What do you think about raising children organic and vegetarian? I’m seriously considering raising my child on an organic, vegetarian diet, but I’d like to get some outside feedback. Have you raised a child with this diet? What is your experience?
I’ve been vegetarian/vegan for about 12 years now and also plan to raise my son vegetarian. I got connected with a local group of veggie families that have meet-ups at vegetarian restaurants and have potlucks at members’ homes.
I know people who have been raised their whole lives on vegetarian diets (usually for religious reasons) and they’re perfectly healthy. Granted, I know people who have been raised on omnivorous diets (myself + many others), and we’re healthy as well. I would just keep in mind making sure they get their protein!
As for an organic diet, I’m not into it. [name]Penn[/name] and Teller have a good (and hilarious) debunking of the organic craze: - YouTube
I am forth generation vegetarian. My great-grandfather was a health inspector in NZ and decided that meat wasn’t near good enough for his family. I find being vegetarian easy and everywhere I go there is always something to eat and of it isn’t on the menu I ask for substitutions. It is harder for my little sister who is very picky but most places will make a grilled cheese if you are desperate. I have gone to steek houses with my friends and gotten a hearty salad. My joking ultimatum is if my great-grandparents could be vegetarian in the 30’s, in a land of meat and potatoes, without all the easily accessible veggie products and health food stores, everyone else has no excuse. I personally prefer eating organic but that diet is much harder to upkeep when you are a teenage girl.
I’m totally with you on this one. I was raised as a Vegetarian (Plus I’ve made the shift away from Dairy in the past year) and many members of my family are also Vegetarians (and have lived well into their 90s without any major health issues). I definitely plan on raising my upcoming child as such. Although my DH isn’t a Vegetarian, he respects the fact that I won’t cook meat for him, and he respects my choices regarding the raising of our child.
The only backlash I’ve really received thus far is from my in-laws, who insist that children need meat. I’m living proof that they do not as I’ve never had any deficiencies or major health issues.
I personally think it’s healthier to eat organic and eat vegetarian. Additionally, I usually try to cook from scratch rather than eating processed foods. The number of hormones and chemicals that go into meat products these days is disgraceful and can’t be good for children.
With that said, it’s a lot easier NOW to be a Vegetarian / Vegan than it was when my Mum was raising me as Tofu and Soy options are more readily available at the grocery store.
Good luck to you and I hope it works out 
The [name]PETA[/name] website has sections that are just for children, with resources and links to other materials. It is much easier to raise kids lacto-ovo rather than vegan, although both can be done. And if you go to amazon there are a few good books on raising vegetarian kids.
There’s no way I will ever raise my children vegetarian. If they, on their own, decide they don’t like or don’t want to eat meat, that’s fine.
My mom raised me vegetarian (lacto-ovo). It was really hard for me. At many restaurants, there wasn’t a lot for me to eat. Everyone expected me to basically live off salad and bread. Seriously. I remember many times where the food either had meat or was something I absolutely despised. It sucked.
I really started eating meat when I was about 14 or 15. I like meat. Well, some meat. I like chicken, beef, and pork (mmmmm bacon…). I try and get my meat from the health-food store, where it’s usually organic and always free-range. I’m in college, so that doesn’t always work as well as I’d like it to, but I try. When I graduate and have a job and money, I definitely want to eat mostly organic.
I agree with this. Vegetarianism is fine providing you get all the nutrients you need to be healthy and eating meat is perfectly fine too. I’m an omnivore myself and cook almost all of my food from scratch. My country has become very into organic and free range foods over the past decade or so it’s very easy to find healthy and additive free ingredients when out shopping.
However, there is a side to vegetarianism that I don’t like. [name]One[/name] of my friends at uni was raised vegetarian but, from the way she talked, it was done in a way that made her feel that eating meat was wrong and that she should never do it even if she wanted to. She basically had no say in the matter, even if she’d wanted to eat meat she wouldn’t have been allowed to and that’s the kind of attitude I disagree with. Vegetarianism should be a choice not a cult. Obviously not all vegetarians are like this.
Me and my boyfriend try to only eat organic (easy here in the U.K., all the food chains and chefs are very organic, and tons of restaurants as well) and baby will definitely ONLY eat/drink organic. I’m a vegan (been slipping a little now during pregnancy, have had some meat cravings),I believe it’s better for the earth not to eat meat, and I alson have less bipolar episodes when I eat only vegan food. Boyfriend is vegetarian for the most, eats meat on occasion but rarely when we’re home. So our baby will be raised vegetarian.
If I were you I would consult a nutritionist to make sure your baby gets a well balanced diet with enough nutrition (especially proteins), as it is individual what your child needs and it’s a bit trickier on a vegetarian diet. There’s plenty of nutrition in lentils, beans, quinoa, avocados, eggs etc.
Veganism-- strict-- can be and has been lethal for infants under one. I am not exaggerating.
Luckily vegetarianism is well-tolerated, though the diet needs to be supplemented not just with proteins but with fats. Infants need a far higher proportion of their calories from fats-- between 50 and 60%-- than do adults, who only need 20%. Fats are a necessary, irreplaceable substrate for many basic metabolic synthesis reactions necessary for life.
Also missing will be iron, Vitamin B12 and Vitamin B6. A breastfed, vegetarian baby is assured to be anemic by age 9 months, once the maternal iron stores transmitted during pregnancy are used up. Usually babies simply take oral iron supplements, but they do cause bad constipation.
Hundreds of million, if not billions, of children worldwide are either actual or functional vegetarians, due either to religious restriction or economic realities. In most cases, they are malnourished, due to both to total calorie consumption (not a problem for anyone reading this) as well as the deficincies in the diet mentioned above. This all definitely can be overcome, it just takes lots of thinking and caution.
I know a four year old little girl who’s parents are vegetarian and are raising her vegetarian as well. It works well for them (she enjoys talking about how she’s a vegetarian) but she’s at that stage where she is testing her limits and more curious, so she really wants to try meat, but her parents won’t let her. This could pose a problem in the future, but as long as you are prepared, it should work out smoothly. In my opinion, I think that it should be up to the child whether or not they want to be vegetarian or not. You could raise your child as a vegetarian until the age when they are old enough to make the choice for themselves, maybe about five or six years of age. Personally, I would never raise a child as a vegetarian or vegan nor be one myself unless I want to lose weight, but it is your life and your child, so make whatever choice you find right.
Dairy, whether from a human or other animal, is an important part of the infant diet. Aside from that if you want to raise your kid meat free that’s great & organic is great too.
I’ve known kids raised vegan & they’re fine (though most were given freedom to experiment once in school & most eat dairy products or meat products outside the home)
I do think that a vegetarian diet consisting of bagels, grilled cheese & pirate bootie could be worse than your typical meat eater diet so for me it’s more about balance & a varied diet.
I think it’s good to pick certain items to go organic with (potatoes!) & give up canned foods & cut down on processed foods. Make meat a smaller part of your diet & shop quality. But that’s just me.
Also- I think food can be a source for much stress & a way for kid’s to test limits as a pp mentioned
My friends have taken the approach of “we don’t make meat here” & “we don’t eat animals” but like I said, never made a war over it or made them feel different (to prevent alienation as much as superiority) or bad about wanting to experience something new.
I think it’s great to control the food you make & eat healthy but food battles can be problematic
I guess discuss your food philosophy for your family with your partner & decide what your rules & boundaries are with awareness of the food related issues that could come up for your child. For several years you should be fine but it’s good to decide if you’re a full time vegetarian
Let the in-laws/parents/ anyone close to you know your intentions too
I don’t think I’d necessarily raise my children vegetarian because I’d be nervous about them not eating meat during their developing stages(excuse my ignorance if I’m wrong, I haven’t really looked into it). I am definitely raising my daughter organically. Everything is ‘FDA approved’ but its jam packed with hormones and artificial ingredients.
We have a vegetarian house. My husband decided to start eating meat when out about 2 years ago and [name]Sebastian[/name] decided he would like to try meat when out as well about a year ago too. I have been veggie since 19 (I just turned 34) so having a vegetarian pregnancy and later, feeding baby a vegetarisn diet was not too much of a stretch for me. I have been able to successfully breastfeed all,my children until they were 3 (Vio) and 4 (the rest of them) so no weaning onto any other milks at a young age. DH became veggie when i was pregnant with [name]Bronwen[/name] and like I said, only stopped recently. My initial reason for not eating meat was that I feel it cruel to kill animals to feed myself. However, while we do keep a meat free home I also support my children choosing what goes into their bodies (within reason of course, if they wanted to live off twizzlers no way lol). [name]Bronwen[/name] has gone vegan before for a few weeks at a time and then back to being vegetarian. [name]Seb[/name] eats meat out and about as does DH. The little two do not seem to care one way or another. We eat a lot of organic, but choose local over organic if possible for a variety of reasons. Lots of foods close to their natural state, I bake and cook a lot from scratch (although now being so pregnant we have been doing a lot of "natural convience foods like newmans own pizza etc). But this is what works for us and so far so good. My kids are all healthy and strong and have no deficiencies.
Thank you for the feedback. Especially blade. I am by no means a strict vegetarian–I eat some fish (maybe a couple times a month), and I have been indulged in some chicken and turkey since cravings began. I eat vegetarian mostly because I don’t like all the hormones and additives given to animals, and organic meat is fairly expensive.
I certainly won’t be forcing my child to eat vegetarian, especially once he’s at school. And I will be looking more in depth, I just wanted to get some ideas to jump off from.
Jemama, I’ll definitely be coming to you with questions later on, if you don’t mind.
My husband and I are pescetarian and we enjoy it. I feel so much better and I don’t miss meat. However, I was was raised eating meat and all of our family eats meat. I have thought about this and I think when the time comes I will offer it to my child if it’s being served at other people’s houses. Of course I will continue to cook and eat our way in our own home. The way I see it is that being a pescetarian is a personal choice, and as my child won’t be able to make that choice on their own for quite sometime, I will not restrict their options. If it is offered and they like it, then they will have the choice to eat it when the circumstances allow. Of course I will encourage vegtables and I will do my best to make sure they develop a taste for fruit and veggies first. As for organic, I buy it for our home so it will make up the most of their diet, but I am not going to be weird about it. We can only shelter our kids for so long. I live in the U.S and I fully understand that we live in a high fructose, beef loving, pesticide spraying country and to say that I will ONLY allow my kid to eat organic and I will NEVER let them have meat is just setting myself up for failure before I even start.
I’ll be raising [name]Baby[/name] on organic, for sure. Most likely vegetarian as well, which is how I eat. My only qualm is that I’m nervous he/she won’t be getting the protein, iron, and vitamins he/she needs to develop normally. Can anyone recommend a good book specifically about raising vegetarian children?
I don’t have much experience in the area of vegan/vegetarianism but I am a second year nursing student and we’ve discussed the pros and cons in my biology classes. I think it’s certainly much healthier for a child to be allowed to eat all sorts of foods. And no, I don’t mean McDonalds chicken nuggets, but well prepared chicken tenders and hamburgers and such. Protein is extremely important for the body! Plus, your children will grow up with their own preferences, and stifling those to fit with the family’s diet is a little extreme.
Not trying to offend, that’s just how I see it.
I must say that my children have never had issues with iron, protein or B vitamins. Common misconception that no meat=unhealthy children or incomplete diets.