Please don’t fear for my vegan children

Yet another headline in the news about the awfulness of the vegan diet, and the horrid parents that inflict it on their children, prompts me to get my blog on.

News such as this contributed to the disdain I felt for vegans… You know, before I became one.

I lived with this assumption that you could be healthy on a vegan diet but it was a massive amount of work, all for purely moral reasons I didn’t care to understand. The majority of vegans in my mind were, of course, sickly and weak. Sacrificing themselves to the cause, which is all well and good, until children become involved. It would be cruel to force a child to take up such a restrictive diet, right?

There are a lot of big businesses who need us to keep believing that narrative too, their bottom line depends on it.

But tell me, when was the last time you saw omnivorous child in crisis? “Normal” kids never become malnourished in first world countries, do they? There are no bad omni parents. Omni parents never have their kids taken by DOCS. They never neglect their children in any way, and they certainly never feed their children anything that could make them sick. That’s why there are no children with lifestyle diseases, like type 2 diabetes.

The truth of the matter is that it is so common that it rarely makes the news, and when it does the headlines don’t read Meaty diet to blame for leaving toddler malnourished because no one brings society’s normal-but-ridiculously-destructive diet into the conversation.

There are little kids so obese they can’t enjoy their lives and immerse themselves in active play the way their bodies naturally drive them to. That’s a whole lot closer to abuse than making them eat their greens.

I’ve seen babies on the bus drinking chocolate milk out of bottles. A toddler at the zoo with a can of coke. I’ve seen “babies first bacon” photos and no one bats an eye that your kid can’t even speak and you are feeding them something PROVEN to give them CANCER. Parent of the year award, coming right up. And yes, I was guilty of that with my first. I’m included in those ranks, and no one had the balls to call me out on it. I have a friend whose baby’s first “solid” food was ice cream. Ice cream. What the fuck are you even doing? 

Yet I’ve got a family member who believes vegan parents should all be rounded up and sent straight to jail. Riiight. 

Here are a handful of links I dug up in about as many minutes, in case you really believe only vegans get malnourished or inflict terrible diets on their kids:

Boy nearly eats himself blind.
British teen hospitalised after eating nothing but chicken nuggets for 15 years.
Malnourished toddler left outside for several days.
More than half of American babies at risk of malnourishment.

Are there unhealthy vegans? Yes. Are there abusive vegans who should have never had children? Again, yes. But our families are not over represented in those categories. Statistically vegan people are healthier over all. We live longer. We have nearly boundless energy and are generally more aware of our bodies’ nutritional needs than average Joe, who knows where his protein comes from but very little else. 

Case in point, can you, without googling, tell me where you get your:
Zinc?
Magnesium? 
Iodine? 
Calcium? (hint: it’s not milk)
Vitamin K?

Can you tell me what CQ10 is, and how best to activate it in the body?

Can you tell me what to eat to best absorb iron from your meal, and what to avoid?

Probably not. But I, a woman with no post secondary qualifications, can. Because I’m vegan. Because I care enough about my family to feed them whole food plant based meals even though lamb is fucking delicious and dairy has always been a cornerstone of all my recipes. 

How many “normal” children do you know who not only enjoy salad, but ask for it for dinner?How many five year olds have you met who will say no to a chocolate, rather than pitching a fit, because they don’t want to consume dairy?

Can you name a single kid who will stop eating candy because they realise they will feel sick if they don’t save some for later? Mine do.

Oh but vegans are all terrible parents. It should be illegal to raise your kid vegan.
Witch, please.

And no, it’s not luck. My children didn’t bust out my shmoo with broccoli stuck in their gums. The goddesses’ healthy relationship with food is the result of hard work. Of being strong when I wanted to give in and just let them live off nugs and jam sandwiches. And most of all, leading by example. You can’t have a triple bacon cheeseburger for dinner and expect them to get excited over baked vegetables, it doesn’t work like that.

No one is perfect. I’m not saying you have to be, or claiming I am. Case in point this week I opened a can of baked beans, spread it on Lebanese bread (not even wholemeal) and passed it off as pizza because I didn’t feel like cooking. But most meals I do try.

For a two year old I generally manage to get three leaves per meal into them. By three years, it’s a pinch of mesclun mix. By four they say “we need to have a salad tonight” and by five they eat it every day at lunch without complaint.

But what do Bast’s peers eat? Tiny teddies. Cheese and Vegemite sandwiches. Crackers. Bacon and cheese rolls from baker’s delight. Yogurt in plastic cups. I know because the other parents on the playground moan about it, like it’s got nothing to do with them.

Our school is a crunch and sip school – which means at 10am all kids stop for a supervised snack that must be a fruit or vegetable.  For a lot of children, that’s the only unprocessed thing in their lunch boxes.

Tell me again how terrible vegans are. How unhealthy and malnourished vegan kids will become.
Tell me again how my children are othorexic, that I’m giving them an eating disorder… Then have a good long look in your fridge.

Is it full of heart disease? Type 2 diabetes? Colorectal cancer? Breast cancer? Osteoporosis?
What are you teaching your kids? What are you doing to yourself?

And that’s your right. That’s none of my business, or anyone else’s. Just as what my family eats doesn’t affect yours.

If you have gotten this far, you deserve a fucking medal, and I thank you. I hope that if you came to this blog full of concern over your poor vegan grand-kids or scared for your vegan niblings, I have been able to relieve some of that worry.

Please, don’t fear for my vegan children. Their omnivorous doctor is happy with their health. They are energetic. They are alert, focused and thriving. And I’m teaching them not to judge your kids by what they eat, so we’d appreciate if you could do the same for us.