Does a Plant-Based Diet Provide Adequate Nutrition for Your Child?

The first question many vegetarian or vegan parents are asked is whether or not the diet they provide has sufficient vitamins, minerals, fats and other nutrients their children need for growth. There is an abundance of information showing the nutritional advantages of plants and that meat and dairy are not necessary to a healthy diet. However, answering these questions gives you the opportunity to inform others about the benefit of plant-nutrition. The plethora of products available nowadays, such as those put out by Hampton Creek, make placing plants at the focal point of your family’s diet a more viable option than ever.

Plants and Calcium, Iron, Protein and Fats

Many people adopt a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle to reduce their blood pressure and risk for certain cancers. This might be fine for people of a certain age, so the reasoning goes, but some may balk at the idea of a parent of young children replacing cow’s milk with soy or almond varieties or removing meat and chicken from the menu and adding plant-based alternatives. Concerned relatives may worry that the child is not receiving enough calcium, protein, iron and fats for growth.
Societies throughout the world have long known the value of plant-foods and that it is not necessary to consume animal-based milk and meat to be healthy. In some cultures, drinking a glass of milk is virtually unheard of, and meat is eaten only on rare occasions or not at all, according to some religious traditions. Children can receive all of the nutrients they need from foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals.

The conventional wisdom (or misinformation) is that calcium can be found almost exclusively from milk derived from animals. While kale, spinach and almonds have calcium, so the logic goes, the mineral can’t be absorbed properly from plant foods. The fact is that calcium begins in the soil and enters animals through plants. Sources of calcium that can provide your child the calcium he or she needs include sesame seeds, almonds, and leafy greens. Add techina, a sesame seed paste, to sandwiches instead of peanut butter or serve raw vegetables and hummus, a chick pea dip with sesame.

Iron beneficial for the blood, and can be obtained through legumes, particularly lentils and black-eyed peas, and greens such as kale. Create a seasoned stew of legumes and greens to serve over rice. Soy, beans and nuts can give your children a combination of amino acids for a high-protein diets, and also offer sufficient fats for nerve development and proper growth.

Plant Foods Can Be Fun and Tasty

Incorporating plant foods into your child’s diet can seem to be a challenge at first, but children tend to be adaptable even after initial resistance. The good thing about adopting a plant-based diet is that, in most cases, the transition doesn’t need to take place overnight, and the new diet often features kids’ favourite foods. Hampton Creek has a delicious selection of kid-friendly foods such as healthy egg-free mayo and cookie dough. Barring nut allergies, many kids love nuts, especially in the form of peanut butter, so start using natural varieties of nut butters as a meat or cheese replacement.
Raw vegetables are nature’s perfect finger food, and even the most vegetable-shy child may enjoy carrot sticks and cucumber and pepper slices. Add a high-protein dip for added nutrition. Fruits are nature’s sweets, and seedless grapes are portable, convenient, and enjoyable. With gradual changes and food your child enjoys, your child may not even miss meat.

A Word About Babies and Toddlers

Babies need food from a mammal, but that food is milk from its mother. Breast milk is the perfect food for babies, and contains all of the nutrients and fats that the baby needs. In addition, bonding is created during breastfeeding, and this interaction can increase the baby’s sense of well-being and boost the immune system of both the mother and the baby. For mother’s who are not able to breastfeed, natural formulas are available, but it is best to avoid conventional formulas form the supermarket that contain artificial ingredients that are not healthy for babies.

Children should, ideally, be allowed to self-wean. For women who work or children who attend pre-school, milk can be pumped by the mother and fed to the child. Children can be raised healthily on a plant-based diet from a young age, but it is advisable to consult a doctor. For those who prefer to eat some dairy and fish, goat and lambs milk is usually healthier than cow’s milk and cheeses. For fish, it is best to avoid farmed fish.

Raising your child on plant-based diet provides a child with all of the vitamins and minerals he or she needs. With childhood obesity becoming in increasing problem and the lack of knowledge about what companies are putting in our food, more parents are opting for natural alternatives and are reaping the benefits of raising their children on a healthy plant-based diet.