Veggie Health for KidsEvery nutrient a child needs and how to get it.A guide for parents showing why vegetarian/vegan diets are the healthiest option for children. World turned upside down! / What You Need and Where You Get It / How Animal Products Affect Children / How Animal Products Affect Adults / Conclusions World turned upside down! Just imagine if you read of a diet that produced these headlines – Heart disease rates tumble! 30,000 heart patients taken off critical list – misery lifted for relatives and friends. Top heart surgeon says most heart ops avoidable. Cancer deaths slump! Millions taken off ‘fatty’ list. Diabetes figures fall for first time. Food poisoning cases tumble – records no longer worth maintaining. What diet could it possibly be? That’s easy! The same diet that children should be eating now so they enjoy good health throughout their lives – a well-balanced, vegetarian or vegan diet. If statistics were reversed and 95 per cent of the population became vegetarian or vegan, and only five per cent ate meat, these headlines could be accurate. Unbelievable isn’t it? The scientific evidence to justify them is there in abundance and this guide will show just how strong it is.
One thing is certain, research showing that a meat-based diet cuts cancer or cuts heart disease by a quarter doesn’t exist. It does for vegetarian/vegan diets. One by one, all the world’s leading health advisory bodies have confirmed that avoiding animal products is the way to avoid – or at least greatly reduce – the risk of many diseases, and that includes the growing threat from obesity. “
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.” So what’s all this got to do with your littl’uns – those fussy eaters, messy eaters, must-have-chips-with-everything eaters? Every leading health advisory body is saying the same thing – what you feed your children today will determine their health in the future. And it isn’t going to change because the science is now just too overwhelming. But fear not! By opening this guide, you’ve already taken the first step in the right direction. It will take you through the science, much of which may be new to you. Why? Because of the power of the vested interests who profit from meat and dairy. If you think I’m exaggerating, remember the tobacco industry. The damage that smoking does to human health has been known since the 1950’s but it’s only recently that serious action has been taken against it. Dietary Definitions Although excluding things sounds as though we’re restricting our choices, in fact it’s the opposite. Most meaty diets are based on just three main food types – meat, dairy and wheat. By giving them different names we kid ourselves we’re eating a huge variety but we’re not. Pork, beef, chicken and lamb are in the same food group; cheese, yoghurt, ice-cream and butter are in the same; and bread, rolls, buns, baps, crispbread, pasta, pies, pasties, cakes and ‘baked goods’ are in the same. Whichever way you list them, it’s still just three food types. This isn’t the case with fruit and veg. – they are not two food groups but several different ones. Diets based in part or entirely on plant foods include hundreds of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains and pulses. Judge vegetarian diets on what is included not what’s excluded and you’ll see them through different eyes.
What foods should children eat? A varied, veggie lunch-box based on fresh fruit and vegetables, beans,
grains, nuts and seeds is bursting with all the ingredients known to be
health promoting and health protecting. There’s loads of protein
in vegetables, particularly beans, lentils and pulses. Veggie diets also
contain essential ('good') fats, fibre, minerals and starchy carbohydrates,
antioxidant vitamins and minerals – all that’s needed to stay fit
and healthy.
What Foods do Children Eat? The survey finds:
As for physical activity – also important in maintaining healthy body weight – 40 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls had less than the recommended one hour per day. About a quarter of all children were unwell on at least one day during the seven days records were kept. About five per cent had been diagnosed by their GPs as having food allergies. About twice this number had undiagnosed yet unpleasant reactions to food. It’s clear that a large proportion of children are lacking many of the vital vitamins and minerals needed to help combat disease. They are eating a diet high in fat, salt and sugar largely due to convenience foods based on processed meat and dairy products. Fresh fruit and vegetables – along with energy-rich starchy foods such as unrefined cereals, breads, pasta and rice – all take a back seat when it comes to young people's dinner plates, if they appear at all. Meat and dairy products take centre stage at every meal and, sadly, children are likely to suffer the consequences in terms of poor health and a reduced quality of life. “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.” The survey also made clear that as children get older they are more inclined to move towards a vegetarian diet. It seems that some older children, freer of parental influence, are thinking for themselves and starting to choose a healthier diet but the majority of children have a bad diet. The daily pushing of the most unhealthy types of junk foods on TV and in magazines is making profits for food manufacturers but is helping to destroy the health of our children. A recent report from the Cancer Research Campaign paints a similarly worrying picture. One-in-20 of the 2,635 children questioned (aged 11-16) claimed not to have eaten any vegetables in the previous week, with one in 17 not eating any fruit. The recommended intake is 35 portions of fruit and vegetables a week yet most children had eaten fewer than 13 portions. Vegetarian children nearly always eat more fruit and veg. and a recent study found that vegetarian pre-school children had a better intake of nutrients than meat-eating children. They ate less fat overall, less saturated fat, cholesterol and salt and had higher intakes of ‘good’ nutrients, such as potassium and the vitamins C, E and beta-carotene.
Left Unprotected “Vegetarian diets (offer) a reduced risk for several chronic
diseases including obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes
and
some types of cancer… Vegetarians often have lower morbidity and
mortality rates. …Vegetarian diets offer disease protection benefits
because of their lower saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein content
and often higher concentration of folate, antioxidants such as vitamins
C and E, carotinoids and phytochemicals…” Eat veggie – live longer A massive piece of research looked at the diets of 11,000 people over a period of 13 years and found that vegetarians have a 20 per lower ‘premature’ death rate than meat-eaters. They live longer! And it shows in lower life assurance premiums! If we ate only meat and cow’s milk we would die – and pretty quickly. If we ate only plant foods, we would be likely to live for a very long time. People on the Japanese island of Okinawa are the longest-lived and healthiest people in the world, according to a 25-year-long study. One of the most important factors is their diet – based on wholegrains, vegetables, fruit and soya products. One of their favourite foods has been dubbed ‘immortal pate’. It is vegan and based on tofu (soya bean curd), miso (fermented soya paste), mushrooms and garlic. It tastes as good as the good it does you! Lethal Double Whammy Today’s disease statistics are alarming and although previous generations may have had their own problems, rampant heart disease, obesity and cancer weren’t among them. One reason why these diseases have become epidemics is likely to be the diets people ate when they were young – the meat-and-two-veg syndrome. Even more disturbing is the fact that our children’s diets have got worse since then. Thirty-odd years ago, fatty junk and convenience foods weren't around to the same degree. Now, kids are eating the same amount of meat and dairy their parents did when they were kids PLUS higher quantities of saturated fat, animal protein, sugar and salt. Today’s children will almost certainly face even worse health statistics when they grow up than today’s adults. And kids don’t even have to ‘grow up’ before they get diseases once only seen in adulthood – obesity and type II diabetes are now afflicting teenagers.
Veggie Kids are Healthier “Appropriately planned vegan and vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient
needs of infants, children and adolescents and promote normal growth.
They are appropriate and healthful choices for adolescents and can meet
the
nutrient and energy needs of pregnant women.” There has been a wealth of research and it consistently shows that vegetarian and vegan children obtain all the protein, energy and vitamins they need. Fat intake is nearly always lower but adequate (particularly in vegan children) and intakes of vital vitamins beta-carotene, C and E as well as fibre, iron and folate are often higher. The most recent research comes from the American Dietetic Association and has the full backing of the American Academy of Paediatrics. It says that well-planned vegan diets can provide all the nutrients infants and children need, produces normal growth and may also reduce the risk of some chronic diseases which show in later life. Their final point – and it’s an important one – was that because vegan children eat a wider variety of whole plant foods, it may help to establish healthy, lifelong eating habits. |
by Laura Scott (MSc Nutrition), VVF Senior Nutritionist A guide by the Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation Copyright: Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation 2004. |
