Emily Deschanel gave birth to her son Henry back in September 2011. It would have been a non-story, except that while pregnant, Emily spoke about maintaining her veganism during her pregancy, even though it was difficult because she was craving non-vegan food. Emily consulted with a doctor and a nutritionist throughout her pregnancy, and most of you thought she was fine, although the comments on other sites were sort of rough. People have very strong feelings about pregnancy and everybody’s a critic, I guess, especially when it comes to the Motherhood Industrial Complex. So, let’s see if Emily’s new comments create the same kind of firestorm – Emily tells People that she’s raising Henry to be 99% vegan.
Which is more difficult to decipher: forensics vocabulary or the babble of a 2½-year-old? These days, Bones star Emily Deschanel‘s favorite person to chat with is her son, Henry.
“I love this age because I can communicate with him so well and have conversations,” the actress, 37, told PEOPLE at WE tv and Paley Center’s ‘On the Beat: The Evolution of the Crime Drama Heroine’ event Thursday night in Beverly Hills.
Balancing mommy hood with nine seasons of her hit show has been “hard,” but Deschanel’s been enjoying her time off this summer “to hang out with my son, put him to bed, and cuddle – do all of the fun things I love doing with him.”
Something that’s a bit lower on her list of priorities? Getting her sweat on.
“You work all of these hours and when you have time off, you don’t want to spend it working out while raising a child,” she said. “[But it is] important … to be healthy and show him that that’s important.”
The actress – who was spotted taking selfies with The Divide creator Tony Goldwyn at the event – has also been passing along her vegan lifestyle to her son. “Henry is 99-percent vegan because my husband [David Hornsby] is not 100-percent vegan.”
And though she has her healthy diet plan set in stone, the star is taking motherhood day-by-day.
“You could be dealing with one issue, and then the next day it’s gone and you’re dealing with something else,” she said. “I don’t know how things change so quickly or how much he can surprise you.”
One milestone she couldn’t help but share? “[He’s] potty trained! That’s really big. The Star Wars undies – that’s exciting.”
I can already feel some of you are itching to yell at someone about something, so I’ll take the bullet: I judge her for this. I do. I want to be all “she can raise her child however she likes, it’s her business,” but the reality is… I judge, just like I judge Gwyneth Paltrow for forcing her own food issues on her children. And I hope that Henry is able to make his own food choices in the future as he’s exposed to different kinds of food. I guess I sort of understand it now, when he’s so little, and Emily is probably preparing all of the food. But what’s going to happen when he experiences his first piece of roasted chicken? Or his first hamburger? Will he even get to experience that?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I don’t see anything wrong with this as long as it’s being done in a way that’s healthy for him (which with her resources and the fact that she’s worked with a nutritionist, I assume it is). Every parent makes food decisions on behalf of their child at that age. Do you think Jewish parents are depriving their kid of something by not letting them experience pork? Or parents who don’t let their kid have junk food, even in moderation?
Totally agree.
I agree, plus being vegan (I admire her I am vegetarian) it’ s a life choice, so if she wants to share it with her son and she does it in the correct way with the right medical support for me it’s fine. The compairison with GOOP it’s not fair, Goop has a serious eating disorder , Emily Deschanel is healthy and fine.
I was raised without processed food because Gradma thought children shouldn’t eat stuff like that, it was a choice . In the end I had my first coke at 11 years and I am pretty fine.
Good point. I don’t judge, she said that she’s parenting in the moment and doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring. Her husband isn’t 100% vegan. I’m sure the kid will get non vegan food. Zooey isn’t vegan, ia she? Maybe he’ll get treats at his aunties house.
Zooey was a vegan, but because of her celiacs and other food allergies she stopped because she said she wasn’t able to eat healthy as a vegan.
Wonderfully put.
I grew up Jewish (and am currently an observant Jew) and here’s my take on it – my parents didn’t let us eat pork/non kosher meat growing up. We didn’t have it at home and we didn’t have it outside of the home. I went to public school and all my friends were eating bacon etc. and the fact that I never had it made me a bit angry at my parents because what if I HAD wanted it? Long story short, I ended up having it, and then all sorts of other not kosher meats. They were FANTASTIC and I even told my parents about it (I was maybe 14 at the time). They weren’t mad at all, which was good. I was however, a bit upset that they decided to ‘shelter’ me without my consent. I think he son might feel the same way. Like, I ate it and kept eating it because I knew I wasn’t supposed to.
It is a parents job to shelter their children, and obviously they don’t ask for their opinion on that sheltering. The fact is, when you were old enough to make your own decisions on your diet (having had a healthy groundwork lain by your parents) they didn’t begrudge you your decision to partake in pork. If children have an input in their diet they would mostly eat twinkles, oreos, and cereal for their meals. It is the parents job to do what they feel is best and it is also their job to recognize when their child is ready to make their own choices (which your parents did). You should be tremendously thankful that your parents loved you enough to share their opinion of the “best” with you and to also have the foresight to know when you were ready to make your own choices.
Eating Kosher has a religious meaning as well, doesn’t it? If it’s not just a food choice, your parents had every right to “shelter” you, since they were in charge of your religious education.
I have a friend who has been a vegetarian for 50 years. She brought her son up as a vegetarian, but when he was a teen, she allowed him to make his own food choices, as long as he didn’t expect her to cook for him. He would buy fast food sometimes, but mostly he ate vegetarian. Now he’s 32 and he’s mostly vegetarian, but once in a while eats red meat.
As long as it’s being done in a healthy way, it’s fine to bring your kids up vegan or vegetarian. No judgment from me about Emily’s choice.
Have you ever had TURKEY BACON? Kosher and delicious. (I’m not Jewish, but I don’t eat pork because pigs are so smart I feel bad).
Right? She said he’s not completely vegan. So she’s not pushing it on him, she’s flexible and letting her son and her husband eat things that she doesn’t. Maybe he’s already had his first hamburger or chicken.
I agree with you. I had a best friend growing up. We were like 5 and he was not allowed candy or any kind of white sugar. He was only allowed trail mix, nuts, raisins and carob beans. I saw him years later when we were both in our twenties and he said when he was a teen he went crazy on junk good and got so sick but now he just eats everything in moderation. So when they are old enough the kids can eat what they want and decide for themselves. Don’t see a reason to be a judge of her at all.
I saw Emily on Jimmy Kimmel maybe 2 months back and she was describing her son’s diet and how he thinks walnuts are amazing because she doesn’t give him sugar (I think she mentioned the carob beans like your friend grew up eating). Jimmy Kimmel told her something like,” You do know that the first time your son has Skittles, he’s gonna go out of his mind, right?”
I personally don’t care if the kid ‘experiences’ his first hamburger, as long as he’s getting enough nutrients from what he IS eating.
MTE.
I think too many people spoil their toddlers by asking them what they want to eat, etc…..when I was a kid, we ate what we were given. If we didn’t like it, my mom would make us eat a few bites of it (to see if we actually hated it or not), and then she wouldn’t ever make it again (which, when we were kids were mushrooms and alfredo sauce)–the only time she made us eat something we didn’t like is if we kept complaining about it (like she would make spaghetti sauce that had mushrooms in it, and instead of picking the mushrooms out, I’d just complain, so she’d make me eat them–only did that a time or two 😉 ).
But my little cousin who is four–it is a struggle to get her to eat more than a few bites of anything that isn’t macaroni and cheese or chicken nuggets from McDonalds–because her parents spoiled her.
Plus, that whole argument of ‘when will he experience his first….’ is overrated and can be used to extremes. My mom didn’t ‘experience’ her first fast food burger until she was 20 years old. Does that mean that my grandmother was a bad mother because she never wanted to spend her money at a restaurant/fast food place?
Exactly! I have a friend who serves up her 6yo dinner, and when she won’t eat it (even if it’s something she normally eats) she will get up and make her another meal. My mum would never have put up with that from me and my siblings!
I know. My parents cooked and I ate it. The end. If they were vegan I would have eaten vegan, etc.
I give Paltrow shit because the stuff she was talking about eating has very little nutritional value which is why her hair and skin always looks like crap.
I will give Emily crap since she has to know that people who are straight vegan need to see a nutritionist since their red blood cell, potassium, calcium, etc are going to need to be constantly monitored. A friend of mine looked like a skeleton come to life and had a weird body odor. He always got tired after an hour of just doing basic things. A little kid that is growing and needs all of those things to keep his body growing and healthy has to be doubly hard to check. I am not saying give the kid a hamburger or nuggets (I didn’t eat that when I was a kid either) but she is going to have to make sure that due to her food philosophy it doesn’t impact her son’s growing healthy.
I had a similar situation. I’d turn my nose up at things I used to eat, then just stop eating it. I still rarely will eat hamburgers, and it just went all of a sudden that I didn’t like them. But mom wouldn’t accommodate. Nan, and my great aunts would, but if mom caught wind of it, she’d get after them. Mostly, I’d be expected to eat a certain amount at least, and then if I really really hated it, I’d get some toast later on, or cereal, or something easy like that.
@starrywonder
Whereas I have a vegan friend who is the best cook I know, runs several miles a day, and is tons healthier than I am. She doesn’t need to be constantly monitored by a doctor or nutritionist. Veganism can be done in a healthy way — it sounds like your friend isn’t doing it right, or that it just doesn’t work for his body. But that doesn’t mean the same is true for all, or even most, vegans.
@starrywonder, for every vegan walking around weak and smelly from a poorly balanced diet, there are probably thousands of meat and dairy eaters walking around morbidly obese with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and pre-diabetes. Every balanced diet that maintains good health requires knowledge of food nutrition, and a little discipline.
This comment isn’t aimed at you starry. I have personally found that people who are very critical and judgmental about my vegetarianism, are those who feel my not eating meat is a criticism of them for eating meat. I do not give meat eaters a hard time, but I’m happy to educate people who express interest. I think there are probably a lot of people who believe factory farms (where most meat comes from in the US) are unethical, inhumane, and unhealthy, but either find it difficult to commit to a meatless diet, or feel they lack access to meat slaughtered in a more humane environment.
At the end of the day, we all make moral decisions we hope we can live with. I cannot live with myself eating meat. I realize the impact of just one person foregoing meat is minimal, but I do feel satisfied that I live my life in a way that limits the number of animals suffering. And I feel the need to add in my irritation with people standing around ready to point out the “hypocrisy” in a vegetarian or vegan. Prime example – leather. Leather is a by product of animals being slaughtered for meat. It’s possible to reject meat because you find it abusive, yet wear leather – you are still minimizing the number of animals who suffer. Some vegans go to the extent of avoiding leather, honey and even silk. Some people consume dairy and meat but buy organic and more humane sources.
When I babysit my little cousins, the rule is “eat what’s in front of you or you’re going to bed hungry”. They fussed the first couple times, but now they eat what they’re given, because they know I’m not messing around. I do try to take into account what their favorite foods are, like making mac-n-cheese casserole for dinner one night, and build your own pizzas the next, but I am not catering to a ten year old’s culinary desires. They’re ten, they don’t know sh-t.
The weird thing is, they will eat whatever I put in front of them without fuss at this point, but they continue to harangue and, franky, bully their parents into getting their own way at group/family meals. It was so bad last Thanksgiving my aunts decided I’ll run the kids’ table this year, in the hopes that they will actually eat something without someone pitching a screaming fit (which happened multiple times last year until one mom ended up cooking an entirely separate meal for her daughters). This was not my desired outcome as I don’t like children and my policy was born of impatience and a desire to not be belittled by a barely-cognizant being that still ate its own boogers.
Yep for everyone doing vegan right there is probably someone doing it wrong. I would just say if you are going to go vegan just be careful at first to make sure that you are still getting everything that you need to eat and function well. I don’t eat red meat and I don’t do dairy.
I work with kids and I totally agree. So many parents are willing to accommodate little junior for fear he will starve to death. News flash, unless he has some sort of deadly disease that depends on him never missing a meal, he’s fine. Going to bed with an empty belly can teach a kid to eat what they’re served or be hungry for 12 hours. And it’s OK TO BE HUNGRY. I had a parent call and scream at me for 30 minutes because we make our clients eat on a schedule. HOW DARE YOU MAKE MY CHILD WAIT UNTIL 11:30 TO EAT WHEN SHE’S STARVING. I explained to her what starving is and told her that her child was at a perfect weight and that we wouldn’t be teaching her kid to shove her mouth full of food at the first sign of hunger.
@Algernon
Yep, kids aren’t stupid. They know which adult means business, and which adult they can walk all over. I have very disrespectful cousins who talk to their mother worse than the annoying, next door neighbor’s kids, yet they do not talk to my mom like that. Their mother could tell them to go do something, and they’ll either ignore her, or complain about it–but if my mom tells them to do something, they jump right up and do it, because they know she’s not messing around with them.
Amen. That’s how my parents were. Sometimes it was ‘eat what’s in front of you or go to bed hungry’ and sometimes it was ‘sit at the table until you’ve finished your meal’, but it was never ‘oh, you don’t like this? Let me make you something else.’
I’m judging too. Raising him vegetarian is one thing, but no dairy? Urgh.
But it could be worse. I’m a baker, and a mother contacted me once to ask if I could make a raw vegan cake for her son’s 3rd birthday. Not only was she keeping her son from having all meat and dairy, she wouldn’t let him eat anything cooked either. Crikey!
It’s easy to judge, but unless you’re an infant, there’s simply no need for dairy! We’re the only species that does consume milk, or milk products, into adulthood, and we do this only because it was a learned habit (reinforced by the heavily funded dairy industry that keeps trying to tell us that milk “does the body good” even though there’s a plethora of scientific evidence to suggest the contrary). Calcium is plentiful in nuts and vegetables, and unlike dairy, it doesn’t contain puss from abused, forcibly impregnated, diseased animals.
As a side note (this really isn’t meant to sound preachy, so please don’t get upset), cows milk really is intended just for baby cows, not us. Our consumption of cow’s milk or products means that calfs are denied their mother’s milk and the males are sent to slaughter to become veal since they’re “useless” to the dairy industry.
Thank you, +1,000.
Depends only1shmoo. I personally stopped drinking milk when I was 10 only because too much of it hurt my stomach but until then, I usually had milk that came straight from the farms (mind you, I lived in the Middle East then and the dairy industry relied HEAVILY on traditional methods of extracting meat and dairy).
Sing it girl! I want to ask people how they think cow’s get calcium and protein since they don’t drink milk. They get it from the greens they eat. Calcium is very easy to find naturally in your diet. It’s also supplemented in soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, and orange juice.
You were being kind by only mentioning pus in dairy. Don’t forget pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones. It causes constipation, causes anemia in children who drink it as a huge part of their daily calories, and is an absolute nightmare for those who are lactose intolerant.
You don’t need diary as an infant either, because I wouldn’t classify breast milk as diary. Actually, many pediatricians don’t recommend to feed cow milk to children under the age of one year.
It’s actually very funny, that many people think milk would be so essential to a good diet, because the ability to digest lactose most probably developed in Europe 8-9000 years ago and spread to Russia, USA and Kanada from there. In parts of Asia, Africa and South America, almost 95-100% of the adult population can’t digest lactose and therefore traditionally consumes little to no diary products.
I’m eating raw vegan for a month. I just made a raw vegan maple pecan pie over the weekend which is yummy, but I am VERY curious how you would make a raw vegan cake without baking it?
That’s really a myth about dairy. Unlike the protein derived from meat, dairy can mess up your calcium levels since milk and by-products don’t come with the vitamin D necessary to process the calcium from milk so the organism ends up depleting the calcium from your bones.
It also depends on what your intake is but if you’re only eating a yogurt a week, it won’t impact you either way. If though, you have three serving of yogurt + milk a day/ everyday for long periods of time, then it’s no good.
Ultimately it’s all about moderation and eating with basic common-sense.
There are studies about this (see hip fracture) so it’s not a vegan thing.
@sherrie
It’s depends on the cake, if it’s cream based, it’s a blend of whatever ingredients you use (cacao butter, fruits, nuts for example).
You basically tend to avoid flour based cakes that would require baking over 40-50 degrees.
So much this. Cow’s breast milk is meant for calves.
Not sure people really get the difference between vegetarian and vegan. Vegan is 1000 times more restrictive, plus it’s difficult to get all the right vitamins when you don’t eat a varied diet. I was vegetarian for many years but caved after I had kids – it is time-consuming to do it correctly, I was concerned about their developing nervous systems, and I couldn’t pay a private chef to make sure they were getting all the right nutrients.
It strikes me as odd that much of the world is FORCED by poverty and war to live on a highly restricted diet, but in our “land of plenty” some people choose to eat the same way. Being vegan means taking an extreme position about food, and I don’t like extremes.
Yeah. I said that upthread. Vegan is different from vegetarianism and vegans have a hard time keeping their body levels in the normal range. Why I imagine she was seeing a doctor while pregnant who was making sure she was eating enough to maintain her body chemistry in the normal range.
Then don’t be a vegan. It’s that simple. I’m not sure why dairy and meat are considered high nutrition. It’s no mistake that countries who limit these two things tend to have lower rates of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
I don’t get why raising your children on a diet we know leads to increased rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease is considered loving and conscientious, and a vegan mother is irresponsible and depriving her children of the joys of eating doritos.
@Mayame I am all for people eating healthy. And I don’t eat red meat myself anymore. However, when I went in for my annual check up my red blood cell count was woefully low. My doctor flat out said I had to start taking iron pills. However, they made me nauseous and they can also make you constipated. So I didn’t go on them and I had to start eating way more leafy greens (then I do now) and ate a lot more food with iron.
After three and a half months of monitoring my red blood cell count is in the normal range but I also take a women’s one a day vitamin to help. My calcium levels were also below normal (I don’t drink dairy and don’t eat cheese) and am on what I call sunlight pills for the next two months.
With a 2 year old like Emily’s son I assume she has a nutritionist and doctor monitoring him since a child that age cannot take iron pills and too many vitamins since their bodies cannot process it and can actually kill them if they are not aware of it. And countries that are primarily vegetarians have a whole host of other problems. I am not saying eat diary and meat since huzzah. However, if you have a child you can do things in moderation to make sure that their brains, bones, etc. are growing correctly. Her being a vegan is a hard diet and imposing that on a kid who will have to be constantly monitored to make sure he is getting all of the nutrients he needs has to be tough on her and him.
@mayamae
Agreed.. Since the preoccupation here seems to be with the child’s ability to eat junk food.
A lot of vegans get messed up because like their meat-eating counterparts, eat vegan junk food.
A better way to keep in check for both categories, would be to pay attention to the food combinations in their plates but that would derive some from their God eating right of eating hamburgers with fries.
I’m no vegan or vegetarian, but even I know that it’s a myth that vegans have problems keeping their body levels in a normal range. You have to supplement vitamin B12 but you can get almost everything else from nuts and seeds only.
The thing is, the you really have to change your diet. I for example don’t eat almost any nuts and seeds at all. If I would just stop eating meat I would most probably get health issues very quickly because of that.
The internet is full of list with examples of how to supplement meat and diary with nuts, sees, legumes, vegetables and fruit. I’ve read a lot of them just out of curiosity and found nothing “exotic” on them. So I wouldn’t say its problematic to keep a healthy vegan diet, but maybe it’s a bit more complex.
Could you educate me on what exactly is a raw vegan cake?
I didn’t know that myself when it was requested. I’m told though that there is such a thing as a raw vegan cheesecake (without cheese!).
Suffice to say, i didn’t make the cake. I’ve done plenty of vegan cakes, but as a cheese-fanatic I wouldn’t work with fake cheese. Ever.
a fruit salad place to shape like a sake?
I assume it is a combination of the raw food craze and veganism. Raw food means food is not cooked above 112 degrees. Veganism is when a person does not eat any animal products or any animal derived substances which means not only meat, eggs, diary products, etc. Whatever that cake was it had to be disgusting lol.
A raw food vegan cheesecake would likely be cashew based. If you soak raw unsalted cashews in water for a while and then pop them in the food processor, they made a thick cream which you can thin out with non-dairy milk into a sauce or mix in sweetener and lemon juice etc to make a faux-cheesecake.
Personally, I don’t do raw. But there is a really good vegan restaurant in my city where I had a cashew based coconut “cream” pie for my birthday and it was delicious.
Thanks to everyone who replied. 🙂
I think I will stick to my regular “unhealthy” cakes.
Why bother? That’s a lot of work for something that sounds kinda gross. Just make a fruit salad for crying out loud.
There are versions of raw vegan cakes that instead of the “regular” backed dough – say wheat flour, eggs, sugar, use minced wheat germs mixes with ground walnuts or peanuts etc and honey. Not bad at all, I tried one of those.
I’m pescetarian technically but I don’t eat fish too often. So I’m probably 90% vegetarian. But I also try to avoid dairy and (processed) sugar as much as possible. I was on another website last week and there was an article about cereal. One of the comment threads evolved into a whole thing about how cereal is bad for you (it is) and I stupidly made the comment about how dairy is bad for you too. I got my ass handed to me by someone who called it nonsense. I went back and explained that IN MY EXPERIENCE its bad for you. I guess I was a little too preachy about it so I tried to back track.
I still stand by that its bad for you, but whatever. I’ve gotten a bit draconian about my general eating habits lately (although I do allow an occasional cheat with the dairy and sugar, but its rare. This past weekend was an example, oy) but I’m very conscious of not preaching to others about it. No one needs a lecture. Everyone has to make the best choices for themselves.
We have friends who are not healthy but are mostly vegetarian nad they don’t allow their son sugar at all. In fact, his first instance of any sugar was that syrupy cold medicine for a bad cold/fever and because the most sweet he had prior to that was grapes, when it was time for his 3rd birthday and we tried to feed him cake, he cried because he associated sugar with sickly syrup. I think regardless of a parents food choices, unless your child has allergies or the inability to process certain foods, you should expose them in moderation to most foods when it’s medically appropriate – even ones you don’t like – a little spice, a litte complex flavor, a little meat, a little sugar, a little salt – and do so as their palatte changes – again, IN MODERATION. We have entire sets of friends and relatives whose kids don’t eat salad, green peppers or onions or broccoli or pork or beef or no gluten or they only eat chicken fingers, mac and cheese or pizza. It’s overwhelming sometimes if there is no medical reason. I agree with parents not being short order cooks – u eat whats on your plate or nothing, but I think kids should make their own choices to a degree, unfortunately most parents have the mentality that their kids should eat just like them and in our friends family thats either completely horrible for them, lots of fried/process or so healthy it’s ridiculous. Their should be a happy medium.
and now i see all my grammar errors – stupid iphone.
And, you, processed, there
We’re raising our daughter to be a vegetarian(well pescetarian, we eat fish). We don’t have meat in the house to even offer. She eats what we eat.
I don’t see an issue as long as the doctors say he’s healthy and when he’s older, she respects his wishes if he wants to try a different lifestyle.
My daughter is almost 15 months. When she’s 4 or 5, she can choose to eat meat if she wants. Like if we’re out to dinner. It’s just not something we prepare.
The issue with gwenyth seems to be that her kids are old enough to make choices but she still restricts their diets
+1 – as long as the kid gets to not feel like he’s horrible for wanting to try something, I’ll jump on board.
He’s going to wind up like my very strict friend’s son, snatching a half empty bag of Doritos out of the gutter and cramming them in his mouth faster than his mother could move to take them away. Lol I guess it’s her decision, but I think it will get a lot harder as he gets older.
I feel like restricting a young child’s diet from major sources of protein, like healthy lean meats, is dangerous. In fact, restricting a diet of anyone is just a recipe for failure. Kids should be taught how to identify when they are hungry through correct portioning and not dietary restrictions.
She isn’t restricting his diet to control his weight, she’s a vegan. It’s her choice so long as the kid is healthy.
Protein is abundant in many foods (beans, legumes, vegetables, nuts, oats, etc). If she herself has a balanced diet, her kid will be fine.
The problem is it is VERY difficult to eat a balanced vegan diet. More difficult than many people realize. While most (not all) nutrients we require are present in plants, they are not always in an available form. Animal products are much easier to digest, with more highly available nutrients. Taking protein for example, you need a certain balance of amino acids which meat, milk and especially eggs provide. To get that same balance from plant sources you have to know the amino acid profile of each source, the availability of that protein, and combine the foods in the proper ratio. This is just one example of the increased difficulty of being healthy on a vegan diet, there is much more.
I sincerely hope she is aware of the limitations and prepares meals and uses supplements accordingly.
Exactly, even peas have a good amount of protein. We are raising our two year old son vegetarian and very limited dairy, only some cheese. No fish, no eggs. I have no plans to offer him meat. We will explain our reasons why we do not eat meat and as our raw food friends say, take advantage of the first ten years where we have influence. He certainly isn’t “missing out” by not having a burger.
What Wren said.
I support vegetarian lifestyles as well (pescatarian myself, can’t do without the occasional salmon) as they are more enviromentally friendly and ressourceful.
However, my mother is a nutritionist and she is faced with people like Emily quite regularly. Her stand on it is that living healthy as a vegan is possible but time consuming and complicated in ways that play into the hands of eating disorders, especially if you have dealt with one in the past.
That said she would never advise people to raise their children vegan and has a pet peeve with adolescent girls going vegan. As a fully grown person you can monitor your intake and learn how to supplement correctly. If you’re still growing this is much MUCH harder and not advisable.
@Wren It is not hard to eat a balanced diet as a vegan. Consuming, vegetables, fruits, and carbohydrates provides adequate calories and nutrition. The only “missing” component would be vitamin b12, a bacteria that comes from soil that is a required nutrient for all humans. Everyone can be deficient in this because meat products are frequently washed due to terrible butchering practices that cover the meat in feces. Also, many ruminants no longer graze and eat only prepared corn based silage product meaning that the ruminants and omnivores are likely to be deficient. This can lead to serious neurological issues. Seriously, supplement with b12.
Animal products are not easier to digest, which is why omnivores are subject to many more gastrointestinal issues than vegans. Things I do not have, diarrhea constipation, vomiting, food poisoning, acne, eczema, diabetes, bloat, etc. etc. etc because I do not eat things that inflame my system specifically in my case dairy but meat is a problem too.
It is also a big giant load of baloney to try to use amino acids as a argument against a plant based diet. It is not a requirement to achieve nutritional perfection at each meal. Amino acids can come from different sources and add up to a complete balance without issue. You do not need to konami code nutrients to achieve a magical power up at each meal. If you base your diet off of vegetables, fruits, and carbohydrates it will balance itself.
Also after you stop eating animals, cheese stinks and tastes terrible. Meat smells like death and the blood tinge scent of death lingers in supermarkets. Meat becomes inedible just not good. These are things I did not notice as an omnivore but as a vegan they stick out terribly.
@SouperKay that is crazy. I don’t eat red meat and I don’t go around smelling blood at supermarkets. If you are vegan and don’t believe in eating meat that is one thing but you don’t have to throw that nonsense into the mix.
And as stated upthread it is really hard to be on a vegan diet. I don’t eat meat and I don’t eat diary and for the past two years it has thrown my body into whack when I go in for physicals. My red blood cell count was low as well as my calcium.
I have several friends who are straight up vegan and the amino acids is flat out true as well as the other issues with it. Frankly I always say you have to have money to be vegan since the cost to prepare and cook food that has no animal by products associated with it is costly. Many of my friends who are vegans have a nutritionist because you can’t just decide to be vegan. You have to make sure you are getting checked to make sure that you are not deficient in anything. Emily being pregnant probably made it doubly hard for her to stay vegan since her body needed a lot more nutrients at that point. Her son being 2 will have to be monitored carefully to make sure that he has enough of what he needs as well to make sure he is developing normally. Frankly parents can decide what they want to feed their kids. If I didn’t like the food when I was a kid I went to bed hungry. We ate fast food as a treat maybe once every 6 months if we were lucky as a kid. I grew up eating black eyed pees, chicken, pork, greens, bread, bread, and more bread, eggs, beef, etc. I decided as an adult that red meat doesn’t sit well with me. I have pretty much fallen in love with garbanzo beans, tofu, and falafel. I do miss ice cream though.
@StarryWonder: While your friends may have difficulty in pursuing a plant based diet, that is not true of all vegans or vegan diets. Vegans do not have to run to the doctor to get levels checked UNLESS they feel ill. A whole foods plant diet (plants, fruits, legumes, beans, and carbohydrates) does not need any additions beyond vitamin b12.
Also, on amino acids from Dr. John McDougall: “Plants–the Original Sources of Protein and Amino Acids
Proteins are made from chains of 20 different amino acids that connect together in varying sequences—similar to how all the words in a dictionary are made from the same 26 letters. Plants (and microorganisms) can synthesize all of the individual amino acids that are used to build proteins, but animals cannot. There are 8 amino acids that people cannot make and thus, these must be obtained from our diets—they are referred to as “essential.”
After we eat our foods, stomach acids and intestinal enzymes digest the proteins into individual amino acids. These components are then absorbed through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream. After entering the body’s cells, these amino acids are reassembled into proteins. Proteins function as structural materials which build the scaffoldings that maintain cell shapes, enzymes which catalyze biochemical reactions, and hormones which signal messages between cells—to name only a few of their vital roles.
Since plants are made up of structurally sound cells with enzymes and hormones, they are by nature rich sources of proteins. In fact, so rich are plants that they can meet the protein needs of the earth’s largest animals: elephants, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and cows. You would be correct to deduce that the protein needs of relatively small humans can easily be met by plants.”
https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2007nl/apr/protein.htm
It also depends on whether and how you cook the meat because will all due respect, a healthy meat based diet would be almost as complicated as other ones if done correctly. Overcooked meat – which many know as the single recipe – won’t really give you a stellar health.
And do these people only eat meat? Dietary excesses of any kind are bad for one’s health on short, medium and long term.
Between “delicious” junk food, Doritos and coke – which seem to be a recurrent theme and eating meat in a healthy manner, it’s a huge difference.
It’s also a class issue where the top vegan echelon can afford to spend ridiculous amount of money on bio quinoa, almonds and pistachios and be annoyingly preachy at the poor peasants. While on the other hand, the single mother of two working two jobs, will scoff at them because when in the world does she have time to cook three meals a day. People don’t necessarily resort to junk food because it’s their dying to wish to become morbidly obese. For many, it’s a matter of survival.
But mostly, i think it’s equally about B12 and potassium levels as well as about the snobbish attitude of some vegans and PETA treating women as cattle for the sake of shock value.
@Sara exactly. It is expensive and time consuming to stick to a vegan diet. Full stop. It sucks in this country how expensive it is to buy things quinoa, tofu, etc. but it is and if you want your kids to be vegan that means you are preparing all of their meals and cooking their meals for school lunches as well. Not that many working moms/dads have time to do that. If you have enough money for a cook I am sure it’s quite easy to stick to vegan-ism. And it is not simply just going vegan and you are great. If anyone is considering make sure you talk to your doctor and a nutritionist about it. .
Goop herself screwed up her own body by her veganism so it shows that having money doesn’t mean she had any idea what she was doing either.
FYI I am pretty much a pescetarian at this point in my life.
@starrywonder
Agreed. As far as doctors and nutritionists go, the tide is changing in regards to veganism since meat rich in growth hormones and antibiotics can also be more troublesome than eating a wide assortment of beans. You can be vegan and healthy but it depends on everybody’s organism. Some just can’t assimilate or are intolerant to certain food groups. (The Dukan diet gets people in trouble, because it becomes excessively one-sided and it can strain one’s liver).
Bit imo, it remains an elitist diet because you need to be excessively pro-active about what you eat. And raw-vegans somehow manage to be even more snobbish with all their sprouts and stuff. If you act like a jackass, you won’t educate a single person. On the other, eating meat out of spite, is also pretty silly.
Then again, if you aren’t a doctor or nutritionist, you shouldn’t educate or preach anyone.
@StarryWonder:
There is no need to concern troll over people who choose to eat plant based foods. When I told my doctors and my kids doctors about choosing a plant based diet, they simply asked me what a typical meal was a single time because the whole foods plant based diet is inherently very healthy. Basing a diet on beans and greens is no cause for alarm.
SouperKay you mean like you slamming everyone that meat is murder and plants based foods are the only thing you need to eat as a vegan. GMAB. You absolutely need to see a nutrionist before you do any type of diet you are not familiar with. If you were not raised vegan and decide in your teens or 20s, 30s, whenever to become vegan you have to make sure that you cutting your body off cold turkey from foods that it is used to don’t harm you. And even if your body adapts to it okay you should at least once a year get a physical and have your blood work and urine checked out. This nonsense about only going to the doctor when your sick is just that, nonsense. It’s bad enough most women due to their work and personal lives barely go to the doctor’s but you saying well being vegan = super healthy so you don’t need to check that you are still absorbing nutrients that way you should be. Also some people without realizing it when going on a diet whether it be Atkins or the like or just changing to a different lifestyle choice such as vegetarianism or veganism can actually find out at that point that their bodies don’t absorb or cannot tolerate certain foods.
@souperkay: Yes, plants sustain very large animals, HOWEVER, cows and giraffes are ruminants. As such they do not really eat plants. The plant fibers are broken down and fermented in the foregut and the animal in fact lives off the microbial by-products of that fermentation, including microbial protein. Microbial protein is higher quality than plant protein, meaning the amino acid profile is closer to what the animal’s body needs and the protein is in a more digestible form.
Elephants and horses rely on hindgut fermentation, which is the same idea only they do not benefit from microbial protein. Their digestion is relatively inefficient and thus they must take in great quantities of higher quality feeds than a ruminant to get what they need.
Indecently, all these animals are true herbivores who rely mainly on grass in their natural state. Humans cannot eat grass and even as a vegan our diets differ greatly.
Humans have neither a rumen nor an enlarged cecum for fermentation. We are not designed even remotely like the animals you mention. We require bioavailable nutrients that plants don’t always supply. Yes, the nutrients are there but our gut can’t always get at them. They may be bound up in forms we cannot use and cannot break down.
These are all considerations for anyone attempting a vegan diet. You are not a cow. The closest approximation in the animal kingdom is a pig or even a rat, both monogastric omnivores.
Correction: Giraffes are browsers not grazers. That means they eat leaves, buds and even bits of bark off trees and shrubs, sometimes with fruit or whatever else thrown into the mix when it’s available. They can eat grass, but most of their food is leaves and buds. Elephants both graze and browse, making their diet more varied than that of the giraffe (browser) or cow (grazer).
Hippos are sort of like ruminants in that they ferment plant material in specialized compartments in the foregut prior to digesta passing to the lower tract where nutrients are absorbed, but they do not ruminate (don’t chew cud). They eat river grass, reeds, and herbaceous plants that grown near the water in which they live.
@ the medical thing
You don’t have to be a hypochondriac, but no matter the age and especially if one can afford it or has health care, one should get a general check up once a year, no matter the diet.
Going to the doctor only when you’re feeling sick, is a bit irresponsible (with the caveat that not all can afford it and people shouldn’t get shamed).
I for one find the Hay Diet to be a decent middle ground and though it has a small share of fanatics obsessed with preaching about stuff fermenting or entering in putrefaction in your stomach if you so much as combine proteins with starch, it’s pretty balanced as a life style. (the same principles should apply to vegan and vegetarian diets).
@Sara: This is getting lost but for clarity’s sake here is my viewpoint, I was concerning myself in addressing all the extra that it seems the internet is prescribing for eating a vegan diet. There does not need to be an extra trip to the doctor when deciding to eat a whole foods plant based diet. There does not need to be bloodwork on WFPB diet unless you feel ill. There does not need to be a nutritionist visit either unless there is some questions that a person has not otherwise answered. Someone eating the WFPB diet does not need special medical care unless there are special medical conditions. A normal human that ceases to eat animals does not need something amorphous and special to choose to eat this way.
A vegan diet is different, not difficult or dangerous.
@Wren: Humans are not obligate carnivores just the same as they are not obligate herbivores. The extremes of carnivorous and herbivorous eating can swing in both directions toward unhealthy. Carrot sticks and sunshine do not make up a healthy diet the same as a meat heavy one. My point is that there is not an automatic deficiency of any nutrient on a vegan diet. There are no special hoops to jump through to be healthy on a vegan diet. A normal human does not require extra care on this diet with sufficient calories barring any underlying medical conditions.
A vegan diet is different, not difficult or dangerous.
@SouperKay
I know. I was referring in general.
I noted before that some of the comments here have opposed junk food to veganism and decided that junk food was the safer option because monosodium glutamate makes things so much better. Or they think the child will be ostracized when he goes to parties and is served meat. As big a strawman as they come.
I don’t think that feeding your child excessive amounts of sugar and salt is healthy, but to each its own. The thing is that one Coke turns into two everyday all day and before you know it, you go through all the four labels in a heartbeat. Eating healthy – whole food or not – necessitates an amount of self-control most of the time (you can cheat just fine, just be careful cheating doesn’t become your main diet).
So it depends greatly whether you’re debating strictly from “the KFC perspective” (which for some is the only choice money and time wise but for others is a life choice of convenience), from “the whole food perspective”, from the vegan and so on and so forth. Some vegetarians get sick because they’re lactose intolerant and they don’t know it.
Unlike coeliac, lactose intolerance is statically researched. Just 40% of adults maintain to digest lactose after childhood. So that’s food for thought. And as always it always depends – no matter your diet – on the amount you’re eating per day.
I have this pet peeve with dried fruit and people going on about how it can fatten you. As if one eats two pounds of dried papaya per day.
It’s fine to be passionate but it’s better to chose wisely who you debate with because some could just refute you out of spite.
I see your point, we judge Goop et al for forcing their food ideals onto their kids. The difference is I always felt that Goop’s were more from a dieting perspective rather than a health one. I suppose all parents make whatever decisions for their kids and most important thing is that they’re healthy.
My sister has been veggie since she was 13, her husband isn’t and neither is their daughter. Her attitude is, once she’s old enough it’ll be her choice but I want her to experience every type of food and decide herself. I suppose the same could be said for Emily’s son, when he’s old enough he may decide vegan isn’t for him and she will have to respect that.
Your last point is true of many things in parenting. We raise children in our religion and our moral belief systems, and as our children age, either they incorporate these things into their own adult lives, or they don’t.
Eh, I wouldn’t judge her, as I do Goop, because she’s consistent. Goop, every other newsletter is extolling the virtues of so and so cleanser, this diet, that diet, etc. I think that’s a lot more damaging, for kids to see their mom eating/ drinking crap like that, and then later having her admit that her crappy diet gave her early on set osteoperosis.
One of my cousins is married to a woman who has some kind of disease where she can’t process meat (EVER–she’s never eaten meat), so up until she married my cousin, her two daughters never had meat. My aunt (their grandma) said she was watching them once, and she told them to get stuff out for sandwiches–(and they were little girls too), and she said she was so shocked that they were pulling out avocados, peppers, etc.
That’s what I was going to say. Goop doesn’t seem to base her eating choices on very good information, so I worry that her kids aren’t getting a sound diet. Emily is working with experts to insure that the nutritional needs of her child are being met.
Well, their diet as well, but also the psychological aspect of it. I never grew up with my mom telling herself that she had to eat this to lose weight/stay skinny. She eats raw sometimes, because she has stomach problems (gets constipated really easy)–but she’s always framed it as something that is going to make her body work better, not as something that’s going to help her lose weight.
Kids pick up on that stuff really easy. A few years ago, my mom had to tell my little sister (who said she was going on a diet) that she wasn’t going on a diet, but that she was going to ‘eat healthy’ i.e. she wanted to become a vegetarian to lose weight.
I think he can be totally healthy as a vegan. She’s probably giving him vegetable protein, and you can get iron and such from greens. The 1% he probably does eat is dairy. I’m guessing. This seems like a non-issue to me.
Her house, her child, her choice. With her income I would assume he is getting all of the proper nutrients. So as long as he is healthy, who cares, as someone said above kids eat according to culture all the time and no one cries out about it. I don’t see that it’s necessary for children to make their own food choices until the are out of the house. As a kid we had to eat what was on our plates or we didn’t eat. I don’t remember having much choice unless we were eating out.
I’m not exactly sure what there is to “judge.” I grew up vegetarian my whole life (as do millions of people) because it’s not common in my culture and religion to eat meat. The people I grew up with eventually tried and enjoy meat so they are no longer vegetarian. Others (like myself) have occasionally tried meat and not been able to get with the meat program for moral reasons as well as getting used to the texture. My brother and I were raised in the same exact household; at 19, he tried chicken and enjoyed it and now eats chicken. I tried meat eventually in college but never enjoyed it so I’ve remained vegetarian.
I’m not sure how you can judge this and I think you’re making a rather tenuous and poor point by saying you judge just like you judge Goop “for forcing her own food issues on her children” because at the end of the day, parents do foist their way of eating and their lifestyle and their food issues with a child.
I don’t think you stop to consider that if you raise a child as a meat-eater or eating tons of junk food (like soda at age 3/4) that it’s just as much foisting your food issues on your kid. Sure, she’s vegan so her son eats vegan but would you be just as outraged if a mother who eats a lot of red meat was giving that to her kid?
i don’t mean to sound testy but it just rubbed me the wrong way. No matter whether you raise your kid vegan, vegetarian, eating meat- whatever…you’re still imposing your food limitations, restrictions or choices on your children. I could flip this situation around and say “well, let’s judge all mothers or parents who raise their kids eating any kind of meat because the child never had the right to choose to be vegetarian or vegan” and i don’t think most people would agree with that comment. For the same exact reason, I don’t agree with yours.
There’s nothing to judge. Parents frequently raise their children in line with what they know best, their cultural experiences, their diet, and their lifestyle. As long as a child is getting the nutrients they should at their age as determined by a medical professional, I think no one should be judging.
My reply was posted right after yours and it’s right under yours, it’s funny because we’re essentially saying the same thing!! 🙂 I’m vegan and it does chafe me when people have a knee jerk response of being dismissive towards vegetarianism in all of its forms and/or act like it is this death sentence or totally irresponsible choice.
This + 1000
Thank you, I agree totally. There is more out there when it comes to diet and food. Parent’s choices about diet are their own and children will grow into adults that will make their own decisions.
almondey, I’ve been a vegetarian my entire adult life. While I have found people to be extremely judgmental, they tend to be a little less so to those who exclude meat due to religious reasons. I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons, and while I know it’s very important to me, I am more outraged for people who avoid meat for religious reasons, when they are “tricked” into eating meat. I used to work at a hospital that consistently labeled certain food items as only containing cheese, yet pork would be in it. While I was angry on my own behalf, I was angrier on behalf of my Jewish and Muslim co-workers.
I realize my hospital wasn’t deliberately setting us up to eat meat, but there are people who knowingly sabotage vegetarians. Gordon Ramsey himself laughs at slipping meat into vegetarian meals he prepared.
I just don’t get why parents who raise their children on Fruity Pebbles, fast food, and sugared pop are perceived as caring more for their children’s health.
@mayamae,
Wow. I almost have no words. I know that there are people who are very hostile towards vegetarians and that there are folks who just just don’t think about the degree to which something is vegetarian, i.e., fish is considered to be “vegetarian” – it’s not a plant, or something is vegetarian to them because it doesn’t have a hunk of meat although it may have chicken broth, etc. in it but to DELIBERATELY sabotage someone who chooses not to eat meat themselves because YOU have a problem with it?!?!?!?!?! That is beyond vile. I never did like Gordon Ramsey, I always thought that he was a grade A butthole.
Beautifully said.
So if she ate meat and fed her son meat would she be forcing her own food issues on her child? And what about people who abstain from meat or particular kinds of meat for religious reasons and raise their children to consume food in the same way? Are parents who keep kosher or halal households forcing their food issues on their children? Now I realize that people choose to be vegan for a number of reasons but many, I would say the majority, do it for ethical and moral reasons, I don’t think that raising your child to be 1) compassionate) or 2) respectful of animals is problematic. Parenting seems to me to be about raising your children in accordance with one’s own morals, ethics, so I don’t see anything wrong with that.
People don’t need to eat meat. There is a wealth of food and fun options for little kids who can’t or whose parents choose for them to not eat meat. He is not being deprived now and he can make the decision for himself about what he wants to eat when he gets older. Being vegan is not that restrictive. It’s a bit frustrating to see it being dismissed as some ridiculous fad or someone being unreasonable, when really for a lot of vegans it’s about maintaining a commitment to be compassionate to other species and often about reducing one’s carbon footprint.
Thank you Renee. I agree that being vegan is not restrictive. My daughter is being raised vegan and I find that her friends that eat the standard american diet (SAD) are more restrictive than she is. They do not want to eat her vegetable sushi or peas and carrots. I wish people would open up a little bit when it comes to different diets.
YES, this exactly!!!!
I had a roommate when I did my master’s who accused me of eating the same thing all, because apparently that’s all that my vegan diet would allow for. Not only was this not true, but she herself would eat 1 of three meals on the regular for dinner, and hardly any vegetables!!!! I know that people’s defensiveness or snideness is due to their own issues but it is a bit annoying when I am not commenting on what they eat. You are right that people need to be more tolerant of different diets and ways of eating.
Also, it’s strange that people aren’t considering the ways that animals are raised, which are extremely wasteful and have a detrimental effect on the environment. Plus the hormones that are harmful to animals and we end up consuming the same hormones and meds that are fed to animals. Never mind the suffering that animals go through…okay, I’ll get off of my soapbox for now.
Dairy products-if a child can digest them-are an essential to a babies healthy physical development
I hope you realize the contradiction in your comment. Most people cannot digest cow or other ruminants milk or its byproducts because it is made for calves. It does not have an “essential” place in healthy human development since its natural structure, with high fat and high protein for a calf, makes most humans ill.
More and more studies suggest that plantbased eating is the way to go, but kids that young do need to take extra steps with vitamins. Even adults do.
Extra steps are not needed to meet basic nutritional needs on a plant based diet. It a fallacy to take a food a reduce it to a single nutrient. It is always about the whole product and its impact. For example, meat provides protein while also providing fat and cholesterol, which most people do not need. Meat does not provide fiber, which your body needs. Your body produces cholesterol just fine on its own and plenty of plant based sources of food provide adequate fats as a part of the whole food. The whole impact of meat negates its protein contribution because you can get protein from many plant based sources without fat and cholesterol which do not need to be added to the diet. It is the industrial food complex and food corporations that continually pushes the idea of single nutrients instead of a complete nutritional picture because all that chicken they are selling you starts to look bad against beans and greens.
Why do you judge her for choosing to spare her child needless saturated fat and bad cholesterol?
It’s just food and he will eat what he wants when he’s of age to make his own decisions, like with regard to anything.
We plan on raising our kids vegetarian simply because we both are and don’t keep meat in the house. Now if they want to try meat when they get older and decide to eat it then that is fine. I realise it is a personal choice and I have no intention of forcing them to stick to a vegetarian diet.
I have a couple vegetarian friends who took this approach with their kids and their kids asked to try meat, but none of them liked it and kept eating it so far.
I also plan on meeting with a nutritionist when it comes time to add food to their diets to make sure they are getting everything they need on a veggie diet. I did that when I became pregnant as well, so I could make sure I was taking in the right amount of nutrients.
I’m judging too although she has the right to make these choices for her son until he is old enough to decide on his own. But that is the point, isn’t it? Her son should decide what he does and doesn’t like to eat within reason (as long as it is in moderation and isn’t harmful to his overall health). I grew up in a home where I was allowed to make my own decisions to an extent. Sure, parents are always there to teach us and guide us in the direction they see fit, but nothing was intensely forced onto me. I wasn’t forced to believe in a particular religion. I wasn’t forced to eliminate an entire food group. It makes me thankful that I grew up in an openminded household. I was exposed to many different beliefs and ideas including a diverse range of cuisines from around the world. It made me appreciate the diversity that exists in the world and to embrace all of it. I hope that Deschanel doesn’t throw a fit, Goop style, if her son decides one day that he likes the taste of meat and/or dairy products.
Growing up in a religious household or with a certain cultural element doesn’t automatically make it close-minded. My parents have been great at exposing me to a wide range of beliefs and ideas and encouraged us to try meat if we choose to after a certain age (when we understand what we’re eating, etc.)
It’s great that you grew up in a household that didn’t espouse a particular religion or eliminate a food group. However, for those of us that did grow up in a house with a certain cultural background or religious leaning does not make it “intensely forced” onto us and neither does it make our parents etc. less openminded.
The last thing I expect is that my parents who never ate meat and weren’t raised with it to somehow know how to feed me meat as a child. It’s sufficiently open minded that they’ve given me and my brother the right to choose when we were old enough. I take umbrage O suppose with how negative your depiction sounded because there’s nothing coercive or intense or forceful about being raised in a religious home or with a cultural leaning that believes certain things over others.
My daughter is being raised as a vegan and I see no issue with Emily’s choice. As long as there is no caloric deficiency, there will not be protein deficiency. Everyone should supplement vitamin b12 which everyone can be deficient in, not just vegans. Protein comes in many sources that are plant based, as in from eating the plants directly (Go broccoli!) instead of indirectly from consuming a ruminant, and much healthier than meat. This may be hard for people raised on the standard american diet (SAD) of carbs, meat, and maybe a side of vegetables drenched in butter(or worse, anything off a fast food menu) but what you have been sold by food corporations is not gospel. I would hope people would be open minded instead of judging a woman who is choosing to feed her son all manner of fruits, vegetables, and carbohydrates which are the building blocks of life.
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/whole-story/yes-plants-have-protein
I do not see how this situation is comparable to Goop AT ALL. Vegan diets may sound extreme to the unfamiliar — but they can actually be very healthy AND indulgent. Furthermore, there is an actual ethical framework behind it; it is not just needlessly restrictive. Gwyneth’s food restrictions are grounded in insecurity and control, and also have no real basis in nutrition and dietary science.
I don’t agree that raising your child vegan is any different than raising a child as an omnivore — so long as you allow a certain amount of age-appropriate autonomy and don’t flip out if your older child rejects it outside the home. I mean, my parents “raised” me to eat meat and I made the choice in elementary school to be a vegetarian — and still am at age 30. I don’t see any reason to prepare my son meat at this age (one), because I don’t eat it, I don’t have it in my household, and it is not nutritionally essential. But obviously, as he gets older he can choose to eat meat if he wants.
Thank you for being informed. I wish everyone “judging” would bother to be the same before laying down their ignorant claims.
My kid has food allergies, and it is difficult enough to have a diet where you have to be restricted, let alone choose to be. I think kids should be exposed to as many types of food as they’re safely able and willing to try. It’s actually very difficult to get enough calcium into a child’s diet through vegetables alone. I’m not saying that dairy is the only way, but I’m sure most vegans aren’t into the vitamin fortified breads and cereals. Kids shouldn’t have to take vitamins because their parents are restricting their diet.
That is not true of calcium at all. Plant based sources, such as fruits and plants, offer more calcium than dairy in a form that also offers other nutrients as well as fiber. When you can get plenty of calcium from an orange, I see no point in picking dairy. Oranges taste a lot better to me.
The problem with calcium in fruits/ vegetables is often the children are too young to eat it and many fruits or vegetables are allergenic for young kids.
According to the pediatrist and diet doctor of her 2 years old daughter,a vegan diet is too restrictive for children .During some moment,we thought to adopt a vegan diet for our daughter with some food allergies.
Actually we go to see the diet doctor every 2 week to do the weekly menus
Happily,her food allergies could disappear around 5 years old
I’m not saying you can’t get calcium from fruits and vegetables. I’m saying you have to eat a lot more of it because it doesn’t have the content that dairy based things do. There’s 50 mg of calcium in an orange. 200 in 1 oz of cheddar cheese. So you’d have to eat 4 full size oranges to equal a slice of cheese.
1/2 cup brocoli = 47m
8 oz low fat plain yogurt =400mg
1/2 cup hummus = 62mg
8oz milk = 300mg
If you look at which fruits and vegetables actually have a fair calcium content, they’re just aren’t that many. And the vegetables, especially are not usually the ones that kids are fond of. My kid is allergic to dairy, eggs and peanuts. He eats a lot of fruit and veg, but he will not eat Kale, artichokes or turnip greens. I have to supplement his calcium with lots of fortified stuff. I just can’t imagine cutting him off from so many things if I didn’t have to.
@Sighs reducing the whole food product to a single nutrient is not productive. An orange will “win” nutritionally over cheese any day. The whole product of an orange provides more than just calcium, like vitamin c and FIBER. Where do you get your fiber? Cheese provides fat and cholesterol which do not need to be supplemented in a diet period. All whole plant foods provide nutrients, protein, and fat. They do not need to be added to the diet, with the exception of vitamin b12, a bacteria from the soil.
Edit: Also once you stop placing emphasis on animal products it is very easy to eat adequate amounts of plant based foods because you can eat them freely without worrying about over eating.
I’m not saying fruits and vegetables are bad. Where did I say that? I’m merely saying that it’s questionable to restrict a child’s diet when you don’t HAVE to. Cheese has loads of calcium, protein and vitamin D. And there of lots of studies out there that show good fat is not bad for you. Neither is cholesterol, actually. That’s being slowly debunked as well. We’ve labeled all these things as “bad” when in reality we just need balance.
Of course natural foods are better. And she can feed her kid whatever she wants.
I’m just taking the perspective from having had to restrict my kid’s diet because I have no choice. I would rather he be able to eat everything, and I wish I didn’t have to restrict his diet.
Toddlers, especially, need calcium in large quantities. Much larger than what adults need, and toddlers also don’t typically eat as much food as adults. So while, yes, I can eat four oranges and get plenty of calcium, my two year old isn’t likely to get his daily requirements if he’s just getting it from an orange or broccoli. I think parents can and should feed their children according to their principles, and I think that it’s possible to get all the nutrition a growing child needs from a Vegan diet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult or that it’s wrong to comment on the fact that it’s a very restrictive diet for a child and could come with problems.
@BendyWendy: The only restrictions to a plant based diet are meat, eggs, and dairy and all their byproducts otherwise known as animals. Everything else is on the table which is a lot more than people want to realize.
The concern trolling over specific nutrients is very standard american diet (SAD). If children, including toddlers are exposed to whole plant based foods like sweet potatoes, sweet peas, and so on, they are not going to die of nutritional deficiency, which would only happen if there were a caloric deficiency. If they get enough whole plant based foods, they will have adequate nutrition and not die. It is always about the whole food, not its singular nutritional components.
When I was an omnivore with my son, he lived on sweet potatoes only for months as a toddler. He would try small bits of other things but the core of his diet was sweet potatoes. All on his own, he refused any meat until he was four. Guess what, he’s nine, vegan and he did not die. He chose for himself as toddler to eat sweet potatoes that are whole foods plant based that provided adequate nutrients and calories. The only supplement I give my healthy children is vitamin b12, the bacteria from the soil that humans require for proper brain functions.
I get it, SouperKay. You’re a vegan. You’re proud of it, healthy and happy. Great. But that doesn’t mean you need to twist the words of everyone who even slightly disagrees. I said absolutely nothing about toddlers needing dairy and meat because without it they will die. That’s hyperbole and I don’t deal in it. I said it’s MORE DIFFICULT to make sure they have everything that they need, and that it isn’t wrong to discuss those issues. I also said parents should feed their children according to their principles as long as their children are healthy.
SouperKay are you just going to go around and bash everyone who is not all rah rah vegan? Seriously you are doing to others on this thread what you just railed at this article for doing to Emily. You are judging. Some people have kids with food allergies and other things going on. Being vegan is not practical. Also your scaremongering regarding smelling blood at supermarkets was just out of bounds. You don’t believe in eating meat because of animals which is fine. I am just not going to go around telling everyone they are all killers because they do eat meat.
@BendyWendy: It is not more “DIFFICULT” to provide adequate nutrition on a vegan plant based whole foods diet. There is nothing that an animal product provides that is not also replicated in plants, fruits, grains, seeds, nuts, legumes, beans and so on. Finding these things in stores, on menus, cooking them or otherwise procuring them is not the definition of difficult.
@StarryWonder: This may come as a surprise to you but meat is an animal carcass that is in the process of decomposing. There are very specific smells associated with that process, most notably for me the rusty iron tinged blood smell. There is no other way to say that what you eat is dead other than you eat dead animals. Someone killed and butchered the animal for you to eat.
Being vegan for you may not be practical. That does not mean it is an invalid, unhealthy choice that is not practical for most humans.
But Souperkay, I’d rather have a slice of delicious gouda than 4 oranges 🙂
So Souperkay, have you heard of the food chain? There are many killers in the world. Why don’t you get on tigers and lions cases about killing gazelles for food? Show them the way of veganism!!! I’m sure they can live on leaves and grass instead of what their diet has consisted of for centuries!!
@Stacy: The animals you describe are obligate carnivores. They must eat meat to survive. Human beings do not fall into that category and indeed do not typically die when avoiding animal products only. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
@Stacy have you heard about those people that want to make their dog to eat only vegan food? I do not think that is correct or even healthy for the poor dogs.
+1
My 2 years old daughter is allergic of milk and egg.OMG what it’s complicated for her and us !
Her doctor thinks also she may have some problem with gluten.
Mine’s allergic to egg, has a contact allergy to milk (seems to be ok with baked in milk, but anything liquid, ie milk or yogurt, makes him break out in a rash), and he also tested for peanuts, though we’re on the fence about that, as he had previously eaten peanuts with no problem, but we don’t want to take any chances. We need to have him re-tested. It’s so frustrating. Especially the egg thing with birthday cakes. You don’t know how many good tasting but incredibly flat and horribly textured birthday cakes I’ve made. Every year I try a different egg substitute. Nothing makes a cake rise like an egg……
@Sighs: Be on the lookout for Beyond Meat plant based eggs if you like to cook your cakes yourself. Their products are a little too close to the real deal for my tastes but their work in egg replacement is serious stuff.
Personally, I cook almost exclusively from the Happy Herbivore cookbooks. The chocolate zucchini muffins are indulgent enough to be a cake. My daughter loves those. Typically in HH recipes the only “egg” is applesauce.
I have a Bakin without eggs cookbook. I’ve tried a few things and they actually aren’t bad. Still no rising cakes, though.
@sighs and dkmif –
Vegan chocolate cupcake recipe from Flour Bakery in Boston (freaking amazing bakery and these are crazy good):
Yield: 12 cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (finely ground espresso beans)
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup cold water
¼ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons molasses (some kind lighter than blackstrap)
1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional – for dusting the top)
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a 12-cupcake pan.
2) In a medium bowl mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder and chocolate chips.
3) In another bowl whisk together water, oil, vanilla extract, and molasses.
4) Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon until batter is smooth and homogeneous. Pour batter into prepared cupcake pan and bake until the cupcakes spring back when lightly touched in the middle, about 20-25 minutes.
5) Let cool completely then dust with powdered sugar or frost with your favorite frosting! Cake may be stored in an airtight container for 2 days.
I don’t want to get into whatever that melee is on this thread, but I do want to point out that fruit-based calcium is actually a better option than a glass of milk, because while the milk may have MORE calcium, the Vitamin C will actually better help the calcium absorption. And kids (that includes toddlers) don’t need nearly as much calcium as the dairy farmers would like you to believe. Its kind of like when a supplement salesperson tells you rhat it’s impossible to get all the necessarily vitamins and minerals in a regular diet – of course they would say that so you’d buy their stuff!
I dunno, at 2, he doesn’t have the highest of calorie requirements. My kiddo was pretty much vegetarian until she was 3 by choice. She just didn’t like meat things. Now, at nearly 5, she’s some kind of psuedo pescetarian (she loves salmon sashimi??) who eats mostly fruits, vegetables, cheese and nuts by choice. The meat I buy is ethically sourced and raised, hormone and antibiotic free, etc and the other day she ate a breakfast sausage, declaring it was ‘tiny hot dog day’. He probably eats the same way as his mom because that’s what’s on the table.
The only thing I worry about with Veganism is getting all the nutrients necessary to be healthy. So if she’s got doctors and nutritionists who aren’t quacks helping her to make sure her kid gets everything he needs and isn’t emaciated or stunted physically, more power to her. I personally wouldn’t like a diet that is so restrictive, but I can’t fault her for having principles. I raise my own kids according to my principles (no boy scouts, no Chik-fil-a, etc), although mine are much less strict.
The only way this concern trolling scenario would be factual is if there was a caloric deficiency. Vegan, whole foods, plant based diets provide adequate nutrition and calories. This is because whole foods plant based diet embrace foods that excel at providing nutrition like legumes, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, carbohydrates like potatoes, yams, quinoa, etc, and on and on.
No pearl clutching is needed for Emily or her family.
Do you have reading comprehension issues? Because you seem hellbent on making it out like I disagree with you. What part of “as long as her kid is healthy, there’s nothing wrong with her feeding him according to her principles” do you not understand? I’m not concern-trolling. I’m agreeing that she’s doing just fine.
Have a seat.
“The only thing I worry about with Veganism is getting all the nutrients necessary to be healthy.” – This is concern trolling simply because a person will be nutritionally deficient when they are calorie deficient. Vegan diets are not built around caloric deficiencies and not eating an omnivorous diet does not equal deficient.
There is no worry here.
I always am wary of veganism. It’s so extreme and sounds like it makes people absolutely food obsessed, which I find troubling in any form. Also, what happens when her kid goes to a birthday party and it’s time for some pizza and cake? Who wants their kid to be the party pooper who can’t participate in the pizza and cake? And has to be the annoying kid asking for his vegan accomodations? She’s setting up him up to be an outcast. What is he going to do? Sit there like a weirdo and eat nothing because Mommy won’t let him eat cake and pizza? Will he bring his own lunch to a birthday party? I mean come ON! Thats just ridicilous. Setting the kid up for teasing!!!
I also do not think a vegan diet is sustainable for a young althete. Kids that play football, soccer, swim, whatever- need high caloric food and protein to support their growing muscles and bones. I just don’t think salad can sustain a growing and young althetic kid.
That being said, I think extreme diets like this are like religion. You can raise your child with it until they start to become an individual and think for themselves. They will make their own choices about what they eat when they are at school, with friends, etc.
I’m not going to comment on vegan child = weirdo.
Vegan Athletes: Germany’s Strongest Man titleholder Patrik Baboumian, bodybuilder Jim Morris, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, Serena and Venus Williams, etc.
There are books solely devoted to vegan athletes and vegan body building.
Yes but those are adults. I’m vary of such a restrictive diet for growing kids. Just IMO
I am always wary of omnivores. It’s so extreme and sounds like it makes people absolutely food obsessed, which I find troubling in any form. Also, what happens when food is not the center of a celebration? What happens when there are only dead things to eat? That concerns me a great deal. Where are these children getting their fiber? Why is there so much processed food? Where is something that looks like a vegetable or fruit? Why is cake the pinnacle of another year passing? I mean, come that’s just ridiculous. Setting up the kid for teasing for not serving food that has any benefit.
I also do not think an omnivorous diet is sustainable for a young athlete. Kids that play need food that will fuel them, not drag them down with constipation, food poisoning, diarrhea, and acne. How will they manage the bathroom without adequate fiber?!? I just don’t think eating animals can sustain a growing and young athletic kid.
I don’t think that people need to waste the energy to concern troll over diet. It is pointless. Vegan children do not die in droves and it is not poisonous so getting worked up about it seems wasteful.
It’s not trolling because you don’t agree with it.
And yes I would absolutely be concerned if my kid couldn’t participate in regular activites, like EATING food at birthday parties, because I’m imposing a restrictive diet on them (different than food allergies).
You can criticize the whole cake and pizza celebration for birthday parties but at the end of the day, thats what kids do whether you like it or not. If you want your kids to sit on the sidelines for that childhood experience, then you’ll have to answer to your kids for that.
It is restrictive to say that the only way to celebrate someone’s life is through very specific food items. Everyone likes to say vegans are restrictive but so are omnivores, that was my point. It goes both ways, omnivores cling to their standard american diet (SAD) and vegans don’t eat animals. You are equally guilty in restriction.
Souper kay, I do eat plant based foods- for example I eat lettuce, paired with american cheese and dead cow and some hamburger buns. It’s delicious 🙂
I never said eating cake and pizza is the ONLY way to celebrate a childs birthday but in America (not sure where you live), thats the social custom.
Obvious trolling is obvious. It is your body, you may eat what you wish but telling others what to eat because it’s “custom” is equally restrictive.
@Stacey! LOL. Also SouperKay you are being purposely rude in your comments. I don’t eat meat but I don’t eat meat for me. I don’t go around acting as if everyone around me are killers of poor animals every second.
I wasn’t telling others they must eat cake (let them have cake!!) and pizza at parties, I was just stating the obvious- that that is the social custom in America. Big difference. You are putting words in my mouth chica!!
I just think about imposing such a restrictive diet on a kid may put a burden on them when they leave home and are in situations, such as a birthday party, where they feel like they cannot partake in the standard birthday party feast. What do vegans do in that situation? I would think it would be a tad insulting to the hostess to bring your own special meal to a party. Or you might get a few eye rolls. Who wants to put that burden on their kid? just IMO
What about bears and raccoons? they are omnivores! are you wary of them? 😛
This veganism thing is not bad, but every fanatic extreme is bad, IMO. Just as are any other extreme thing, like eating just dairy and meat and bread, but every person has an idea or an opinion.
There are many poorer people around the world that just cannot eat much meat, which is an important source of protein. Trying to find the right ingredients is difficult for others because they are just unavailable, not every city carries tofu, etc. Heck, in my country a lot of times people in the smallest country towns drink soda because that is the cleanliest water available.
@Ennie: People on a vegan diet do not need to search for special ingredients or sources of protein. Protein deficiency only exists when there is a calorie deficiency. As long as the person eats enough there will be enough protein.
So the protein question is not in play. The true question you should ask if you want to try to find a person that you can rag on for poor choices is where do you get your fiber? Essential for health but most omnivores get far too little.
As long as the kid is healthy and he is given opportunities to be with friends and go places that allow other trains of thought – by that, I mean, it’s fine for his folks to keep HIM on a vegan/veggie path, as long as they aren’t equating others who don’t do the same as ‘evil’ or ‘stupid’ in his head, and refuse to allow him to play/make friends with kids in his groups if they don’t follow the same dietary path as his family, I think it’s fine.
I mean, the hubs and I have just started the seriously scaring road to parenting (the waiting list for our order of flying monkeys is just insane and the shipping costs are totally unreasonable. So, for our plan of world domination to come to fruition, we finally decided to try the old fashioned way and I just in the last few months was finally cleared by the docs to start trying to get pregnant at long last) and because I have celiac and food allergies, when the time comes – I WILL be still keeping a gluten free home for our family. Partially because I can’t constantly risk dealing with cross-contamination issues myself (I’ve had 2 miscarriages already the doctor says where partially stress and partially due to bad rounds of being glutened. Two weeks of violent explosions from both ends do not a safe/happy pregnancy make!) and partially because food allergies, celiac, and more run HARD in my family so there is a large chance any kids I have will have the same – and I was miserably sick as a child/whole life up to now, so I’ll do anything to avoid that as a parent for my kids. And yeah, I plan to be the parent who makes backup cupcakes for her kids for parties and ask friends to be careful. Once any kids are old enough to understand the risks and if they really REALLY want to introduce things to their diet in order to be tested (you have to eat gluten for several months for the blood tests and biopsy’s to get definitive results), they can, with a doctors help. But that won’t be until they are maybe 12, and can clearly understand ‘you might just make yourself seriously ill, you sure?’. Parents place restrictions of all kinds, from moral/health/societal/religious reasons all the time. If someone doesn’t want to have their children eat meat, the kids are healthy and not twisted around and scared at the idea of people who are ‘different’ in their choices – how is it an issue? I would be pissed beyond the telling if someone told me I HAD to feed my kids beef 3x a week, or tried to force me to dress them in fur or if folks ranted at me for not getting a child’s ears pierced. Same thing here. The kid is healthy, what’s the big deal? Parents make choices and place boundaries all the time. That’s… kind of a large part of what being a parent IS, ya know?
Hi Janeite – Good luck in your parenting path. I’m sure the flying monkeys will thrive 🙂
I agree, as long as the kid is healthy, who cares?
I would just like to be totally shallow, since this is a gossip blog.
Different strokes for different folks, and I am absolutely certain that this actress raising her child vegan will make sure that her child gets excellent medical care and that the little guy will be just fine.
However I lived in Southeast Asia for many years, which is a part of the world where most people eat a dairy-free, heavily plant-based diet (bits of meat or fish in a vegetable stew or stir-fry is a basic staple).
An agronomist working in Thailand once pointed out the following to me: raising a child on a plant-based diet creates a very, very healthy adult who is about 5’4″ if they are male, and about 5’2″ if female. There’s a reason that American exchange students tend to loom head and shoulders over their host families, and that reason is all the meat and dairy fed to American children. [Other societies that create big children and therefore big adults are Norway in Northern Europe and the Nuer in Northeastern Africa – men from these groups tend to be over six feet, and the women are not small either.]
So there’s my take – good for Emily Deschanel for caring about the planet and her health. I just wonder if she realizes that the person she’s raising is going to be both healthy and small.
A person’s height does not determine their caloric needs, their lifestyle and activity levels do. If the food works at 5’2″ it will work at 6’7″. The genetic background of Emily and her husband will determine the height of their child.
What I understand you are describing, in limited height due to food intake would relate only to a calorie deficiency, where someone would not have enough to eat or had an underlying condition preventing calorie absorption. A vegan diet is not calorie restrictive. It is not nutritionally deficient, because no diet is unless there is a lack of calories.
A vegan diet is different but not dangerous.
What, how , why and when you feed YOUR child is YOUR choice. If you choose to follow a vegan diet, or one that offers variety of different food sources as long as the child is healthy you are doing your job as the parent.
That being said, we get it @SouperKay you are a superior being, enlightened beyond the rest of us. When you cast the aspersion that Omnivores are food obsessed I chuckled; you my dear sound obsessed with your fifty thousand word responses to anyone who is not sold on converting immediately to a Vegan lifestyle.
As long as there is free will people will eat what they want. I just hope they eat healthy.
The misconceptions and concern trolling are what I have issues with. What you put in your body is your choice. Eat whatever your heart desires. I will not stand for being told I need monitoring from vague amounts of medical professionals because of my diet. I will not stand for misconceptions like veganism starts off nutritionally deficient, is nutritionally deficient, or harmful in its nature.
Veganism, which is more than diet, is different but not dangerous or difficult.
Oh I agree it’s not “dangerous”, and the “difficulty” of Veganism is really in the eye of the beholder. When I was a Vegan I had some serious issue getting the essential nutrients even with the aid of doctors due to a Soy, Legume, and Tree Nut allergy. Seitan just couldn’t do it all.
@Maghreid: Yes, this underlying medical condition would certainly make a vegan diet more difficult for you. I don’t think everyone has to be vegan either, it is about the whole lifestyle more than the diet when describing oneself as vegan. Eating more plants, less meat, and less dairy will have an impact on health. As I have said above, humans are not obligate carnivores or herbivores. Generally for healthy people, eating a whole foods plant based diet does not cause issue.
Myself, I do not eat much tofu, seitan, or other mock meats. I don’t find that I need anything additional in a protein form. Protein deficiency only occurs when there is a caloric deficiency. All whole foods have protein. I find for myself that the nutritional deficiency applies the same as protein, as long as I eat enough food, I am fine. I also like not having to worry about eating too much. When I go to lunch, I get to have all the vegetables and not worry about portion size. Interestingly, but maybe not because I love greens, I was anemic as an omnivore but now as a vegan, I am not.
the world would be better place if we stopped eating animals.
WATCH THE MOVIE EARTHLINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The documentary Death on a Factory Farm is very informative as well.
And book – Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.
Not to be ticky-tack, but veganism isn’t really a “food issue.”
THANK YOU!!
I know it’s very difficult to be a vegan and get the nutrients your body needs. You really have to research it and be careful and get lots of monitoring from health care professionals, which it sounds like she is, so as long as she is doing that I think it’s okay. In a lot of ways it’s better than parents I see who feed their 2 year olds soda pop (in a bottle!) and fast food and junk food like cheesies and stuff everyday. I swear, some kids I’ve known have probably never met a vegetable!
I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian and it’s wasn’t my choice when raising my kids, but at least she’s trying to feed her child with a focus on healthy food and properly monitoring to ensure he’s getting what he needs.
It is not difficult, simply different. I do not struggle in my life to eat as a vegan. I object to the difficult description because it is not unhealthy or dangerous to eat a whole foods plant based diet in the first world. There does not need to be a deviation from a typical life as a vegan. No extra doctors, extra visits, extra nutrients or anything as long as there are sufficient calories.
Food/diet is a loaded topic; since everyone eats, everyone has an opinion. I never comment on stories, but like so many of you, this struck a chord with me and I felt compelled to share.
A couple years ago I was diagnosed with interstitial cysts (IC), which is like having a severe bladder infection and severe vaginal/uterine pain all day, everyday…for the rest of your life. This can take a devstating toll on both your physical, mental, and emotional health. Some IC-ers can barely leave the house as they are in constant pain and have to pee every 2 minutes (let alone sleep through the night, have a job, travel, or go out to a restaurant or movie), while others find sex too painful. There is no cure, let alone an identifiable cause (many doctors are reluctant to research because according to my former urologist “it is just a quality of life disease”), but diet is key to controlling the symptoms for IC. No caffeine, no coffee, no tea, no chocolate, no vinegar, very little fruit (blueberries and pears, if you are lucky), no wine, no beer, no soda, very few spices, limited cheese, no packaged food (sweeteners and preservatives are triggers for some people), no soy, no yeast (for some), no yogurt…the “forbidden” list goes on for pages (google “IC food list” if you ever want to be depressed). So, pizza, Mexican food, Italian food, Chinese food, Indian food, even a damn peach is out of the question. As someone who has struggled with body issues and has been on a diet my entire life, you know what my thoughts were (aside from thinking “well, sh-t”)? I thought “maybe I should have chilled the f-ck out about food and diet while I had a chance to eat. I wish I’d had more cheeseburgers.” Because you know what I miss? Going to a restaurant and having a choice of items on the menu. I miss not having to ask the server a dozen questions while fielding strange looks from the server and your fellow diners while being told “picky, picky” or “but pizza is so good!” Dude, I know pizza is good and it sucks that I can’t have it anymore, but I really appreciate you pointing it out and making me feel ashamed AND hungry. I’d like to be able to eat an event like a wedding or go out for a meal or coffee with friends and not be limited to ice water (as a side note, dating with IC is a treat–at what point do I say , “I’m not being weird, but no, I can’t go out for Italian food because the tomatoes will cause lesions on my bladder and I won’t be able to sleep for a week”? I’m not up on my Emily Post, but I’m fairly certain that proper etiquette suggests you refrain from talking about your bladder and/or vagina at the dinner table). I’d like a break from having to wonder/worry every single time I put something in my mouth “Will this hurt me? Will this cause a flare?” I get it, some of you eat meat/dairy, some of you don’t–cool, man. But spare me (and everyone) the hand-wringing, side-eye, and statistics/studies. I know fruit is good for me and I know it is delicious, but I can’t eat it, end of story. I understand that red meat might gross some people out (either ethically or taste-wise); luckily, they have the option of not eating it, but I’m still going to enjoy my steak. I get that I can be annoying to go out to dinner with and my absolute and entirely disproportionate elation at finding a food that I can enjoy seems hilarious, but I’m jealous that some people get a genuine choice in what they can eat and find it strange and frustrating that these same people, those with so many choices, are willing to fight to the death about food as if someone’s diet is an accurate litmus test for both their moral character and state of health in and of itself. So, I recommend we acknowledge that food is a highly personal and incredibly touchy subject, take a breather, and then have a snack of our choosing.
+1 Sorry about your issues. That’s gotta suck. Hopefully you’re doing better now.
You’re so right.. sorry about your problem and hope it will eventually be better in the future…. and that doctors may find a cure or at least a way to reduce the symptoms and allow you to eat again some of the things you’d love to eat…
I think she will overall raise a much healthier child for going to a plant based diet. With all the scientific studies done now on plant based diets and documentaries like Food Inc. , Food Matters along with books like Food Revolution by John Robbins (excellent book btw), I’m glad more people are turning to this type of eating. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to go Vegan to be healthy but less meat & dairy is definitely proving to help people in maintaining their health overall. Diet is a very personal thing and people get as riled up about this topic as they do about religion, but I would definitely judge a mother for giving their child processed foods all the time, rather than one who didn’t give their child meat & dairy. We are programmed to think we need protein & calcium from these sources when there’s so many other ways to get it and much healthier ways.
Thank you! This is a wonderful viewpoint on the entire situation. I agree with everything you have said 100%. Not everyone has to be vegan but eating more plants is good. Vegan is different, not difficult or dangerous.
Yeah being full on vegan can be tough if you’re partial to recipes calling for eggs or honey, but giving up meat & dairy just involves eating more veggies and grains. When I’m feeling too lazy for a stir fry, I boil some rice pasta and pour on the organic tomato sauce. A kid could totally get into that. I don’t get wasting time with fake cheesecake when chocolate cake lends itself much better to vegan versions. Also, wonderful things like sugar, salt, wine, & coffee are all vegan. Plenty to enjoy.
Vegetarianism/veganism is not the problem; the processed crap that’s not good for anyone, carnivore or otherwise, is the problem.
No judgement from me. A child can be healthy on a plant based diet or a clean carnivorous diet. It all depends on food choices.
I think the complaint that a vegetarian fed child is somehow missing out on something is baseless and frankly, ignorant. It’s similar to people who whinge on about children who don’t get to celebrate holidays and assume they have unhappy childhoods because of it.
Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to as well. I applaud this Deschenal for taking an active interest in her child’s health.
I totally agree. if you’re a vegan who lives off processed foods or even just high sodium packaged foods yyou’re not doing your body any favors. I do add sea salt to liven up my stir fry though and no apologies!
Veganism is not a food issue.
Is she a vegan for health reasons, or because she doesn’t believe in killing animals? Either way, it doesn’t really bug me too much. I mean, giving your child a vegan diet is surely better than feeding them cheetos all the time. However, I hope that if her kid grows up and WANTS a burger or whatever, that she lets him try it. Let him start to make decisions on what’s ok for him. Besides, if you make something out to be taboo, chances are the kid is gonna want it more.
I just hope she’s giving him a lot of avacodo so that he’s getting the good fats that the brain needs to thrive.
A friend of a colleague is vegetarian, but she cooks meat for her son, he likes it and she doesn’t stop him from eating it, she considers he’s entitled to choose whether to be vegetarian or not when he grows older..
Well, sometimes forcing kids to eat may also not be the best of ideas: I never liked red meat nor octopus; the first one (red meat) I had to eat, the second (octopus) my parents allowed me not to eat because I actually threw up the first time I tried it… (at a neighbour’s house)…
Throughout my whole life I’ve always complained of not liking red meat, makes me feel weird… apparently I have a red meat intolerance of some degree… nowadays I don’t eat it, because I get physically sick..
Of course, all depends on the circumstances: at a holidays camp, when I was 7, lunch was rice with octopus (help was my thought); my own solution was: could I have instead 2 plates of soup and 2 plates of salad???
So, when I didn’t like something much or not at all, my parents would give me a free pass, because I’d actually choose soup, salads and fish instead…. Now, if it’s to only eat cr*ppy food (mcdonalds and stuff), then, you should make them eat the veggies, and the rest, definitely…
Seriously, who cares? Clearly, this woman looks healthy herself.
[*Save the judgement for processed garbage ‘food’*]
Totally off the topic of the food thing, but when I looked at the cover photo I thought it was Brooke Shields. The resemblance in that photo was uncanny.
I’m vegan, for animals first and my health second. It’s not just a diet, it’s a lifestyle and is part of how I live in every way. I’m not wealthy and in fact being vegan costs less than eating meat and dairy. I have never been sick, take no supplements except vegan sublingual vitamin b12 occasionally, and have had full blood work done at my request just to see how I was doing. My doctor says I am healthier than every single one of his patients. I don’t get colds, my weight is perfect, I have loads of energy, I always have delicious food to eat, either that I cook myself, buy processed in the store or eat in a restaurant. Any restaurant from casual to high end can make you something delicious. I don’t pay people to torture and kill animals. I’ve never felt better physically or mentally. My cat is vegan too… And also incredibly healthy with vegan Ami cat food.
Yikes, talk about an over-the-top sales pitch. You forgot to mention that you can also walk on water, Patty. 😉
Vegans are pretentious assholes.
I wouldn’t judge anyone on imposing their food issues in their children since all parents do, I just hope he is healthy. For myself I think being an omnivore is the healthiest diet but people can eat whatever they wish as long as I don’t have to hear about it. People often think if you eat cheese and meat you must be eating processed crap at McDonalds or stuffing your face with chips. I’ve met many vegans who ate awful. They ate alot of chips and french fries and ate the fake processed crap in the vegan aisle, fake cheese and fake meat, all of which when I read on the back sounded like something from a chemistry lab. Also I have to make this correction to many of the above posters who are fed alot of PETA misinformation. Beef and pork are not antibiotic ridden. Antibiotics are strictly controlled, most can’t be given to food producing animals since they last too long in the system, and even if the ones that are allowed to be given, there is a very long withdrawl time that MUST be adhered to. Milk is checked often as well and if one cow was given an antibiotic, that milk would go in a huge vat, and it would contaminate thousands of liters of milk which would ALL have to be thrown out. Farmers are thus very very careful about when they ever call in a veterinarian to administer any antibiotics. Finally to the girl who thinks you can’t get constimated or diarrhea or bloated or acne if you only eat plant based diet, girl, I wish I was one whatever drug you’re currently smoking cause it sound good.
Growing kids need saturated fat and other fats for brain development. Grains are not good for us for the most part. I am not supportive of a vegan diet for children, I have researched enough to be confident in that statement and am in the healthcare industry.
I am a proud meat eater, but I am weirded out by the people who say that vegetarians/vegans should offer their children meat ‘to give them a choice’. If people are vegetarians for ethical reasons, it would tear them apart emotionally to cook an animal just to give their kids a choice. As long as the child’s nutritional needs are met, there is no reason that their parents should violate their ethical code just to give their kids a choice that they will be able to make on their own once they go to school anyway.