How to Raise Vegetarian Children

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette and I am a registered dietitian with theAustin Regional Clinic and I am going to talk to you about how to raise vegetarian children. Vegetarian children go through a lot of the same things that kids who eat meat do. They'll go through their periods where they have food jags, where they may not like particular vegetables or they may not like particular fruits. So, in a lot of ways, it's the same type of concepts that you would apply to a child who is a meat eater. You want to make sure that you're offering as much variety as you can. And you want to really try to include different fruits and vegetables and whole grains. But the primary thing to keep in mind is make sure that there is a very good quality source of protein on a daily basis. Whether that's coming from milk, cheese, eggs, beans, nut butters, like peanut butter. Make sure you have all those options available so if your child is going through a food jag and maybe they don't want to eat yogurt or they don't want to eat cheese, you've got peanut butter or you have nuts or you have some other option that is high protein source that they can choose to eat. And keep in mind that food jags usually are temporary. They are just a period of time when kids are growing very rapidly, their taste buds are changing, so their sense of taste is very acute. They taste things much more intensely than we, as adults, do. So, that's something you want to keep in mind. Have patience with your child. Again, just make sure that you are offering different things. Also keep in mind that as a child is growing, their portion sizes are actually a lot smaller than an adult portion size. For example, if some child is still in the toddler age range, for them, a serving of a high protein food, if it's beans, it's only a quarter cup. So it is a very small portion. So, if your child eats half a cup of beans in a day, they've actually gotten two servings of high protein food. So, keep that in mind when you are doing your meal preparation, make sure when they are toddlers the portion size is very small. As they do start to get older, get to be grade school age, the portion starts to increase somewhat, but it's still not at the level of an adult portion. So, if they are going through a food jag, just make sure you do have other options of protein sources available. Continue to offer the different fruits and vegetables. Continue to different offer the different grains. A lot of the concepts are the same. The main difference is that the protein is coming from a plant source as opposed to a meat source. So, just a couple things to keep in mind when raising vegetarian children."