The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Eating for Kids - M.s.j., Dana Villamagna [20]
Help your child feel comfortable about being vegan in a nonvegan school environment by asking her if she’d like to bring a treat in for her class. Read books to her about other vegan kids. The heartwarming book Benji Beansprout Doesn’t Eat Meat author Sarah Rudy tells the story of a grade school-age boy who does just that.
That’s So Vegan
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Health School Lunch Revolution campaign hopes to encourage Congress to include veg choices in lunchrooms around the nation. CHOICE (Consumers for Healthy Options in Children’s Education) is another organization that works to improve school lunches. Find out how you can support these campaigns at www.pcrm.org and www.choiceusa.net.
It’s reassuring to feel that your child’s daycare or school is respectful of veganism … and unsettling if you don’t. Some vegan families choose to not involve their children in traditional daycare settings and instead homeschool their children. These choices may avoid conflicts in traditionally nonvegan environments, making life easier in many ways and more complicated in others. Whatever your family’s choice, you can be proud that every time you speak up for your child’s needs, you make it easier for the next vegan family in that situation.
The Least You Need to Know
◆ Give your picky eater the three C’s: choices, control, and creativity.
◆ If you’re vegan and your child’s other parent is not, discuss your concerns calmly, be willing to compromise, set some boundaries, and agree to respectfully disagree.
◆ Seek the right doctor for your family until you find a good fit. Be honest up front so you can trust each other, and work together to create a positive relationship.
◆ Communicate openly, confidently, and with a listening ear when discussing your child’s diet with a relative, physician, daycare provider, or school official. The more relaxed and less defensive you are, the more likely the interaction will go well.
Chapter 4
Debunking Myths About Vegan Kids
In This Chapter
◆ The truth behind the myths
◆ Health myths disproved
◆ Social myths set straight
Every now and again, a TV medical drama runs the malnourished vegan kid storyline. While this inexcusable situation has occurred in a few instances, it’s far from the experience of most vegan families. And most of the myths about raising vegan kids you’ll encounter in daily life aren’t as extreme as “Your child will starve.” That doesn’t make them any less bothersome, however.
Common misunderstandings about veganism for kids are thrown around because of TV dramas, as well as a lack of understanding about nutrition basics, and, we believe, the general non-vegan public’s assumption that vegan parents are forcing their way of life onto their young kids. (The same could be said for omnivorous parents, but we digress ….)
Most myths, however, are based on the honest belief that growing kids’ extra nutritional needs simply cannot be met if they don’t eat animal products. Many nonvegans think the vegan choice is fine for full-grown adults but not for growing kids. That’s all bunk, and this chapter’s all about getting the bunk out.
Health Myths
Vegan parents often hear the same complaints from naysayers about vegan diets for kids. In the following sections, we’ll introduce those common falsehoods and give you concrete information to refute the uninformed claims.
Myth: Vegan Kids Are Weak and Sickly
Fact: Vegan kids are just as healthy, and most likely often healthier, than their omnivorous counterparts.
Parents, when confronted with this myth, stand on the 2004 report about vegan diets for kids published by Pediatrics in Review, the American Academy of Pediatrics journal considered