Recipes

Weaning your Vegetarian or Vegan Baby

Why? The Best Start in Life – why bringing up your baby as a veggie is a winner!

How & When? Weaning Without Tears – the stress-free and healthy approach!

What? Recipes plus Tried & Tested - practical tips on weaning and more food ideas

Why? The Best Start In Life – why bringing up your baby as a veggie is a winner!

First of all, congratulations! You’ve decided to bring up your child as a vegetarian or vegan. There are many good reasons for doing so, as no doubt you’re aware – here are just a few of them. To go straight to weaning ideas look at Foods for Weaning and How to Prepare Them and Tried & Tested by Viva! Babies

• Plant based diets are the key to good health.
  The scientific evidence points again and again to the advantages of a veggie/vegan diet over meat eating – and even more so for children.  With such conditions as diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer reaching epidemic proportions – largely a result of the typical Western diet - it makes complete sense to feed your child in the healthiest possible way. Many medics are now knowledgeable about veggie and vegan children – including midwives and health visitors - but if you come up against any problems, there is plenty of evidence to reassure them! 

• Vegetarians have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders and cancers and gall stones. Cholesterol levels tend to be lower and vegetarian diets have been noted to lower blood cholesterol. The vegetarian diet is adequate for the nutritional needs of infants.
  British Medical Association
• Appropriately planned vegan and lactovegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children and adolescents, and promote normal growth. The American Dietetic Association
• A diet free of meat, fish, milk and eggs is by far the safest and one that I highly recommend.
  Emanuel Goldman, Professor of Microbiology & Genetics.
• A well balanced vegetarian or vegan diet is a fabulous way of feeding babies and young children too. Childhood asthma is rare in infants who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. Dr Chris Fenn, Accredited Nutritionist
• Although human beings eat meat, we are not natural carnivores. No matter how much fat carnivores eat, they do not develop atherosclerosis [clogged up arteries]. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.
  Dr WC Roberts, Editor-in-Chief of  ‘The American Journal of Cardiology’
• The emphasis of our meals needs to be reversed; it is plant foods that should be the focal point of our dinner plate, not meat and dairy products.
  World Cancer Research Fund.
• All the protein and calcium required for human health, including during pregnancy and childraising, are abundantly available from plant sources.
  Michael Klaper MD

• Plant based diets are the safest way to eat.
  Animal foods present a greater danger to children because modern meat production methods mean high levels of drugs, contaminated feedstuffs and cross-infection – all of which can be fatal to the most vulnerable – the very young and very old. Even organic meat isn’t as safe as its proponents would like to think – after all, organically raised animals are killed in the same disease-ridden slaughterhouses.

• Plant-based diets are the most compassionate and environmentally friendly way to eat – and as a parent you want the most ethical choice for your child.

• Dairy and eggs aren’t the cure-all for protein needs.
  Despite the anxious comments you may     hear from well-meaning family and friends, it’s not necessary to overload your vegetarian baby with dairy products and eggs, even if they are organic! 

Vegan or demi-vegan babies are extremely healthy and run even fewer health risks than their vegetarian counterparts. Indeed, there have been some excellent studies on ‘vegan from birth’ children which show that they thrive extremely well. All the health problems caused by meat – are also triggered by dairy consumption – heart disease, cancer, stokes, obesity and diabetes are strongly linked to high animal protein/high saturated fat diets (abundant in dairy). Also, allergies to cow’s milk in babies and children are common (to the sugar lactose or protein casein which humans have not evolved to digest – and which may be attacked as a foreign invader) (please see www.vegetarian.org.uk for information on the health problems caused by dairy).

Anaemia in infants is a major problem in the UK and much of it is linked to cow’s milk and cow’s milk formulas as dairy is low in iron and inhibits iron absorption from other foods. As already stated, allergies to cow’s milk are common worldwide and can cause intestinal bleeding in infants – another cause of anaemia in young children.

• Telling your child the truth– how do meat-eating parents explain that the pretty lambs and chickens loved by their child will become dinner?

• Traditional Eating?
  One of the many myths that meat eaters cling to is that meat is ‘traditional’ and part of our culture. Well, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary if you take human development as a whole! It is only during a relatively short period of human existence – one and a half million years ago - that we started to eat flesh. If you place this in the context of an 80 year-old human, it means that meat would have been eaten only in the last 15 years of life – for 65 years the diet would have been completely vegetarian. Even then, the amount of meat eaten was minimal. Indeed, our closest relatives such as gorillas and other primates are almost entirely vegan.

• Super-Veggies!
  Meat has long been associated with prosperity and power and also, with strength and virility – yet ironically, men (and women) who eat meat regularly are more likely to succumb to heart diseases and cancer than vegetarians. The human body thrives best on a truly traditional diet of plant-based foods!

• Other Traditions
  Millions of Hindus and Buddhists can’t be wrong! There are countless generations of healthy children from Asia who were reared veggie from birth because of cultural and spiritual beliefs.  Here in the West we are now seeing fourth and fifth generations of vegetarian and vegan children.

How & When? Weaning Without Tears – the stress-free and healthy approach!

This really isn’t as complicated as it seems. The secret is to keep reintroducing  foods to your child – just because she or he spits out something once or even a dozen times doesn’t mean it’s a no-no forever!  Children’s taste buds develop at different rates and what might seem horrible one week or one month ago might be utterly delicious later on.

Most parents start weaning by introducing a little rice milk at four to six months old. (Babies need to start the weaning process at this age because breast milk stops supplying all vital nutrients and needs to be supplemented by other foods.) For lots more help on weaning at different ages and suggested daily feeding patterns see Viva!'s popular Vegetarian & Vegan Mother & Baby Guide. See also Babies and Toddlers on the books section of our web shop or else phone for a Books For Life catalogue  - these books deal with raising veggie children at different ages.

When to wean?

Breast milk (or formula) supplies all the baby’s needs, including vitamin C, for the first six months of his/her life. So if the baby is happy and thriving, there is no need to think about introducing solids until she is six months old. However, if after four months the baby doesn’t seem fully satisfied with milk, you might try giving a first taste of food - but don’t start before four months old as introducing solids too early to an immature digestive system could possibly cause an allergic reaction.

The first spoonfuls are really just to get the baby used to the taste and feel of solid food. Do not think of them as a real source of nourishment at this stage. The baby still needs milk feeds for that and the emotional satisfaction of sucking.

Although weaning – getting your baby to graduate from an all-milk diet to solids – sometimes makes mothers feel nervous, it’s really very simple.  Most babies (and their mums) get through the process easily, so relax! You can also feel reassured that a meat (and dairy)-free diet is so natural that your baby will get all the nutrients she or he needs. The World Health Organisation suggests that solids are introduced from six months old (your baby will start with tiny amounts of solids, still relying on breast milk or formula for their nutritional requirements and gradually you’ll introduce more and more solids and reduce the amount of milk. See Viva!’s Mother & Baby Guide for further information

Salt-free!

One of the most important things to remember is that salt must be avoided – at this stage in life your baby’s digestive system is not able to cope with foods high in salt. So don’t add salt to home-cooked foods and choose no-salt or low-salt prepared foods.

For simple, healthy ways to start your baby on solids, go to Recipes and Tried and Tested

Introduction | Foods for Weaning and How to Prepare Them | Tried & Tested by Viva! Babies