Is a vegan diet ok for children aged 5+

[wantTobeVegan]

I decided to become Vegan 2 weeks ago, dh agreed with the reasons and joined me. Now we want to transition the dc (youngest is 5).

They already drink soya not cows milk . Is it just B12 we need to supplement with ?

Is there anything else we need to check as I know for babies and toddlers it can be tricky but for 5+ is it quite straightforward?

No cruelty involved in free range eggs ?!

You might want to look at the egg industry a bit more carefully before stating that it's not cruel. I only eat eggs produced by my own (rescue) hens or those from birds whose owners I know personally and are kept in a similar manner to my own. The commercial egg industry repulses me. Yes, there are some birds who are kept in less horrific conditions than others, but very few are pecking happily around fields like the pictures on the boxes. And they are pretty much all slaughtered at 12-18 months of age regardless of whether they are free range or not - unless they are lucky enough to be rescued and live out their natural lifespan somewhere where the amount of eggs they lay doesn't matter.

I personally think it’s too restrictive for babies and children as they're
Growing adult bodies, so need the fuel and building blocks to do this. Whilst it’s easy to say I’ll get xyz nutrients by eating abc, it’s not always that easy as many things are difficult for your body to extract the required amounts from. Consider occasional meat and certainly fish regularly too if nothing else. Also remember that there are vegan foods that are highly processed which isn’t ideal

How is it exploitation? Ours love wandering around the garden and get bored of sitting on their eggs!

They aren’t vegans if they eat eggs and honey
They are vegetarian and just confusing matters for everyone.

Humans have evolved as omnivores, with specific nutritional needs that are virtually impossible to meet on a purely vegan diet, even with supplements. Your children need to get these nutrients as they are growing and developing. If the ethics of factory farming are your issue, source a local farm shop where you can guarantee good welfare standards, and buy meat, dairy & eggs for your children, it’ll be more expensive but they don’t need to eat meat every day. If your garden is a decent size consider getting 3-4 chickens, ex-commercial hens continue to lay eggs long after they are ‘retired’ and you have the added ethical bonus of rescuing them from slaughter.

Be mindful of what plant proteins you eat, many are farmed half way around the world in huge industrial fields, which has a catastrophic impact on ecosystems and wildlife, not to mention the food miles involved in delivering it to you.

Going vegan is a wonderful idealistic thought, but as a long term diet it can lead to various deficiencies, and it’s not as environmentally and ethically clean as most people think.

By all means adopt a vegan diet for yourself, if you must, but consider vegetarian or flexitarian for your children until they are old enough to genuinely choose for themselves.

So this is the issue. Your 5 year old vegan child goes to school. Maybe you can give them some fortified ready brek and fortified oat milk for breakfast, but then lunch you have no control over because school lunches aren't eaten or are fairly nutritionally rubbish for vegans, and lunchbox items are binned/swapped, then they come back for dinner. At which point you need to feed them half a bucket of broccoli to get the calcium in. Try doing that every day for a month. Also the beans they've eaten with the baked potato at lunch have actually inhibited calcium uptake but you kinda need them for the protein.

So the leafy green strategy might work for an adult but a child who goes off ready brek after a week or doesn't want to eat kale that night, it's just a lot harder. You have to supplement or just feed them milk and eggs and let them go vegan once they're fully grown.

It’s all about being aware OP
In terms of calcium

Vegan children can get enough calcium through
fortified plant milks (soya, oat),
yogurts, cereals, calcium-set tofu, leafy greens (kale, broccoli), tahini, and fortified juices

Fortified Soya milk contains about the same as cows milk 240/300mg a cup
Fortified Soya yoghurt about 120/150 per pot
Plant based foods etc etc also provide calcium

Its not hard when you know how and you sound invested enough to do the research

If you’re referring to soya farming then you should know that most of it gets fed to livestock.

Why would beans eaten at lunch hamper calcium absorption from breakfast time anymore than a ham sandwich made with whole grain bread (presume you’re trying to be clever about phytates) ?

Quite right

I also find the various comments on here suggesting letting children be old enough until they can chose for themselves
should consider it’s more moral to allow children to chose to eat animals themselves when they are older and not force that on them without choice

Yes, it is rather muddled to think it is taking away choice to make them live on plants, but not taking away their choice to make them eat killed animals which they would in reality want to kiss and hug, and which they will have been told never to harm etc.

We lived overseas and invited the mother of our nanny to come and stay. I asked her what she likes to cook and she said, “I do a good dog.”

I was horrified. But really, dog, pig, cow… what’s the difference?

Have you seen this short film? It’s for kids but it’s lovely and shows how intelligent livestock animals are

www.ciwf.org.uk/education/films/lets-ask-the-animals/

Better link to Lets Ask the Animals
m.youtube.com/watch?v=U970YxH3R0c

Calcium is in nearly all green veggies. Dairy is not a natural food source, how do you think humans survived before they worked out how to tame a cow? Why do you think a huge chunk of humans are lactose intolerant? Because we naturally aren’t supposed to digest breast milk after infancy.

@wantTobeVegan

There's a Veganuary thread you might find good for ideas

Agree with the pp who said it is a social issue and if my dd had a vegan friend, l probably wouldn't invite them round for tea - can cope with vegetarian but vegan - too restrictive. I know a couple of vegan children who hate the food they are made to eat but are too young to be able to do anything about it.

humans are omnivores, why restrict that until they’re old enough to say no thanks

Actually, you’re wrong. Humans are naturally frugivores.

Today on ‘Things that Never Happened.’ 🙄

I just go on all the advice I was given by dieticians to try and get calcium into my DC who are egg and dairy free. We were told that beans don't count as calcium and possibly make things worse so if it's your plan to do a ton of legumes for protein then this could be problematic for calcium. It was easy when they were babies and toddlers to follow a calcium rich diet but once they were at school and clubs, and were off their daily cup of milk, we had to give them supplements. It's just too hard to get them to eat that much green veg at breakfast and dinner on a consistent basis. When you actually look at how much calcium they need it's a lot!

"Nutritionist" is not a protected title, any one can call themselves a nutritionist.

OP there might be lots of vegan cake recipes but what do you do if your child is going to a birthday party and the birthday cake isn't vegan? Would you send your child with their own cake and expect them to not eat the food other children eat? That could be isolating.

What about when there just isn't vegan food available. People using the channel tunnel yesterday were delayed up to 11 hours, I bet there wasn't much vegan food around, even if you took a pack up.

See how it goes with your diet first.

If you really want to do this I would do vegan at home omnivore outside

Be very careful your child(ren) are getting the right diet, if they don't when little the consequences are life long.

There are no vegan human societies. It’s not a natural human diet. It’s only possible we cause of supplements which we can now create and add to foods or pills.

If you need to ask on mumsnet you do not yet have the knowledge to start a child on a vegan diet.

Children’s nutritional needs are also different from adults.

You need a strong, solid knowledge of nutritional needs and how to meet them.

Eh?!