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So, is it wrong to let a child decide what they want to put into their own mouths?
Theres a rumbling undercurrent here which I can't quite put my finger on at the moment.....
I'll tell you this, the average shopping basket in my supermarket is filled with the most amazing amounts of processed crap.
The vegans I know tend to think through the issues long and hard, and to make informed choices. A lot of the meat eating families in my supermarket don't seem to consider dietary needs for a moment....
The report was on young children who, of course, are not exactly capable of an informed decision.
What concerns me is how many children suddenly turn veggie after PETA come to school.
It is just about possible to allow a young growing child to live healthily in a vegetarian diet, providing that lots of pulses and dairy produce is in the diet. Veganism doesn't have this, and the research does show that the lack of meat and animal produce in the diet has an effect on small children.
When a child is about six or seven I reckon s/he is fully capable of deciding what they want to eat, but even then it becomes a problem. Whilst veggies kids of meat-eating parents wouldn't have as much trouble, I seriously doubt that a moralistic veggie mum or dad will allow the child to have meat; I know from personal experience that often they dont, and seven year olds can't exactly cook for themselves.
The argument about parents feeding children nothing but processed shit is irrelevant, as this is obviously a bad thing too. But good quality humanely-reared meat and other animal produce is an important part of a growing child's diet IMHO; if we didn't need meat, and if it was bad for us, then we wouldn't be able to digest it.
I dont think veganism is healthy for a very small child as I keep saying, but I DO think its still preferable to most of the shit that I see some of my friends giving their children.
Well that IS an informed choice, and if they cant handle the reality of where their meat comes from, then maybe they shouldnt be eating it.
But it's not, in the same way that forming an opinion after watching a BNP video and nothing else is not an informed opinion.
PETA, oddly enough, don't ever show the organic and humane farms; they show the factories in Poland and in Denmark. How strange.
Now PETA are entitled to their opinions, and they are entitled to show them, but not to children in schools without a balanced counterpoint. But my hatred of PETA is largely irrelevant to this debate, because PETA are just typical radicals in that they are complete morons.
Bang goes freethepeeps talk of "letting children decide what to put in their mouths" then...
Yep.
Doesn't imply that it's the meat and not the shit that intensive farming does, though.
If my husband or son want to eat something I dont like I wont stop them, but they have to do their own. Thats all im saying.
Thats not manipulating anyone.
It's fair enough to not cook things you don't like, I won't and Ellie won't, it does have the effect of limiting a child's food consumption to what mummy feeds him/her, though.
Is it okay to take them to church? Supermarkets? Festivals? Aren't we socialising them from day one?
Surely the ideal is parents giving their children exposure and access to lots of different issues and viewpoints?
And, of course, generalisations are not always helpful. I know vegtarian parents who cook meat for their kids, and I know meat eating parents who cook vegetarian food for their kids.
It would be lovely if we could all afford to eat only organic and humanely produced foods/and or meats, but in the real world it isn't always an option.
Is ther a noted problem in our society with malnourished vegan children? Cos I honestly am not aware of it.
the vegetarian food I was cooked at home by my mum and stepdad was pretty healthy and varied too, much more so than the lovely stodgy meat based diet I got when I visited my nanas (it was nice though - stovies anyone?)
Fair comment that, I was more thinking along the lines of politicising things though. I personally would send my child to a private school if they wanted to go, for instance, even though I find the idea of them abhorrent.
Definitely.
My worry is that the vegan parent wouldn't, in the same way that the MaccyD's mum doesn't. I have no problem with PETA demonstrating or suggesting alternatives; I have a problem with there being no counterbalance. It's the same with the Catholic schools showing "Silent Scream" but not showing the abandoned child cutting his wrists open and hanging himself, and not showing the mother who can't cope jumping off a bridge with her child.
After a certain age there isn't a difference, but in very young children I think the study does illustrate that it can be a problem.
In a wider scale though, veganism and vegetarianism tends to be more of a middle-class pursuit, for want of a better way of describing it. Processed meat crap is cheap, but veg (even processed veg crap such as the cow muck Linda McCartney called "food") isn't; you have to have a bit of money to be veggie and stick to it, IMHO.
The trouble is not meat, or not meat, the trouble is what food is eaten. A child who goes to McDonald's every day and has a Quorn burger with his supersized fries will still be unhealthy and obese, so to bring McDonald's into it is a bit absurd; meat-eaters who eat the humanely produced food (which doesn't need to be as expensive as it is) will be healthier than it.
The main trouble is that humane food is not possible anymore, because of legislation preventing farms killing their own. GWST's family always used to get lamb and beef from the farm next door, it was cheap, healthy, humane, but now the farm can't kill their own and have to ship it in a tiny truck to the abbatoir, and abbatoirs are not exactly humane. But that's what happens when big business takes over the world, I guess.
It does remove the validity of the point about "choice" though, in any real sense. Which is all I'm getting at.
food isnt all aobut health and nutrition, its a pleasure too and a variety of tastes should be encouraged, and meat is part of it, like vegetables, fruits, dairy products etc etc and thats something id never deprieve a child of
Vegan Children Some of the Healthiest in the World
I have to say that isenheart8s contribution to this thread was quite funny...
Im not even vegetarian, but Im not trying to kid myself that I eat meat because its the healthy or ethical thing to do. I eat it because its easier and it can be tasty.
And yes, I agree that veggies have less rates of obesity and coronary heart disease: not many veggies deep-fry a cauliflower, do they? But the VVF slew the WHO's point considerably, and it makes me dispute the validity of the entire press release when they emphasise the word meat but not the words rich, sugar, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. Eat too much of any one food group and it's bad for you, as any fule kno, but to pin the blame on meat is stupid. Meat shouldn't be the main part of any meal, but it's important to have it there.
Yeah, thats why I tagged my post "vegetarian society shocker"
Don't normally read that bit, it always used to be "re:re:re:re:re: GOBSHITE!" My error.
But still, it's hardly a good source to illustrate that "vegan children are healthy".