Posted on January 21, 2010.
Raising a vegetarian child Article from: My Family in the United Kingdom
The proteins and nutrients are in abundance in meat, but they are more difficult to achieve in the diet is vegetarian. However, follow these guidelines and you can ensure that your child will not miss a thing.
Raising a vegetarian - before six months
1) Starting
If you want to start your children on a vegetarian diet from birth, avoid wheat, nuts, oats, milk (excluding breast or formula), eggs or citrus fruit until they are past age "security" - four months or so.
It is known that babies are able to eat solids at four months. To adhere to the guidelines above, starting with the mashed banana, avocado or a mixture of vegetables. You can mix and match and see what your child eats willingly and what they reject.
If something is rejected always try again a few days later, and keep trying. Many preferred food of adults are, in fact, acquired tastes, so there is no harm in developing the tastes of a baby. If consistently rejected, of course, there could be a risk of allergy.
Your baby has taste buds sensitive at first, so avoid overwhelming flavors like sprounts or spinach. When they go beyond fourteen months, at your discretion what to feed them.
After six months
2) Iron
Babies born with physical stores of iron that will start to run out after six months. At the age of four months, babies will require approximately 4.3mg of iron in their diet, which amounts to approximately 7.8mg seven months. It is essential that you provide them with iron using their strength and development. Some vegetarian foods that are high in iron are as follows:
- Figs
- Apricots
- Raisins
- Prunes
- Potato (mashed)
- Egg yolks
- Green leafy vegetables like spinach, asparagus, broccoli, kale, parsley and cabbage.
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3) Experimentation
As your child grows, you can experiment with ways to introduce various nutrients to their diet, like adding Lens their mashed potatoes. You can even put the family meal in a blender and see how that goes.
When you try to make the leap from meat to vegetarian with older children and they dig their heels, ask them to experiment with meat substitutes. Try Quorn burgers or stir-fried with soy. Do not tell them what she is and see what they think without any a priori. Never force him to make a change of diet, as they may want you to have it now or further down the line, and if they do not learn to prepare food themselves nutricious DOM, their health may be affected.
4) Portion control
Portion sizes in general should be larger on the vegetarian diet. The nutrients provided in a slice of meat are difficult to extract from a vegetarian dish of similar size. For example, 20% of the contribution of body iron may be necessary absolbred meat, poultry, and fish, but only 5% of vegetables and grains.
The vegetarian diet, however, has some advantages: it tends to contain far fewer calories, saturated fats and oils. In fact, studies have shown that vegetarians have less chance of obesity, heart disease, hypertension and certain forms of cancer.
5) protein and calcium
Include milk, cheese, and eggs, all of which contain high levels of protein in the diet of your child. Meat the leading provider of protein in a normal diet. Do not worry about the higher intakes of fat or imbalance: the vegetarian diet is na.