The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Eating for Kids - M.s.j., Dana Villamagna [44]
Healthy fats from plant-based sources include avocadoes, olives, olive oil, hummus made with tahini and olive oil, tofu, nuts, and nut butters. A DHA supplement can also provide some of the fat requirement and remove some of those fatty food cravings in some people. Healthy fats can be some of the most delicious, filling, diverse foods to incorporate into recipes and daily snacks. Just a handful of nuts a day in the backpack for a quick snack after school is a great start. Prepared properly and introduced often, your tween will easily meet their fat needs with these healthy choices instead of gravitating to unhealthy fats and getting into habits that can derail their diet into adulthood.
Sample Meal Plan for Vegan Tweens
Your tween’s daily diet will vary greatly, depending on how active she is, whether she takes lunch to school or eats cafeteria-prepared lunches, how adventurous her palate has become, and how devoted you are as a family to sitting down for family meals. This sample menu plan offers a place to start with general requirements and basic ideas.
Sample Meal Plan for Vegan Tweens (9 to 13 Years)
Note: The starred servings also count as servings from the other groups at the same time. They aren’t additional. The items in the Starred food items category are the foods you want your tweens to consume because they’re high in calcium. Serving sizes vary depending on the child’s age.
The calorie content of the diet can be increased by greater amounts of nut butters, dried fruits, soy products, and other high-calorie foods.
A regular source of vitamin B12 like Vegetarian Support Formula nutritional yeast, vitamin B12-fortified soy milk, vitamin B12-fortified breakfast cereal, vitamin B12-fortified meat analogs, or vitamin B12 supplements should be used.
The Least You Need to Know
◆ Be prepared. The hormonal and growth changes of puberty—and the moods that can go along with them—actually begin for kids at age 7 or 8 and are in full swing for many tween girls by age 12.
◆ Advertisers and the media try very hard to shape your child’s eating habits, and usually not for the better. Be prepared to counter mainstream food ads with limits and a supplemental media diet of veg-positive media.
◆ A healthy body image is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your tween, especially your tween daughter.
◆ Your tween’s nutritional requirements depend on many factors, including gender, activity level, and special needs. Go to your child’s doctor with any questions or concerns specific to her situation.
Chapter 9
When Things Aren’t Working
In This Chapter
◆ Signs your child needs something more
◆ Nutrition essentials
◆ Building a healthy relationship with health-care providers
◆ Different ways to the same goal
The medical literature is clear: carefully planned vegan diets are healthful for the majority of children. There are documented cases, however, of infants and children on 100 percent vegan diets who had severe deficiencies in important nutrients because of extreme picky eating, severe dietary limitations based on religious beliefs, a lack of basic nutritional knowledge on the part of the parents, or an eating disorder disguised as veganism. All these instances were avoidable.
In this chapter, we take a look at the signs of various nutritional deficiencies, list the nuts and bolts of bottom-line vegan nutrition for kids, and highlight some important sources of key nutrients, including both food sources and dietary supplements. If you and your child’s physician have identified that she has a diet-related health issue, we discuss how to work with her doctor to correct course. And we tell you when, under certain circumstances, it may