vegan parents in Italy - grrr!

I too read about a case in Italy and felt physically disgusted. It is not a case of vegan principles, but misapplyingthe lack of knowledge in this instance to the point of child cruelty. For a child of 15 months (I think) to weigh little more than a babe in arms is truly shocking.
Of course education is better than prosecution, but could you look at your DGC with equanimity and imagine them wasting away because of their parents' "principles"?
If the parents do not have a child's best interests at heart, someone has to step in.
You may gave medical knowledge Margaret but the thought of a child subsisting on breast milk alone for 2 years sounds appalling. All the more so if the mother's own diet is restricted.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/11/italian-baby-fed-vegan-diet-hospitalized-for-malnutrition/

Yes Granjura- I missed that but don't forget cows eat only greens and produce a lot of Calcium
Another sore point is the over use of soya. Its ruining the soil and it takes some manipulation to make a soya bean into milk which I assumme the breasfeeding mother was drinking.

We humans developed our brains by eating meat as the developing brain demands an awful lot of protein and why should that be removed from a child's diet just when its brain is still developing.
Be vegan if you want but give your children a boiled organic free range egg!

I became a Vegetarian when I was in my early thirties. My children were at that time about twelve, eleven and five.

I continued to cook meat for them and for my husband because I didn't think it was fair to impose my views on them.

My eldest son became a vegan when he was about 18 but it didn't last long. My other two sons were vegetarian for short periods of time but are now all meat eaters.

I don't eat meat or fish and some recent blood tests showed that everything was normal.

I certainly would never impose my views on anyone and now give my grandchildren meat and fish which they love.

I have been a vegetarian for many years. Yet I was unhappy when my adult daughter became a Vegan and even more so when she announced she would be raining her two children as Vegans.
However, after nearly six years they are healthy children, correct wight and height. Their immune systems seem to be in very good order and they have only had antibiotics once.
Their diet is carefully researched. Once you get used to it alternatives are easy to find.

My dentist DIL would probably have all the parents of the children whose teeth she has had to extract, because of the sugary drinks and food they have been fed since they were babies, locked up. She is always upset at the cases she sees.
Vegan children at least don't get the processed food some children do. These children are almost certainly less well nourished because of a lack of vitamins and essential minerals.

trisher
DD's friend was horrified when the dentist told her that her children's teeth were bad - as they are not allowed lots of sweeties or sugary drinks.
The culprit is the 'healthy' packs of raisins (full of vitamins and minerals) she put in their lunch boxes - the dentist said that they are the worst thing for teeth as they stick.

How do you know if somebody is a vegan?

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Jalima it is horrifying- those 'healthy granola' bars are another culprit. Absolutely full of sugar. DIL has a lot of sympathy for parents who have been misled, but none for those who keep giving their children cola and sweets in spite of warnings.

I've been vegetarian for nigh on 35 years, and although not quite vegan (still buy free range eggs from neighbour) am almost dairyfree. I just can't bear the cruelty and suffering that goes on in the meat and dairy industry. And that is what it is now - an industry - not a farm like in the olden days. As sir Paul McCartney said 'if abbatoirs had glass walls, nobody would eat meat.
These days there are plenty of alternatives. People ask me where I get my protein from well er.....eggs, nuts, seeds, soya, pulses, non dairy milk substitutes. Plus everything we eat contains protein as proteins are the building blocks of all living things, you just have to combine them to get a balanced diet.
My children were brought up veggie but were allowed to eat what they wanted on days out or at friend's houses. They are very healthy adults. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a 'health freak' and love a bit of junk now and then like chips and cake etc but I just couldn't eat anything that is produced through cruelty - which meat inevitably is. The media always portrays us as being odd. I think it's odd to eat dead animals.

My children were brought up veggie
there is absolutely nothing wrong with a vegetarian diet for children, but it is extremely difficult indeed to feed a child, particularly a fussy one, enough of the protein, carbohydrates and fats they need to grow, and for the development of a healthy brain on a vegan diet. Some people may research it extremely carefully and may have children who eat what is put in front of them without a fuss but, reading about some of the cases granjura posted above, it is obvious that this is not always the case.

Breast milk is often lacking in vitamin D if the money has an insufficient amount in her body, particularly in winter.

I decided to ask Google if humans have always eaten meat. The articles that came up ranged from yes to no, with maybe/sort of in there too. Some said we are natural vegans, others that we are naturally omnivorous. Some cited human teeth as evidence that meat eating is natural, others declared that human teeth are not designed for chewing meat, others that our teeth are not able to extract enough nutrition from plant sources alone. Not surprisingly, I'm confused. I looked at the origin of certain articles and it became a little clearer. The fors or againsts were often meat producer/eater or vegetarian/vegan rather than bona fide scientific. So I'm no further forward.

Given that a very large proportion of human beings eat as if they were omnivores, then it follows, as the night the day, that human beings are omnivores.

Some human beings choose to limit what they eat to a smaller group of foods but they could, physiologically, be omnivores if they chose. A herbivorous animal could not survive on a carnivore's diet and a carnivore could not survive on a herbivore's diet because their digestive systems, having evolved along different paths, could not cope.

Human beings, like some other species, have a digestive system that copes with both meat and vegetation.

Sorry, I should have made clear that I'm simply pointing out that the evidence (foods people eat) shows that human beings are omnivorous 'by nature'.

Whether people want to be omnivorous is a separate issue,

PS I don't agree with what the OP says the journalist is suggesting.

I find it odd that people think I'm 'odd' because I don't eat meat/fish. Lot's of people wait expectantly for some kind of explanation when they discover I'm a veggie. Why do I need to explain myself? What is so odd about not eating meat because I care about animals and the barbaric cruelty that goes on in farms and abattoirs? I find it odd that other people don't care and turn a blind eye to the suffering while they tuck into their sausages and bacon. www.peta.org.uk/

I don't think it is 'odd' to be vegetarian and I don't know anyone who thinks so either.
However, I do think people who subject their children to extreme vegan diets are misguided.

I am surprised that anyone still finds it odd that someone prefers to be a vegetarian. It is no longer an unusual choice.

Some argue that the EU farming subsidies approach has encouraged the enlargement of farms and with that what people see as less animal-friendly farming practices—there are apparently 34,000 fewer farms in Britain than there were a decade ago.

It is estimated that 80% of payments under the Common Agricultural Policy go to 20% of farms, the largest ones.

I think Britain should use coming out of the EU as an opportunity to slow down damaging farming policies that are not good for the soil or for wildlife or species diversity. Good farming is also about clean water.

BTW, being vegetarian or vegan doesn't prevent the killing of animals; farming of any sort kills animals: ploughing kills trillions of animals every year. Small ones. Not so visible as a cow or a sheep but animals nonetheless. Most eating causes death when you think about it, and that is just a characteristic of life. There is no way of avoiding death in life: some life forms die whenever another life form eats. Eat or be eaten more or less sums it up. I am not arguing in favour of cruel practices. I support Compassion in World Farming.