Would you feed your child a vegan/vege diet?!

You're child will thank you for being enlightened. You have had a child, you have mammaries. Somehow, milk is evolutionarily involved. I was not breast fed, but I would recommend it just from what I've read about how it helps Baby's immune system.
I couldn't put it better than you did. What we eat, listen to, wear, who we hang out with is all a lifestyle choice. Hopefully you arrived at it on your own knowing this is the path for you. But I would definitely offer what being a vegetarian/vegan has done for you. Your child will only benefit. But he or she should arrive at that choice on their own like you did.

Friend - you say you would never feed your children meat. Certainly your choice and I respect it. However, would you punish your children if they ate it behind your back?
You totally gave me a thumbs down. I give you a thumbs up by standing by your convictions. -------

you and your husband can look into the following information.
search the internet with the phrase "vegetarian baby food recipes"

for vegetarian and vegan recipes other members of your family would like
use The One Word A Search Idea such as: breakfast, casserole, fruit, lunch, raw, sandwich,
smoothie, snack, and souffle in the search box of vegetarian times at http://www.vegetariantimes.com
and veg web at http://vegweb.com

http://www.google.com

http://www.yahoo.com

http://www.vegetariantimes.com

http://vegweb.com

In this day and age, I believe that you should feed your children whatever you like to feed them within your food budget.

I don't believe in forcing my beliefs on to anyone, let alone a child when or if I have a child.

I was brought up to try as many things as I could and to choose if I liked them or not, this is how I would like to raise a child if I have one. Giving them a full choice of what they want.

My daughter has been Vegetarian her whole life (she is 16) and she is great.

Edit, we never forced her, well when she was a baby my Wife tried to get her to eat meat, but she didn't swallow it, so she gave up. By the time she was old enough to decide, she didn't want to eat animals. She may change, thats up to her.

If my husband was a meat eater my Childeren would eat meat but eat vegetarian alot of the time and if my husband were vegetarian our kids would be vegetarian tell they are old enough to make their own choices and they would always be alowd to try meat samples and to try meat when they're at partys or resteraints.

This was commented on yesterday. I believe my answer remains the same now as it did then.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind…

Mother of 2 vegetarian children, who have been brought up vegetarian since birth.

Of course.
A plant-based diet provides many health benefits.

How is feeding your child meat any less "forcing your views on them"?
Because it's more popular?

No. Just a well balanced diet, meats included. If they decide to become vegan\vegetarian later on in life, then that's their choice.

i agree with you, i wouldn't force anything on my children, i would allow them to choose what they want and support them in their decision

I agree with you. I would let them have a traditional diet until they grow up and let them make the choice of what to eat when they grow up.

Whatever is best for your child, I'm sure my docotor would reccomend protein through a meat diet.

Absolutely 100%.

NO

Meat FTW

vegan food

If I was a true vegan, I certainly would be eating a super nutritious diet and taking supplements if I was breastfeeding. If your child isnt gaining weight do you not suppose checking in with the doc before it was 11 months old might have been a good idea? That's simply neglect and those parents should be held very much responsible.
The vegan/vege diets are fine if you are getting the right amounts of vitamins/nutrients/minerals and such, many do not. Nutritionist/homeopaths/naturopaths/fami… doctors should be consulted regarding supplements for these diets, especially when regarding prenancy and breastfeeding.
Children should have the right to decide moreso even in a split household. Informed decisions are the best. I eat this because, and mom eats that because. But really parents should be able to see if their child is or isn't thriving.
Children can thrive on diets solid with hotdogs, kraft dinner and other easy and affordable meals. No reason why they cannot thrive as vegans or vegetarians.

of course, and that vegan news story has been old all day.
They didn't feed the baby enough. Plenty of people can do that, the only thing the news focussed on is that they're vegan people. For crissake how many starving children die under the care of burger eating slobs ?
Loads.

My kids will eat what I give them, and I eat good food. MEat? What does meat have , what special magic ingredient does it have? None. It has no fibre, not many vitamins, can't be leeched well when its cooked, for protein, a major digestive block. I'd never feed my kid meat.

Why should your beliefs about meat-until-they're-old-enough be forced on your child too, even when you are vegetarian? Vegetarian is a traditional diet for many.

I would think that a vegan diet should be limited to fully grown adults who aren't in important growing and developmental stages of their life, and can supplement lack of vital nutrients with vitamins, etc.

Humans biologically are omnivores, developing best when eating a mix of plants, meats, grains, etc. Fats and proteins are important for children (in responsible quantities of course), especially since they change and grow so much, so fast on their way to adulthood.

If you have ethical reasons for being a vegan or a vegetarian, one would hope that your children get a chance to make their own choices on the matter, because their health should come before any feelings about food consumption or production. If its for dietary reasons, that's fine if someone has issues with weight, but I would want my kids to begin their lives with balanced diets, eating regular foods.

Why do you think that case rocked the news so much? Its ONE case about VEGANS. Its a perfect opportunity to villify veganism. If it was really such an issue, we'd have veggie and vegan kids keeling over every five minutes. But we don't. I don't want children but if I did I would raise them Lacto-ovo (I am vegan) until they were old enough to choose, and if they chose meat that's their decision. That is not forcing any way. Every parents raises their child the way they think is best. Meat versus no meat, breast versus bottle, attachment parenting or not...there's no absolutes.

First, regarding the news story, such stories never include all of the details.

The baby did not die due to a vegan diet. It died due to the mother not eating a proper diet that included certain vitamins in a higher dose than her usual needs since she was breastfeeding.

I have two kids, vegan from conception, and they are very healthy, athletic, intelligent, and actually quite a bit taller than the other kids their age (not sickly, no cavities, etc.). When they were born, the people who helped birth them, who have each been birthing children for thirty years on a regular basis, said they were so very healthy (including the mother) compared to the typical problems they encounter with the general public. The parents, in my case, were very well informed about the different dietary needs of a pregnant mother, and a breastfeeding mother. Our children were both breastfed. For eight months exclusively, then continuing to breast feed for years afterwards. Introducing first food at eight months and slowly introducing new foods and saving the 'adult' foods (salts, sugars, fried, heavily cooked, etc.) for when they were older, at least three or four years old (if at all).

Remember, a vegan diet can still include doughnuts, coffee, french fries, soda pop, .... Just being vegan will not magically transform a person into a healthy person.

Now, regarding not wanting to force your beliefs onto your children, well, that's nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense. That is the whole reason you have children, so that you can raise them better than other people do. Do you think that a Catholic family would say, "Well, we won't mention Jesus or God or anything about religion and allow them to decide later on in life when they are old enough to think for themselves." It would never happen. What about this one, "Well, we'll let them eat all the junkfood they want and when they are older they can decide for themselves whether or not junkfood it good for them." You are your child's parent, you are there to make informed decisions for them. It's your DUTY to do the research for THEM. You are their guardian and protector. You can't just do something on hearsay or your own personal opinions, you must educate yourself.

Parents will go and read all the books, talk to others, do tonnes of research just for their kid that wants to play hockey. They'll look into every aspect of the sport for their little Johnny. Yet, when it comes to food, hey, we'll let Johnny decide what's best for him. Humans are herbivores, it's obvious when you start doing some reading on the topic of how to identify a herbivore or carnivore or omnivore, or reading about how the human digestive system works.

What about our family friend that, while pregnant, would get so terribly ill when she ate meat that she'd be taken to the emergency room at the hospital. Even a small piece of meat would make her terribly ill. Her baby didn't want it, but she continued to eat meat, force it down, and suffer, because they said that she needs meat for her baby's health. Unfortunately, she was wrong. She created all sorts of health problems for her son and her self. After he was born, she would force him to eat meat. He would get deathly ill and throw it up, yet she continued, simply because she believed that meat was a magical food that contained all the nutrients her baby needed. He was in and out of the hospital because of this alone.

Was that story in the newspapers? Where people tweeting and facebooking that story all over the internet? Nope. It's an everyday occurrence - it's 'normal'. Kids are born every day with all sorts of problems due to their mother's poor diet. It's not news - it's 'normal'. Ask any doctor or midwife to tell you some of the thing they see everyday at births and you'll see that my story is just the tip of the iceberg.

I would, and I do! My children are 15 and 13 and have never eaten meat and are in fine health and always have been. They know they have always been allowed to eat meat but that they would not be getting it from me. Parents raise their children in their own image and according to their own culture and beliefs. With all due respect to your choice, I would think that a vegetarian would raise her child as a vegetarian. Sure your case is different as your husband is a meat eater, and you don't appear to have any strong conviction either way.

As for vegans, well they have to be pretty well-read about vegan nutrition in order to raise a baby but it can be done. An old work mate of mine was vegan from birth and you would not meet a healthier person.

The couple in the link you mentioned are more guilty of being headstrong and ignoring the warning signs. Many children live on breastmilk and not much else at 11 months, so it depends on the mother's nutrition as to whether the child is getting enough of everything via the breastmilk.

I am a vegan and any children I have will certainly be brought up vegan. I have seen that article, what happened to that baby is NOTHING to do with the fact it was a vegan, its to do with the fact that the parents were not giving it a healthy diet. Hundreds of children every year become malnourished when an omnivore but it is never reported! There is nothing healthy about putting meat into your children's bodies, it is after all a corpse that they would be eating, why do people think that is normal? A vegan diet is perfectly healthy and natural for a child, it just needs to be a balanced diet obviously. The mother of the child in the news obviously wasn't on a healthy balanced vegan diet herself, which made her baby unhealthy.

Absolutely. I do not yet have kids. However, if you read the report there is a lot more going on than a vegan diet. They disregarded the doctor's orders and they were trusting a book over a well trained physician. I think this focuses more on holistic medicine (which I am also not opposed to) than a vegan diet. After all how does a vegan get a vitamin a deficiency? That is found in many plant based foods, with one of its higher concentrations being in carrots!

I am sorry the kid died, it really is sad. However; there is an issue of placing the blame in the right places. Let's look at the facts:

-Medical journals are consistently telling how a plant based diet is superior to an omnivorous diet.
-Anything an animal has in its meat, it had to get from plants (unless you are also eating omnivores, which is rare, and still proves my point since omnivorous animals eat plants and other animals that eat plants). Its just common sense.
-If people were intended to be omnivores (like dogs or bears) we would have teeth and digestive tracts like them. We don't. We have flat teeth (like a cow) and a long efficient intestinal tract with many twists and turns and crevices to extract all nutrients. That is why omnivores are prone to colon cancer: The meet that is rotting in their colon wasn't intended to be there in the first place!

Let's also consider that your point of "forcing your beliefs" on your child. Every parent does it, its part of being a parent. You believe it is wrong to lie, so you punish your kid when they do. Your kid punches another kid for no reason, and you probably do something about it. Those are your beliefs, societal beliefs. If I believe it is wrong for people to eat meat, then why would I feed it to my kid? Either way it isn't their decision. To eat meat or not, they don't choose. They eat what the mother eats (or whatever is in similac), and then they eat what the parent's feed them. Feed them meat, don't feed them meat, either way you are forcing something on your child, its part of being a parent. That's why kids need parents, to guide them. If we didn't force beliefs onto kids, they would die.

If the parents listened to the doctor, the kid would have probably been fine. The girl grew up and didn't have any problems.

Sorry to sound preachy and write so much, it really is your choice, I'm just defending my point. The article itself is flawed. The parents didn't deny the kid food/nutrition, they denied him proper health care.

I'm a vegan and I've taken nutritional classes.

nope.
all the veg*ns i persoanlly know are always sick and more prone to injury.
it isn't a belief, humans are omnivores, it's a scientific fact.

one of the reasons the fda recommends more iron, for example, for veg*ns is that the iron in veggies is a different kind which your body doesn't use/use as well, and children aren't really made aware of these differences. same idea w/ pretien and calcium, etc....all of which are extreme,y important for their development to fully mature/grow.
further, they are more likely to do it simply for attention from their peers rather than because they think it's healthy...

life at 46 as well as being able to see/observe results of these people and read facts on nutrition, not hype from self important "i'm better than you because i'm vegan" elitists (and this is how htey present, in my experience, just read some of the answers here).