Raising Vegetarian Kids

Being vegetarian may be increasingly common, but many people still question how a meat-free diet affects a person's health. Like any dietary choice, vegetarianism can be done responsibly, or badly. Those people who would like to raise their kids without meat can certainly do so in a very healthy way. Read on to find out more about raising children on extremely healthy and responsible vegetarian diets.

What Is A Vegetarian Diet?

At the most basic level, the word “vegetarian” indicates a meatless diet. This diet may consist mostly of vegetables, but that is certainly not always the case. There are different types of vegetarians, something most people will have heard about already.

The types of people who are usually included in the "vegetarian" umbrella term include:

• Vegans, who do not eat anything of animal origin. Milk and dairy products and eggs are obviously no-gos for vegans, but many people with a vegan diet also refrain from eating honey — because it is produced by bees and thus of animal origin, and the bees did not give you permission to eat that.

• Lacto vegetarians and lacto-ovo vegetarians. Lacto vegetarians include milk and dairy products in their diets, which may come from cows or other animals such as sheep or goats, while lacto-ovo vegetarians also eat eggs.

• Pesco vegetarians eat fish as well. Fish may be meat, but it is consider to have a different quality to it. For many people, cutting out most meat while keeping fish and seafood is a first step on the road toward vegetarianism.

• Occasional meat-eaters eat mostly vegetarian diets (of any kind), but will eat meat occasionally. Some will eat meat when they go out for dinner, and others will only eat organic meat occasionally (because that stuff is expensive!).

• Raw-food vegans limit themselves to raw food only. They eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, and nuts but can also prepare beans and legumes in ways that make them fit for raw consumption.

I'll immediately admit that I have not seen any statistics about the number of vegetarians that current exist across the world, but it is very clear that vegetarianism has been on the rise during the last couple of decades. My mother became a vegetarian in her teens, for ideological reasons. Not eating meat was very unusual in those days. I grew up on a meatless diet in a time where most people knew about vegetarianism, and during which the choice of not eating meat was fairly acceptable. The majority of people still thought that children should always eat meat — though they may have accepted the adult's choice to “become unhealthy” by being vegetarian. Now, my own children are third-generation vegetarians and it is rare to have anyone bat an eyelid because of that.

I would like to use my own example to point out that not every vegetarian excludes meat from their diet because of ideological reasons. My mother was a hippie, pacifist, and environmentalist. I have no problem with eating meat at all, and even tried it as a teen. It seems like being meat-free throughout childhood does something to your taste buds, though, because meat makes me vomit. I don't cook meat for my kids because I don't know how to and wouldn't enjoy working with meat. Both have occasionally tried meat in restaurants and at other peoples' houses, and likewise don't enjoy it.

Is a vegetarian diet damaging to a person's health?

Is being vegetarian actually healthier than being an omnivore? Those are two very frequent questions people who are interested in the topic for any reason ask. I'll leave it at this: a balanced and responsible diet including selections from all the important food groups leads to better health. When your nutritional needs have been met, you don't suffer from nutritional deficiencies unless you have an underlying medical problem. Every person benefits from being tested for deficiencies once in a while.

It is possible to be an über-healthy meat eater just as much as it is possible to be a junk-food vegetarian. I have met both, and many variations in between — as have you, I am sure. The key to making a diet healthy is to approach it with common sense. For vegetarians, this may mean looking into which vitamins and minerals are more easily found in meat and looking for vegetarian sources of the same.

Young Children And The Vegetarian Diet

Is it OK to raise children on a vegetarian diet? The short but scientific answer is yes. You were probably looking for a somewhat more detailed explanation, though.

Not eating meat is not an obstacle for children who are raised on a balanced diet and who do not have nutritional deficiencies. In fact, evidence suggests that vegetarian children are less likely to be obese. Vegetarian foods can still provide all the good fats you need — unsaturated fats and fatty acids.

A vegetarian diet is less likely than omnivorous diet to contain an excess of saturated fats; the kind of fats that makes you fat and clogs your arteries up.

Some people are concerned about a lack of protein. The simple fact is that it is almost impossible to eat a diet that is too low on protein, even if you don't eat meat. For those who eat eggs, eggs are a fantastic source of protein. Those who don't eat eggs still have plenty options: all kinds of beans (including soy bean products like tofu), quinoa, nuts and seeds and whole grains. Even veggies like spinach and broccoli contain protein.

Calcium is not going to be a problem for your vegetarian kids either, especially if you do use milk and dairy products as we do in our family. Turnip greens, bok choi, kale, spinach, Chinese cabbage, sesame seeds, parsley, alfafa, and seaweed are just some random non-dairy sources of calcium. There are many more.

Iron is yet another biggie that many people, including those who are themselves vegetarian, think about a lot. Many take iron supplements just in case. I would not advise any parent of vegetarian kids to supplement their children's diet with iron pills unless they have actually been diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia. These supplements are not readily absorbed and can easily lead to constipation. Nettle tea is a better, more natural source of iron as well as almost all other vitamins and minerals.

You may not need to artificially boost your iron intake at all, however. Vegetable sources of iron include spinach, red lentils, kidney beans, peas, broccoli, kale, soy beans or derivatives like tofu, dried apricots and prunes, beets, brown rice and kelp. Again, this is non an exhaustive list.

Finally, we will take a look at vitamin B12 — the “meat vitamin” you may be wondering about too. Meat is indeed the most well-known source of B12, but you may be surprised that it turns up in quite a few other foods as well. Think bananas, dates, greens, peanuts, and especially in bean sprouts and raw sunflower seeds.