I do understand why we vegetarians used to have a bad reputation. But you have to admit we have moved on from hemp trousers and “I can’t believe it’s not spam”. According to the Vegetarian Society, there are now more than three million vegetarians in the UK and most know not to start up on vivisection just as you bring the Sunday roast to the table. And society seems more accepting — helpful labelling in supermarkets; veggie options on the menu. I thought we were starting to get along.
Then I had a baby and decided that she’d be a vegetarian, too. By depriving Ava of food that has its own mummy and daddy we, her vegetarian parents, have become rebels eliciting condemnation from other parents, sausage-wielding family members, even our GP. Giving a child no meat is more controversial than giving them the beaks-and-all meat slurries in a chicken nugget.
Even though the British Medical Association and the British Dietetic Association (BDA) declared in the 1980s that a well managed vegetarian diet is safe for babies and children, objections from meat-eaters have been vast and varied: that Ava won’t be able to digest meat in adult life (no evidence of that), that she will be ridiculed at school (if she wants ham sandwiches at her birthday parties, fine) and that, on a vegetarian diet, an infant cannot get enough iron.
Then, every once in a while, a new study — such as the one published last month by nutritionists from the University of California — announces that vegetarian children are so chronically malnourished that their poor addled brains will never grasp the times tables above four. However, for every study that rings warning bells about a meat-free diet, there is another to sing its praises. In response to the university study, Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition at King ’s College London, cited research showing that even vegan children can thrive as long as parents play close attention to calcium, vitamin D and vitamin B12 intake.
Children also need a lot of iron: it aids oxygen delivery to cells. But iron deficiency, which causes fatigue, irritability and impaired mental development, is the most common nutritional deficiency in the First World, with up to 50 per cent of inner-city pre-schoolers in the UK suffering from anaemia, according to the World Health Organisation. Of course, they are not all vegetarians.
In fact, according to Rachel Cooke, an NHS community dietitian and spokeswoman for the BDA’s community nutrition group, vegetarian children often do better nutritionally than their meat-eating peers because veggie parents work harder on their overall diet. “Vegetarian mums are usually well informed,” Cooke says. “When we look at the whole nutrition of a vegetarian baby we find that it isn’t usually affected negatively. We check that non-meat sources of iron are being eaten — eggs, peas, beans and lentils — along with plenty of vitamin C to aid absorption. But vegetarian mums usually know all this.”
Ah yes, we do. We also know that if you’re careful, it’s not hard to make sure your preschool age child gets the 7mg of iron he or she needs every day. We know that half a cup of lentils in a serving of vegetarian shepherd’s pie and half a cup of tofu sliced into a cheese sandwich would do it; as would a serving of spinach, a bowl of porridge and half a cup of dried apricots.
We also know that other essentials like omega fats, which people often believe are available only in oily fish, can be found in eggs, dark green vegetables and soy products. Adding finely ground linseed and walnuts to a smoothie is an excellent, undetectable, way to take care of a day’s omega-3 and omega-6 fat requirement. And, Cooke says: “Vegetarian children often go through weaning better than those who aren’t on a vegetarian diet. The vegetarian babies I see are given such a huge range of weaning foods their tastes become quite advanced.”
That is certainly true for Ethan Darwent, the 2-year-old son of Kate, 29, a teacher and Michael, 30, a paediatric surgeon. Kate and Michael became vegetarians in their teens so when Ethan was born they did not consider cooking meat just for him. Ethan snacks on plain kidney beans and devours bowls of vegetables. Kate says: “Mothers whose children will eat only biscuits say, ‘Oh, he is so good with fruit’, but Ethan has never had anything else. We cook from scratch and make sure that he has a portion of protein, carbohydrate and the rest.”
With years of vegetarian cooking behind her that’s a simple task for Kate, but what about a happily meat-eating family that finds itself with a newly vegetarian teen? It is a common scenario. According to research by the Vegetarian Society, 25 per cent of 11 to 14-year-olds will consider giving up meat at some point, while 7 per cent of teenagers nationwide already have. It may well be a fad but, during the time your child eschews meat, it is important to take them seriously because a poor vegetarian diet is harder to get away with than a poor omnivourous one. A teen girl has more than double the daily iron requirement of a toddler (15mg a day) and will quickly become anaemic through menstruation.
Any kind of nutritional deficiency can register quickly in children. Rebecca Lindsey, a 30-year-old vegetarian mother of a vegetarian baby, gave up meat at the age of 11. As she was one of five children, Rebecca’s parents had no time to, as they saw it, indulge her fussy phase and neither made nor bought her special food. Within months, a diet of starchy vegetables and white bread robbed her of her energy. It was not until her late teens, when she began to cook properly, that she overcame the lack of stamina and alertness that had affected her performance at school.
Dr Margaret Lawson, a senior lecturer in nutrition at Great Ormond Street Hospital Institute of Child Health, says that although it can be difficult to provide an adamant teenager with a special complete diet, variety is a parent’s best friend. “A varied diet that includes all four food groups (vegetables, wholegrains, fruit, beans) . . . will provide all the nutrients needed for a child,” she says.
So don’t let them get away with eating jam sandwiches and the potatoes that go with the family roast. If your child is serious, he or she will be happy to eat proper vegetarian food. Just sit tight, buy them a multivitamin and be grateful that they haven’t heard of veganism.
