The Vegetarian Mother and Baby

Child Nutrition

There are three very important points with regard to bringing up vegetarian children:

Because children have higher nutritional needs than adults do, they need more energy-dense food. This means that the 'high-fibre/low-fat' rule that adults should live by is practically reversed. In other words, within reason, make sure that vegetarian children do not eat too much fibre and that they eat a good amount of fat. I made sure of the former by never feeding bran cereals (although my son eats beans, lentils etc), and by serving white bread sometimes, and white pasta. As for the high-fat aspect, I always stir some margarine or good vegetable oil into his dinner. So, for example, if I was having lentil and carrot soup for lunch, I would mash some of that into some cooked potato to make lunch for him, and then stir in some margarine to increase the calorie content.
Be very careful to include lots of iron-rich food in your child's diet: beans, green vegetables, dried fruit and egg yolk are all good sources. One of the symptoms of iron-deficiency is lethargy, so if your child is bounding around the place you can probably be confident that he or she is getting enough iron. But do be aware of it.
Vegetarian children mature more slowly than do meat-eating children. This has positive benefits, but don't be surprised if your vegetarian child is shorter than average during childhood - many studies have shown, as we said, that vegetarian children end up the same average heights as meat-eaters. It has been shown that high-protein diets bring quick growth but equally quick degeneration, whilst a low-protein diet brings slower growth but also slower degeneration.
Another angle to this is that vegetarian children undergo puberty at a later stage than meat-eaters, and this can have very good benefits. For example, early onset of menstruation has been linked with a higher risk of later ovarian and breast cancer, so your vegetarian daughter is lowering her risk of this. But don't be surprised if she's the last child in her class to be wearing a bra or starting her periods.

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