Can I raise my child as a vegan?

[muddlethroughmumma]

I myself have been vegan for nearly a year, and all throughout my pregnancy I was shamed for being vegan even though if anything my baby's growth and our health was off of the charts, can I raise my child to be vegan or would it be seen as limiting his diet in a wrong way, don't get me wrong have had soy protein as meat alternatives in foods to ensure we are still consuming a balanced diet so there wouldn't be any limitations on his diet. If anyone else is raising their children as vegans or vegan their self I would appreciate some advice. xxx

I fully understand but isn't a choice to eat anything (dairy ,meat,amount of sugar etc) all set by parents anyway?

Also there is no need to be anal.My daughter will be raised plant based however she is allowed to have treats from her grandparents (chocolates etc) and if someone offers her pizza she can have it.Im plant based due to health reasons and want my daughter to have the best start.Non plant based items will be a treat however not an every day occurrence

@Same1977 agree with you re choice, it's a choice to eat meat / feed your kids meat - -and enforcing a meat or dairy diet on a child is as much a choice / enforcement as veganism. In some countries, like India, much of the population is vegetarian so it is not necessarily the "norm" to eat meat or have a meat eating diet.

University College London’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health did a study which showed that children aged five to ten who eat plant-based diets are on average three centimetres shorter than those who eat meat.
Their bones are also smaller and weaker (increasing the risk of fractures or osteoporosis as they grow).
They also had 4-6% lower bone mineral levels and were more than three times likely to have lower vitamin B-12 than omnivores.

But the mothers of other children will have parties too and won't be bothered with all that for one child.

Bearing in mind what dairy is (liquid designed by nature to turn small animal into a very big animal very quickly ) then of course anyone not drinking it could be shorter.Asians are shorter than westerners for example it isn't a sign of health.
Similar study found that vegan kids have better cardiovascular health and other aspects.Its which side of the coin you want to look at

Yes we're mammals so are meant to be fed the milk our mothers produce (if they can). We are not meant to be fed the milk of another species.

I don't think you should restrict a child's diet. It's better to get vitamins and minerals from food than endless supplements and tablets to compensate for the poor diet.

You don't need "endless tablets" to raise a child vegan. There's so much information out there about how to do it safely. Not bothering with this thread after page one as it's already so full of ignorance. Check out Ginny Messina, the Vegan RD website for a dietician's perspective. I have a strong, smart, healthy six year old kid who has always been vegan and now he is of an age to decide still has no desire to harm animals or the planet more than is unavoidable.

I do provide this, but the treats aren't always given out by the teacher, often it's school wide events that cause problems or other parents spontaneously bringing things to share. It also doesn't work when teachers decided to bake something but forgot to forewarn parents so we can bring in alternatives - it's not the best when your child has to sit on the side of a classroom watching everyone else make and then eat scones.

School lunches are a nightmare too. Our school menu 'caters for allergies' but what that means is my dd is given jacket potato and beans every day as most of their meals have one of her allergens in.

If she had a choice to eat dairy then I'd take it with both arms!

@Same1977 Yeah, I think that's fine, I can understand if someone just did not want animal produce in their home. To fair I wish my kids did eat better and I could do a full vegan menu. I think if you have non fussy kids you could say that they eat vegan in your home but then when they eat elsewhere they can eat what they like at school for school dinners for example. My older son is autistic and he's extremely picky with colours and textures of food and won't eat green vegetables. Unfortunately some of the very limited food he will eat include eggs, dairy and meat and white carbs. He's a bit of a nightmare with food. I have to blend veg into pasta sauces just to get him to eat veg

Daughter is vegan and grandchild is vegetarian.
Grandchild is very fussy eater so needs the cheese and eggs for protein as will not eat the alternatives ie nuts etc.
Just be open minded and ignore any negative comments from other people!

I am vegan, but chose to raise kids as omnivores.
In reality they eat very little meat.
One has chosen to be vege since he was 10.
One is super fussy and only really likes chicken and chorizo, and has them rarely.
They both eat eggs and dairy.
I think being vegan is too restrictive for a child unless it's their choice.

You could, but in my opinion, you shouldn't. Children need a wide variety of nutrients, from all food sources.
In France it's against the law to bring up a child as vegan.

Is your vegan-ness based on animal welfare? If so, do you have space to keep chickens? Then you can eat the eggs knowing they come from happy chickens? Just an idea!

I am lactose intolerant and had to eat different food at parties etc as a child. It was very isolating. Everyone else shared and passed stuff around. I had my lunchbox. I couldn't have cake. If I won a prize in a game I had to give it to someone else. On a school trip everyone had a whippy ice cream - I sat and waited while they all ate it. In my case I never had negative feelings towards my parents because it couldn't be helped, but if I'd known they were inflicting it on me by choice I'd have been raging!

I would say you can. But it's difficult. I took a veggie kid to a birthday party, and they raided the cocktail sausages until they were in pain.

But as parents, it is a parent's job to raise their kids healthily and well. And I can see veganism being a big part of that.

Omnivores, veggies, vegans whatever can have dreadful or great diets. And it is a science that is completely unresearched and undiscovered and understood.

Calcium can be had a ground seeds very easily. It can be hidden in food, or used as a sprinkling.

You couldn't buy junk vegan food that easily a decade back, or if you could you would bankrupt yourself. So were forced into a varied diet, watching what you ate.

I know people that live on pot noodles and cigarettes. That never eat vegetables. Or hardly any at all. And veggies that just eat cheese every thing and anything.

Just try to get a varied diet. Avoid white flours, pastas and rice and instead use whole grains. You get used to what you eat in time. And can trick any old palette really. I have found kids can gravitate to healthy foods just as much as they can sweets etc. I think veganism actually widens your horizons hugely with food options.

I think vegetarian would be a better option, your child needs things like choline, iron omega 3’s etc its not just about calcium. Honestly I would just let them eat everything and they can decide later. First few years are full of rapid development and kids often don’t eat what you want them to anyway.

Carpy88999
Of course human babies are meant to have breastmilk and not another species milk. The thing is, it’s difficult and pretty socially unacceptable to breastfeed a child until they are truely done with milk. 3.5 years in the estimated average. Natural human weaning age is estimated to range between 2 and 7 years. I breastfed a long time for the place I live - 2years. But my child was nowhere near ready to stop milk. I gradually switched my child to cows milk because I didn’t want to breastfeed longer.
Plant based ´milks’ are not a reasonably clise substitute for human breastmilk. Plant based infant formulas can be but they have a reputation for poor palatability and can have serious downsides like increased arsenic exposure (rice based milks) or providing a very large regular dose of phytoestrogens (soy milks). Animal milks like Cow and goat milks don’t have those downsides.
There’s nothing wrong with putting oat milk in your child’s hot chocolate of almond milk on their cereal, but it’s just not replacing breastmilk on a nutritional level.

Ahh yes I was waiting for the nonsense about soy milk and the plant hormone phytoestrogen as opposed to cows milk which contains oestrogen...

In France it's against the law to bring up a child as vegan.

I’m not really sure we want to take much from that. France have done done very questionable things regarding people’s rights.

Just to say I saw pp say that they can have alternative milk after 1. My baby has cmpa and the dietician has said (also NHS and World Health Organisation) that this is not sufficient and she needs breast milk until at least 2yo.

On the onus on other parents. In DD's friend group there are allergies to nuts, fish and other things, there's a Muslim child, there's a vegetarian, we don't allow nestle or palm oil, there's a couple of bland-eaters and on it goes.

It's all very well saying that there's vegan party food. But vegan, nut free, halal, no palm oil or unethical crap and beige enough for the fussy... don't expect other parents to curate party food to this extent. The Muslim mum always brings her own (even though I absolutely cater for her DD) so that's probably best.

Or vegan in the home, omnivore out.

I know of 2 babies that were drinking oat milk as a main drink from 12 months on consultant/dietician advice. As long as they looked for one with highest fat content. I know one used Oatly, not sure about the other.

Of course you can.

(I eat meat, know only two vegans but their nutritional knowledge is so much better than mine)

VeganGod why were those 2 babies relying on oat milk? I can believe a dietitian would give that advice under certain circumstances (allergic or intolerant to cows milk + mother no longer breastfeeding, vegan parents insisting that their child should not have dairy milk + mother no longer breastfeeding). In any other circumstance, there’s no way a dietitian would recommend oat milk over dairy milk or breastmilk as a main drink for a 12month old.

I think nutritionally it's fine if your child is not fussy. Could be limiting if they are.

I was brought up vegetarian, I remained veggie but my siblings ate meat out of the house and weren't interested. I think it's fair to say they eat vegan at home but can have what they choose when not home.