arguments are unhelpful.

I think it’s laughable how so many people get worked up by vegans and “veganism”, spouting that it is so unhealthy and not natural. And god forbid a vegan should cook something unhealthy - “she claims to be vegan but she bakes her kids blueberry muffins, so unhealthy, what a hypocrite.”

The amount of parties that my kids have been to where the choice has been nuggets and chips or fish fingers and chips. Does anyone get as worked up about that? Do those people against vegans have a perfectly balanced diet with all the vitamins, minerals and oils that they are worried vegans don’t get then? I am not a vegan but my 2 DDs are and they are so much more healthy than their peers. Get a grip everyone.

You can get unhealthy kids from omnivore families and unhealthy kids from vegan families.

In my experience most vegans at least arm themselves with knowledge of what they should be ingesting for a balanced diet.

Take DHA - I very much doubt most omnivores supplement their children's diet if they don't eat oily fish and hate eggs.

I suppose for me a big part of it would come down to whether the DC were fussy or not. I don't think I'd like my child to be vegan if all they ate from that diet was refined carbs for example.

You go on forcing your VEGAN views and VEGAN 'food' on your children (who have no other choice than to eat what they're given though,) and keep telling yourself it's OK.

Vegan 'food'.. I'm pretty sure carrots are food 🙄

All children have no choice but to eat what they're parents feed them, that's called parenting...

I wish I'd never eaten an animal in my life, but as a child I just had to eat what my parents gave me.

We had to adapt our diet around milk, egg and soya allergies for a few years. Vegan foods were useful, but I wouldn't want to make my children live on a vegan diet. We did find eating around his allergies when out and about was a challenge, and we often had to provide food or keep a back-up option avaliable.

Carefully planned vegan diets can be healthy, but it doesn't take many dislikes and caveats to make it difficult to balance. Like many, the DC's school won't allow nuts on site due to staff and pupil allergies. My DC's loathe mushrooms. We struggle with significant volumes of soya still. Before you know it, the avaliable sources of protein are quite radically diminished if meat and animal products are eliminated too. My DCs generally love veg (but not all cooked together which makes food dull) and my bigger battle is keeping some meat over their bones and filling them with calorie dense food. A vegan diet could easily tip them into the threshold of being underweight.

I think where possible, it's best to have as broad a diet as possible then let DCs make their own informed choices when they are ready.

One problem with "veganism" is that it is a lifestyle attractive to orthorexic people and other eating disorders and provides a socially moral rationale to restrict diets. People in that position aren't going to be providing their children with optimum balanced nutrition. I've known a good number of vegetarians and vegans with awful diets. Of course there is an abundance of omnivores with awful diets too, but an extra level of strict control means that the restricted diet can be even less balanced.

I am suspicious that the environmental credentials of a vegan diet over an omnivore diet is not as clear cut as it is often presented, for example the air miles and environmental costs of almond milk compared to locally produced cows milk on land unsuitable for growing crops on a commercial scale. Keeping a vegan diet localised and seasonal is a challenging mission.

Vegan diets can be healthy and balanced, but I'm sceptical that they are the best start in life for children.

I am mostly vegetarian and eat 80% vegan. Dd is a complete carnivore. I have zero desire to impose my valurs on dd. She knows aboutcthe meat industry ( not from me...i havn't mentioned it) but i am very proud that she is autonomous and can make her own decisions.
I also think veganism is not for young kids although i do know a strict cegan by chouce child...his parents arent vegan! He's fine.

Sorry for typos!

YANBU.

A diet requiring fortification is not a complete diet.

Read up on the "expensive tissue hypothesis". Human beings have small stomachs and big, complex brains. A key element of our evolving mental capacity beyond that of other mammals is the consumption of animal products - eating a high nutrient easy to digest diet allows us to have reduced stomach size & larger brains instead.

Yes - with modern processed foods it is possible to have a healthy vegan diet. But it is not optimal. Jains are not vegans, they will consume dairy products as long as there are no concerns about animal welfare.

A diet requiring fortification is not a complete diet

The vast majority of children’s diets require fortification, which most of them get via fortified breakfast cereal.

I think the thing that worries me about veganism dor xhuldren is the social factor. The story about the 2 year old who wasn't allowed a piece of birthday cake us heart breaking. If a kid is vegan at home they should be allowed to eat whatever at parties etc.
When i used ro be vegan 20 years ago it played havoc with my social life and i ended up scared to go out for meals etc...food is social aswell as fuel.

One of my girls cannot have dairy.balancing her diet to provide enough calcium(nut allergies in house) and not relying on rice milk(unsuitable for young children due to arsenic levels) or soy(again family allergies) has made things "trying" vegan cheese does not have calcium or the nutrients of cows version so you have to be mindful of substitution not being nutritionally the same

I personally wouldn't feel I could give my children a vegan diet that would be nutritionally optimum for growth etc

I do wonder in years to come how adults health will be(baby boomers were very healthy,kids raised in 70/80s introduction more processed foods,children who are obese etc)

Unrelated,but my older daughter wants to know if @ohhhhlivia is an SVU quote?

Dd is vegan due to allergies.

She’s allergic to all meat, lactose, cows milk, eggs, broccoli, hazelnuts, green beans. She also has coeliac disease so is hugely restricted there.

Eating is difficult for her, eating out is nearly impossible but we manage. She has to take vitamin supplements (though she has malabsorption issues which doesn’t help) and iron tablets.

I think without the coeliac disease it would actually be quite easy for her to have a balanced diet. There’s lots of dairy alternatives now such as almond milk and if you ensure your child eats loads of veg then that’s got to be healthier than some kids diets.

I actually struggle to understand the vegan parents that raise young children on meat (if vegan for ethical reasons)
If you are vegan because you believe it is cruel to animals and the environment etc then why have multiple kids and give them meat? You might as well not have bothered being vegan at all.
I understand if the child rejects it or is fussy etc. Obviously you would prioritise the health of your child over your own moral stance and maybe introduce a bit of non vegan food occasionally (if the vegan route wasn't working or they were lacking in nutrients). I also understand being relaxed about cake at parties etc. But the families that cook 2 meals every night, one vegan and one meat and say they won't 'impose' their vegan views on their kids, I don't understand that at all! Veganism shouldn't be a punishment and if you think it is you are doing it wrong.

@Adogwithabone
Absolutely, the Alpro drink contains fortified nutrients.

So do most (non-vegan) breakfast cereals, bread and many others common products - it’s not just a vegan diet which relies on fortification to be healthy.

It also contains an awful lot of sugar and oil. The first 5 ingredients alone are water, 3 different types of sugar, soya beans and sunflower oil. I know this shit cause I'm a nutritionist wink

As a nutritionist could you outline what the first three components of dairy milk are? I’m pretty sure water, sugar and fat are in there. So how is that any different from plant milk?

I find it bonkers that people think just because milk is from a cow it’s somehow magically healthy... It’s fair enough to have concerns about restricted diets but spouting pseudoscientific opinion to back up your viewpoint is not helpful
Not a vegan by the way.

And for those omnivores critiquing vegans who supplement it fortify foods, you may be interested to know that in the UK cows milk, flour and breakfast cereals are commonly fortified with added vitamins, simply because the average omnivore diet is not carefully planned enough to meet nutritional requirements

Someone upthread said a lot of ‘vegan food’ is unhealthy. Surely they mean the processed food that is available which up a miniscule amount of the overall processed food on the market, the vast majority of which contains meat and dairy!

which makes up