A close friend and creator of the site PlentyVegan.com recently asked me to write up a piece on how we are raising our children on a plant-based diet. With lots of thoughts about that very topic swimming through my head, I enjoyed having the chance to write it all down.
If you have any interest in pursuing a vegan diet with your own family, check it out!
Thanks for sharing how you handle being vegan! I tried years ago before getting pregnant and I don’t think I handled it correctly, lacking certain nutrients, then got pregnant, and was really sick. My doctors ended up prescribing me to eat red meat 3x a week!! I would love to try being vegan in the future, I’m not much of a meat eater anyway. Though our oldest loves meat – I blame the 3x weekly red meat intake, lol!
You make being vegan seem so manageable when I’ve found it daunting! Knowing what supplements you give your kids really helps. Do you take any supplements being being vegan?
Yikes, sorry to hear you had a bad experience! It’s been a mostly easy path for us, but we’ve read a lot of books on the topic (ok, Michael has read a lot of books… I’ve read a few). If you do look for more information on veganism in the future, I’d suggest starting with some of the documentaries that are out there (I think Forks Over Knives on Netflix was well done). The recent book from Dr. Michael Greger, the creator of NutritionFacts.org, is a particularly great resource as is his site.
Hey Jaime, as for your question about what supplements we take ourselves, we try to get most of our nutrients from foods. Dr. Greger’s “Daily Dozen” is a useful reference for us. Although there’s a Daily Dozen app that makes it pretty easy to track, we haven’t used it. I’d say we still meet most of the recommendations day-to-day, especially on the days we do oatmeal for breakfast and throw in ground flax meal, fresh fruits, cinnamon, and a little turmeric (a little goes a long way, we generally don’t use enough that we taste it).
After trying to optimize the food we’re eating itself, we do take a few supplements to fill in any gaps. We use this reference of supplements that people eating whole foods plant-based diets should take. For us, that typically looks like 2500mcg of sublingual vitamin b-12 at least once a week, 5000 I.U. of vegan D3 daily, and a vegan DHA-EPA omega-3 supplement.