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

You can definitely bring your child up vegan without screwing them up! My son (5) has a more varied diet than many of his friends (though he does go through phases of not wanting X or Y like most kids). We are flexible with school and parties - birthday cake with a tiny amount of milk/eggs in the batter isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things). In any case, it's about doing less harm, to animals, to the environment, etc. not about being 100% 'perfect' in all circumstances.

If you read my posts, you will see that I had already advised OP to get advice from a dietician regarding her child’s diet if she was going to raise them as vegan. 🤓

I can’t find any evidence that it is illegal in France, do you have the source?

The thing is it can be done badly. B12 is an odd one in that it's a soil/gut born vitamin. And antibiotics can possibly wipe out your own factory. Poor soils have also lead to smaller amounts in livestock etc. So to be on the safe side, test, top up etc.

It's so easy to miss out on whatever vitamin on whatever diet. People talk about fish oils being essential. Do people replace these? For people far from shore, what do they do? We are lucky though that many foods are on tap.

I have read that cow's milk is innapropriate for young humans. That calcium in cow milk is inferior to plant based sources. That heat destabilises vitimins and minerals. That vitamin pils are useless. It's a quagmire of quackery. So a little of many different things is probably a better bet.

Terms like 'processed' is unhelpful also. As much food is processed.

Again you can do veganism very, very, very badly. It pays to research and keep challenging yourself. I can do a week of potato and white rice, and white wraps very easily without noticing the lack of variation in diet. It's easy to get set in our ways, and into bad routines. Keeping a food diary, and even a public one will help people appraise and refine their own diets.

It sounds like the issues are more because she’s giving them unsuitable food like cold broccoli rather than because they’re vegan.

I did read all your posts VeganGod. We agree on a lot of points. The thing we don’t agree on is that I think that cows milk is a nutritionally superior (and cheaper) breastmilk substitute to plant based ´milks’ and that it’s a bad idea to call these things ´milk’ in the first place. They’re not milk. They are plant based drinks (juices?) that have been fortified to closer ressemble human breast milk or cows milk. They vary hugely in how closely they do this and they can have extremely different nutritional profiles. Which isn’t very important for an adult who likes a splash of something on their cereal or in their coffee but is hugely important for young children who normally rely on (human/cows/goat) milk for a large proportion of their nutritional intake. Your insistence that cows milk is an unnatural choice for humans and that oat milk is an adequate substitute without going into detail about the rest of a person’s diet and their age is problematic.

Of course. Just do your research and make sure your child is getting proper nutrition. I've been vegan a long time and I'm not impressed by a lot of recent vegan products which can be very low in nutrients - eg protein, calcium etc, so check nutrition labels. My DC has been vegan her whole life and has the most energy of any kid ive ever met, perfect skin & hair, very sporty and academic etc.

Of course you can however you need to to ensure its natural foods as lots of vegan foods are highly processed.

I’ve only pointed out that is it not necessarily unsuitable as another poster said it was. I’ve only stated I know of parents that were told it was suitable. I’ve said to check with a dietician in a previous post regarding a vegan diet, not mumsnet ‘experts’.

I haven’t said oat milk is nutritionally superior at any point. I have stated that protein levels are similar to breast milk.

I also haven’t insisted that cows milk is an unnatural choice, although technically it is meant for calves, not humans. I haven’t mentioned that until now and only because of your comment. Maybe you have mixed me up with another poster. I think there’s certainly an argument as to why we are drinking it in the first place. And if we were not, the comparisons couldn’t be made. That just depends on your beliefs and if you are not vegan, you are likely to have different views.

As for them being called milks, there was a debate on here a while ago about that, including a detailed look at the origins of the word milk. If my search function worked, I would try to look for it, but sadly it doesn’t since the changes to the site. I think companies like oatly refer to their product as oat ‘drink’ not milk anyway. People use the products as an alternative to milk and so call it milk. I can’t really be bothered getting pedantic about it. I occasionally eat a vegan bacon substitute. I call it bacon. My friend calls the quorn pieces, quorn chicken. Again, I’m not pedantic about it.

I’m not advocating for vegan diets for children. My children were not raised vegan despite me being vegan. I’m not against it if done well with proper advice. A lot of people seem incapable of eating a good diet themselves or feeding one to their children, regardless of its vegan or not.

Lots of food is processed. I genuinely don't get why anyone says vegan food is processed as if its some huge outlier in the food world.

I know, people say vegan food is processed as if ham and cheese grow on trees!

Cheese doesn’t grow on trees but it has 1-2 ingredients.

A lot of Vegan replacement products unfortunately contain a longer list of ingredients to the extent that most of them fall into the ‘ultra processed’ category. Not a problem if it’s a very small proportion of your diet but if you have a meal a day replacing a chicken breast with a vegan chicken replacement then it would tip the balance.

The gums/thickeners that are prevalent in vegan replacement foods (and in non-vegan highly processed foods) aren't good for our digestive systems. They are the ONE food of many studied that have a correlation with IBD (bowel disease).

But they're not marketed as being healthy for the most part. Some of them are great and I usually have one or two meals with fake meat a week. While not healthy vegan sausages are better for us as an option than their equally processed flesh based cousins for example.

Majority of my diet is made up of soy curls, soy chunks, tofu and lentils if I want to mimic something I used to eat containing meat.

@INeedNewShoes it might only have a few ingredients but that doesn’t mean it isn’t ultra processed, because it’s the processing that’s the point not the number of ingredients. Something like a spice mix or fruit salad could have lots of ingredients and not be ultra processed. My parents used to feed me stuff like Primula and Dairylea as a child and they are full of emulsifiers etc too. I’d have been much better off with a hummus sandwich.

Why go by small studies an not the biggest study ever done ?The China study?

@Same1977 there's a lot of evidence that the China study was flawed.