Opinions on the Vegetarian diet for infants and toddlers.

Shabadu

But obviously the kids will be veggies or else!

Wow. My partner is a vegetarian, and even he agrees and encourages our son to eat meat for his health. Seriously, would you not even consider giving them oily fish?

Tar.Aldarion

Well, I don't believe she needs to, if that is her choice, as I'm sure she would know any alternatives needed, as we need to do that for ourselves, and just buy them.

Shabadu

Why are you assuming she would know 'any alternatives needed' Tar? She hasn't put out a dietary plan.

What bothers me is the fact she came across as believing she has a right to ignore her partner's wishes when it comes to feeding their children. I don't really think children will enjoy living in a house where their Mother makes them follow a vegetarian diet 'or else' while their Father sits down to a couple of lamb chops.

Research she carried out among African schoolchildren suggests as little as two spoonfuls of meat each day is enough to provide nutrients such as vitamin B12, zinc and iron.

The 544 children studied had been raised on diets chiefly consisting of starchy, low-nutrition corn and bean staples lacking these micronutrients.

This meant they were already malnourished.

Over two years, some of the children were given 2oz supplements of meat each day, equivalent to about two spoonfuls of mince.

Two other groups received either a cup of milk a day or an oil supplement containing the same amount of energy. The diet of a fourth group was left unaltered.

The changes seen in the children given the meat, and to a lesser extent the milk or oil, were dramatic.

These children grew more and performed better on problem-solving and intelligence tests than any of the other children at the end of the two years.

Adding either meat or milk to the diets also almost completely eliminated the very high rates of vitamin B12 deficiency previously seen in the children.

Professor Allen stressed that although the study (which was partially supported by the National Cattleman's Beef Association) was conducted in a poor African community that was malnourished, its message was highly relevant to people in developed countries.

She accepted that adults could avoid animal foods if they took the right supplements, but she said adding animal source food into the diet was a better way to tackle malnutrition worldwide than quick fixes with supplements in the form of pills.

From here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4282257.stm

Obviously you know what suits you best but I am amazed at that school of thought particularly when you look at the state of the majority of childrens diets today.Most of that processed crap I wouldn't even classify as food!
Perhaps your fella has a similarly unnutrious diet and is worried that his son would suffer if he followed suit.

Regardless of weather you eat meat or not, if you eat a varied and therefore balanced, fresh diet, homecooked then your going to be healthy.As for oily fish, veggies have a higher intake of good fats in general, and so are less likly to be deficient in EFA, which the majority of the population is anyway because processed food destroys them.
I have been a veggie since I was 10 years old and nutrionally my health has never suffered, I regularly give blood and unlike some of my meat eating friends I have never been turned away for low iron.
I have two friends who eat practically only red meat and potatoes as they dislike vegs, and both have needed B vitamin injections, as a result of being so deficient.I would also wager a bet that most people are low in zinc these days as I notice that most of our generations women have strecthmarks.

Respect for life is my strongest moral, it is just as important as my BF's religion is to him, and that is why I won't compromise on that point.
And this is also why even though I am incredibly apatheic towards organised religion, I won't prevent my BF raising our children in his faith.
Not everyone feels like this about Veggie/veganism though, for some people it is simply a choice, and there is nothing wrong with that!

Shabadu

Shabadu wrote:

Why are you assuming she would know 'any alternatives needed' Tar? She hasn't put out a dietary plan.

What bothers me is the fact she came across as believing she has a right to ignore her partner's wishes when it comes to feeding their children. I don't really think children will enjoy living in a house where their Mother makes them follow a vegetarian diet 'or else' while their Father sits down to a couple of lamb chops.




From here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4282257.stm

I don't know why I am bothering but here goes.

Shabadub my children won't be starving in africa!they won't be suffering from malnorishment! and so that data is completely irrelevent!
I have a very wide varied diet, I love cooking and food, unlike alot of Irish women of my generation! and my children will benefit from this.I have never planned my diet down to the gram, and have always met my nutritiona requirements.If you research that simply isn't neccessary as a veggie because you still have a broad range of foodstuff to chosse from.Veganism takes more effort.

The traditional irish diet is extremely limited and I believe this reflects in our general poor longevity and high levels of diet related disease.Yet I am sure you would never dream of lecturing these people on their diet.

As you might gather from my above reply this is a more important topic to me than it is to my BF, as religion is more important to him.Someone has to compromise and as it means more to me, he is happy to and vice versa.Obviously we have discussed this, like you have with your partner,I am sure you agree that it isn't my place to be bothered about decisions that the pair of you make so why should you worry about us.

All children enjoy being with their mothers full stop.
When a child is small you make all their decisions, And whatever you teach the child is their normality, they don't even consider the alternative until they are ready to, at which point that is their perogative.

shroomfox

I've got a friend or two who've been veggie by choice since they were very young (you know, five or six, I'm not up on my kid-ology, but I reckon that's pretty young for a vegetarian diet) and they've no problems.

Personally, I was a pork chop maniac.

The traditional irish diet is extremely limited

What...like, potatoes and/or famine?

Shabadu

Obviously you know what suits you best but I am amazed at that school of thought particularly when you look at the state of the majority of childrens diets today.Most of that processed crap I wouldn't even classify as food!

I agree that processed foods are having a detrimental affect on the mental and physical, even emotional states of our children, and while in some areas, particularly urban areas, processed food is becoming the norm, it is in no way the daily reality for the majority of the country.

Perhaps your fella has a similarly unnutrious diet and is worried that his son would suffer if he followed suit.

Wrong.

Regardless of weather you eat meat or not, if you eat a varied and therefore balanced, fresh diet, homecooked then your going to be healthy.As for oily fish, veggies have a higher intake of good fats in general, and so are less likly to be deficient in EFA, which the majority of the population is anyway because processed food destroys them.

The majority of the population do not solely subsist on processed foods.

I have been a veggie since I was 10 years old and nutrionally my health has never suffered, I regularly give blood and unlike some of my meat eating friends I have never been turned away for low iron.
I have two friends who eat practically only red meat and potatoes as they dislike vegs, and both have needed B vitamin injections, as a result of being so deficient.I would also wager a bet that most people are low in zinc these days as I notice that most of our generations women have strecthmarks.

Completely apocryphal. If we are allowed use baseless circumstantial evidence, then I may as well tell you about the three anaemic cousins I have, whose parents insisted they had a vegetarian childhood. They have been plagued with health problems, teeth problems etc.

Respect for life is my strongest moral, it is just as important as my BF's religion is to him, and that is why I won't compromise on that point.
And this is also why even though I am incredibly apatheic towards organised religion, I won't prevent my BF raising our children in his faith.
Not everyone feels like this about Veggie/veganism though, for some people it is simply a choice, and there is nothing wrong with that!

I understand and respect your choice to be a vegetarian, but I personally believe that you could cause your children unnecessary pain. A friend of the family has a daughter with pku, basically a disorder which means your body cannot break down phenylalanine, an essential amino acid. As such, sufferers must follow a strict vegan diet and supplement with special dietary products that measure and regulate their EAA intake. When she was three, they caught her eating chicken wings she found in the bin. She absolutely craved meat. Nowadays she saves up points by eating carefully so she can have a sausage once a week. How will you cope if you have a two year old who's dying to tuck into his/her father's dinner which contains meat?

I don't know why I am bothering but here goes.

Sorry, what are you implying here?

Shabadub my children won't be starving in africa!they won't be suffering from malnorishment! and so that data is completely irrelevent!

It is not irrelevant. It is showing that even though the children had a source of starch and vitamins from vegetables, they suffered physically and mentally because of a lack of a small portion of meat each day. Do you know that there is a chemical in red meat that is crucial to the forming of serotonin? I'm sure you've also read the studies that show that a vegetarian diet can induce depression in people that are already in a risk category of suffering from it? There is a long history of depression from both my family, and my partners, so we are trying to give our son the best start at fighting it, through a diet of wholegrains, pulses, green leafy veg, oily fish, and small but regular portions of meat, along with the occasional chicken nugget, biscuit or lollypop.

I have a very wide varied diet, I love cooking and food, unlike alot of Irish women of my generation! and my children will benefit from this.I have never planned my diet down to the gram, and have always met my nutritiona requirements.If you research that simply isn't neccessary as a veggie because you still have a broad range of foodstuff to chosse from.Veganism takes more effort.

I really wish you wouldn't try to patronise me.

The traditional irish diet is extremely limited and I believe this reflects in our general poor longevity and high levels of diet related disease.Yet I am sure you would never dream of lecturing these people on their diet.

Untrue. The traditional Irish diet was very well balanced. Brown bread, berries, root vegetables, leafy vegetables, honey, fish, milk, meat on occasion, some dairy produce. The diet some of Ireland has developed is unhealthy, yes, but not our traditional diet.

As you might gather from my above reply this is a more important topic to me than it is to my BF, as religion is more important to him.Someone has to compromise and as it means more to me, he is happy to and vice versa.Obviously we have discussed this, like you have with your partner,I am sure you agree that it isn't my place to be bothered about decisions that the pair of you make so why should you worry about us.

I'm not worried about what you decide. What you should know is that your child could decide something very different.

All children enjoy being with their mothers full stop.
When a child is small you make all their decisions, And whatever you teach the child is their normality, they don't even consider the alternative until they are ready to, at which point that is their perogative.

You don't even have a child, and to be honest, you haven't got a clue what it's like to be a parent. Children are people in their own right. Mine is only two and he has an absolute opinion about what he likes and doesn't like to eat. He loves olives, but wouldn't touch a raw tomato. He lives for broccoli, but would go nuts if you tried to give him mashed potatoes. He'll eat roast carrots, but wouldn't touch an identically sized piece of roast parsnip. You quite simply cannot predict what your child will or won't eat, especially if they see their Dad, typically their hero, eating something that they're not allowed to have for some reason.


You simply cannot say that a meat eating diet is generally unhealthy and a vegtarian diet is generally healthy because there is a tendency for some meat eating families, commonmly belonging to a lower socioeconomic backround eat unhealthy processed foods, while vegetarian families, typically more affluent, have healthier diets. It speaks more about our society than our diets.

Tar.Aldarion

Bact to the topic.
I have finally managed the time to read up on all the views of the (major)recognised nutrition organisations around the world.
According to them, taking everything into account as best they can,obviously:

Vegetarianism and veganism are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence with no 'loss' of anything.