Sheena

Anyway, I understand why her story would shake you. As parents raising vegan children, we do need to be able to be honest and admit that this is all one big experiment. I believe that children can grow and thrive into abundant health on a vegan diet; that a vegan diet is appropriate for every stage of life. HOWEVER, I also recognize that there is still a whole lot we don’t know about nutrition, which means there might be something that *some* vegan diets are accidentally missing.

Anyway, honestly? I use Waits and his own health as a barometer. And right now, he is incredibly healthy; strong; agile; and exceptionally intelligent. He is above average height and below average weight, which I keep an eye on. IF his health ever became a concern, I would be willing to re-examine his diet and possibly include some animal foods if I felt I needed to. I doubt that will ever happen, but I’m open to it. I want to be completely honest about that. I will never put dogma/my own personal beliefs, no matter how deeply they are held, before my child’s health. Luckily that has never been an issue!

But every kid is different. I’ve met a lot of vegan/vegetarian kids and yes, some of them have seemed not-so-healthy to me. Of course, that can be said of omnivorous kids as well! I’m constantly looking at children and searching for all my little markers of health. So far I have not been able to detect any patterns, except that vegan children generally do tend to be on the thinner side overall than omni kids, and also they seem to have a bit more energy! Anyway, this is a long and rambling comment. I’ll write more in my post next week, but I just wanted to reach out and empathize. Raising kids is hard and doing it outside the mainstream takes a lot of courage. If you want to chat feel free to email me!