Feeding a Vegetarian Child

• Share
• Print this article

Let the child participate in selecting the foods for the meal. Given the choice, they will try things you won't ever expect them to. And when they choose it, they'll usually eat it.

— Claire Criscuolo, owner, Claire's Corner Copia

Calories and Texture

While adults often worry about limiting their intake of calories to maintain a healthy weight, young children sometimes have difficulty getting enough calories to support optimal growth on a vegetarian diet. Parents of vegan children who don't eat eggs or dairy products must pay particular attention to the caloric intake of their toddlers and young school-age children.

"A small child has high caloric needs, and raw foods like crunchy broccoli stalks may not be an appropriate texture for their age," said Linda Lashure, a pediatric dietitian with the Fletcher Allen Health Care Nutrition Department in Burlington, Vermont.

"Young children go from breast-feeding to smooth foods to chunkier foods, and by age 2 should be able to eat modifications of the regular foods from your table," Lashure said. "They may like cucumbers, and those are a healthy food, but as a crunchy raw food it might not be high enough in calories for them. So add a calorie-dense smooth food like a nut butter or some cheese."

Mashed or sliced avocados and yogurt-based smoothies are also healthy, calorie-dense smooth foods that young vegetarian children often love, Dr. William Sears, a parenting author, professor of pediatrics at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine and father of eight children, wrote on his website, askdrsears.com. Encourage kids to eat small portions of these high-calorie foods frequently.

Calcium and Cholesterol

Unlike adults, children under 2 need dietary cholesterol for healthy nerve development, Sterling said. Breast-feeding infants and toddlers receive adequate amounts of cholesterol as well as the omega-3 fatty acid DHA from their mothers' milk.

Mothers of young vegetarians who are not breast-feeding and do not include eggs or whole-fat dairy products in their children's diet should consult a doctor or pediatric dietitian to ensure that the children are receiving sufficient dietary cholesterol.

Dietary calcium is important to growing bones, muscles and organs. Pizza, cheesy nachos and bagels with cream cheese add calcium to the diet. Vegans, who do not consume dairy products, can still obtain adequate amounts of dietary calcium from tofu, green leafy vegetables and calcium-fortified foods such as orange juice, according to the USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion's Choose My Plate program.

Vegetarian children in far northern climates where there is not enough sunlight exposure to generate vitamin D in the body may suffer from vitamin D deficiency if they don't drink sufficient quantities of fortified milk. For them, a vitamin D supplement might be advisable, wrote registered dietitian Holly Alley when she was with the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Alley has since died.

Protein and Iron

Most nonvegetarians consume more protein than they need, which can cause excess calcium excretion and lead to osteoporosis, Alley wrote. Vegetarians, especially those who eat eggs and dairy products, usually consume plenty of protein. Even without eggs and dairy products, vegetarian children can get sufficient protein from whole grains and beans, soy products, vegetables and nuts, Sears said.

Securing sufficient iron and vitamin B-12 presents greater challenges for parents of vegetarian children. Beans, leafy green vegetables, tofu and molasses provide significant amounts of dietary iron.

Cooking in iron pots and limiting beverages that contain tannin, such as chocolate milk and sodas, can increase the amount of iron in a vegetarian diet, Alley wrote. Tannins interfere with the body's absorption of iron, while including a source of vitamin C, such as orange juice or fruit salad, with meals helps absorption. Vegetarian children can easily get the small daily requirement of vitamin B-12 from dairy products or eggs; vegan children might be deficient in this vitamin unless they take supplements.

Colorful Choices

Choosing a colorful range of foods, such as green peas, orange sweet potatoes and red strawberries, is a good way for parents to ensure that their vegetarian children are getting a full range of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Foods of different colors contain nutritional benefits not found in white bread, white rice, potatoes and burgers.

"When I talk to the 12-year-old vegetarian, I don't so much talk about a food pyramid as I do about why we need to have color in our diet," Lashure said. "I review the phytochemicals and the vitamins in the foods, and we try to find ways to promote a colorful diet."

Color can be added to the diet economically by choosing whatever fresh fruits and vegetables are in season or on sale a particular week. "Bananas and apples remain relatively inexpensive, and if your child gets a school lunch, that's a good time to grab an extra orange. Even if fruits and vegetables are frozen or canned, if that's what is available for the family to work with, then choose the options that add the most color," Lashure said.

Color choices are a good way to involve vegetarian children in selecting their own healthy meals. "As a parent you can say, 'You need to eat a green vegetable or an orange vegetable or a colorful fruit.' Then let them pick which one," suggested Claire Criscuolo, who with her husband, Frank, founded Claire's Corner Copia, in New Haven, Connecticut in 1975.

"Put everything in front of them. Let the child participate in selecting the foods for the meal. Given the choice, they will try things you won't ever expect them to. And when they choose it, they'll usually eat it," Claire Criscuolo said.

Read Next:

• Share
• Print this article