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My daughter is vegan and sometimes I worry about her diet. A diet is what you do eat, how much, when, etc.; but being vegan only tells you what you don't eat.

My daughter is vegan and sometimes I worry about her diet. A diet is what you do eat, how much, when, etc.; but being vegan only tells you what you don't eat. Surprisingly little about vegan promotional stuff gives practical advice. It's mostly talking about how wasteful meat is and how foolish meat-eaters are. Where is practical material about daily eating habits? Like, what should an athletic teenager eat, how much, and how often? Preferably with pictures of actual normal daily food, not "here's an arcane recipe requiring twelve ingredients and ten steps that you will eat once and forget about". And preferably with approximate nutritional value. For adults it's probably pretty easy simply because adults don't need a lot of food to be healthy, and can skip meals without much downside. Adults are also in many ways less busy. A teenager needs food in the morning rushing to school, and probably needs to pack lunch also because there probably isn't a real vegan meal available at school to buy.

vzidex 7y ago
I'm a young, vegetarian person who is working on going vegan - and making good progress. If you do a cursory search of vegan material, or only pay attention to stuff that pops up on your Facebook/Reddit/HackerNews/Twitter feed, you'll definitely get a lot of "meat = bad"-type material. However, if you put in a little more effort there's a lot of good material available - from recipes, to nutrition advice, to guides on what products are vegan/are not. Hint: I've found appending the term "vegan" to my Google searches for recipes tends to work quite well and yield healthy, reasonable, scalable meals. By putting in the work, I've gotten a bunch of YouTube channels, saved recipes I like, and nutrition advice.
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  Looking for vegan recipes in google usually doesn't result in staple meals that you can have several times per week. More importantly, a recipe doesn't tell you how much or how often you should eat it in your diet.
simonsarris 7y ago
I'd be very worried about brain development and health. I suspect they are making a big mistake, but its especially so for children. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1437024 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1... > The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in fetuses and children. Regular supplementation with iron, zinc, and B12 will not mitigate all of these risks. Consequently, we cannot say decisively that vegetarianism or veganism is safe for children. I seriously recommend you read the entire review. I do not think it's something that can be trivially solved with supplementation. Eg: > The AND says that “[v]egans must regularly consume…B-12-fortified foods or B-12-containing supplements,” and “[m]ost vegetarians should” do the same (Melina, Craig, and Levin 2016). The results of Herrmann et al. (2003) suggest that even with supplementation vegans may still tend to cluster in the deficient-to-borderline-deficient range. Vegetarians can achieve adequate B12 levels with supplementation, but some are still in the deficient and borderline-deficient range. Whether it is realistic for vegetarians/vegans to maintain adequate B12 levels throughout their entire childhood via supplementation is an open question. > The consequences of B12 deficiency in childhood for brain and body development are extensive, severe, and can be irreversible. Potential consequences include (among many others) impaired cognitive development/school performance, depression, weakness, fatigue, nerve damage, and failure to thrive (Graham, Arvela, and Wise 1992; Rasmussen, Fernhoff, and Scanlon 2001). Breastfeeding infants whose mothers are vegetarian/vegan are also known to be at risk for B12 deficiency (Graham, Arvela, and Wise 1992; Kühne, Bubl, and Baumgartner 1991; Roschitz et al. 2005; von Schenck, Bender-Götze, and Koletzko 1997).
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  Thank you for your concern and helpful research. I am concerned as well. As a teen, she has her own mind and determination so my opinion only goes so far. But the links might be helpful.
  - bjoli 7y ago
    Read a bit about the Cofnas guy WHO wrote that and judge for yourself if he seems like a guy you want summing the scientific literature regarding veganism.

vzidex 7y ago

I'm a young, vegetarian person who is working on going vegan - and making good progress. If you do a cursory search of vegan material, or only pay attention to stuff that pops up on your Facebook/Reddit/HackerNews/Twitter feed, you'll definitely get a lot of "meat = bad"-type material. However, if you put in a little more effort there's a lot of good material available - from recipes, to nutrition advice, to guides on what products are vegan/are not. Hint: I've found appending the term "vegan" to my Google searches for recipes tends to work quite well and yield healthy, reasonable, scalable meals. By putting in the work, I've gotten a bunch of YouTube channels, saved recipes I like, and nutrition advice.

jeffdavis 7y ago
Looking for vegan recipes in google usually doesn't result in staple meals that you can have several times per week. More importantly, a recipe doesn't tell you how much or how often you should eat it in your diet.

simonsarris 7y ago

I'd be very worried about brain development and health. I suspect they are making a big mistake, but its especially so for children. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1437024 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1... > The present paper argues that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics ignores or gives short shrift to direct and indirect evidence that vegetarianism may be associated with serious risks for brain and body development in fetuses and children. Regular supplementation with iron, zinc, and B12 will not mitigate all of these risks. Consequently, we cannot say decisively that vegetarianism or veganism is safe for children. I seriously recommend you read the entire review. I do not think it's something that can be trivially solved with supplementation. Eg: > The AND says that “[v]egans must regularly consume…B-12-fortified foods or B-12-containing supplements,” and “[m]ost vegetarians should” do the same (Melina, Craig, and Levin 2016). The results of Herrmann et al. (2003) suggest that even with supplementation vegans may still tend to cluster in the deficient-to-borderline-deficient range. Vegetarians can achieve adequate B12 levels with supplementation, but some are still in the deficient and borderline-deficient range. Whether it is realistic for vegetarians/vegans to maintain adequate B12 levels throughout their entire childhood via supplementation is an open question. > The consequences of B12 deficiency in childhood for brain and body development are extensive, severe, and can be irreversible. Potential consequences include (among many others) impaired cognitive development/school performance, depression, weakness, fatigue, nerve damage, and failure to thrive (Graham, Arvela, and Wise 1992; Rasmussen, Fernhoff, and Scanlon 2001). Breastfeeding infants whose mothers are vegetarian/vegan are also known to be at risk for B12 deficiency (Graham, Arvela, and Wise 1992; Kühne, Bubl, and Baumgartner 1991; Roschitz et al. 2005; von Schenck, Bender-Götze, and Koletzko 1997).

jeffdavis 7y ago
Thank you for your concern and helpful research. I am concerned as well. As a teen, she has her own mind and determination so my opinion only goes so far. But the links might be helpful.
- bjoli 7y ago
  Read a bit about the Cofnas guy WHO wrote that and judge for yourself if he seems like a guy you want summing the scientific literature regarding veganism.