My mother always had a passion for healthy eating and tried to share those values with me and my siblings. However, I wasn’t interested in being the only kid eating whole wheat bread, while everyone else seemed to live in a wonder bread world. What convinced me to eat healthier and ultimately vegan were some insights from my older sister, who taught me about factory farming: the practice of raising livestock in dense confinement to produce meat, milk and eggs for human consumption. When I understood what she had learned, I immediately became a vegetarian. It took another year for my mother and I to become completely vegan; her full support made the transition much easier.
While it wasn’t too difficult to teach my own children to eat vegan—since they generally eat what my husband and I eat—I was much older when I went vegan. Learning how to choose the right foods and change many of my eating habits was much more difficult, especially without a lot of support from my peers. These days, it’s much more likely that your children will have friends who follow the same vegan or vegetarian diet, especially with the recent support from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American Academy of Pediatrics for “well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets” for young children.
Children learn to choose the right food
Once your children can read, they can check the ingredients list of a food to see if it contains animal products. Until then, you have to be the one to let them know and choose the ingredients for them. Make sure you talk about the ingredients they should stay away from so they will recognize them when they can read.
In addition to reading, there is also asking questions. When we are at the home of family or friends, or dining at a restaurant, my oldest two children (ages 3 and 2) have already learned to ask, “Is there an animal in there?” If so, they know not to eat it.
It is important to stay positive and validate their food choices. So if your kids don’t seem enthusiastic about a dish, try new ways to serve it. For example, our kids don’t like onions (not a rare phenomenon), but when mixed with tofu and substitute cheese, they even help us put them in!
Offering children a variety of healthy foods at a young age can ensure they get all the nutrients they need and help them get used to trying different foods. It will then be easier for them to learn to eat new vegan foods.
Teaching your children to distinguish between vegan and non-vegan foods can be difficult if you use a lot of substitutes, such as soy cheese, almond milk and soy sausage, but it does give them more options. If your child is older when they decide to go vegan, they can learn to make vegan versions of their favorite foods. Each recipe has a vegan alternative, including favorites like fettuccine alfredo, burgers and lasagna.
Of course, every recipe starts with gathering ingredients, and involving your kids in the shopping and food preparation process makes the whole healthy eating process more inviting. My kids love helping their dad grow sprouts and creating new green smoothie recipes with their choice of fruits and veggies almost every day. Let them pick out new fruits or vegetables to try.
There will come a time when your children will start observing the eating habits of others, especially at school or at birthday parties, where most of the treats offered will not be vegan. This can be a problem, but you can prepare for it. If you don’t bring a substitute treat for your child to enjoy while the others eat their non-vegan treats or cheeses, you can promise him or her a special treat after the party. They just have to have a little patience!
Give your child a deeper insight
We always tell our kids why we don’t eat certain things, and they understand. In most cases, I think children are especially receptive to a vegan diet because they love animals. The first thing babies learn is to make animal sounds and then identify animals. We take them to zoos, they have pets and they pretend to be animals. When they find out that animals die so that people can eat them, most are quite shocked. Mine were.
Still, we try to teach our children not to judge others’ food choices, and it seems to work. When our three-year-old plays with her toys, she often makes a vegan cake for some of her stuffed animals and an animal cake for the others. She doesn’t care if they’re vegan or not, and this attitude will help her stay involved when she’s old enough to go to school.
As our children grow, we plan to give them a choice about what they want to eat, and for the most part we already do. As a result, we are confident that when they go to school and have more options, they will still want to eat the same way. For those starting later in life, you will probably have to be more creative. But with your support, your children will hopefully see the health and compassion that a vegan lifestyle brings – and do everything they can to embrace it.
