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Vegan Nutrition with Marty Davey Marty Davey is a Registered Dietitian and has a Masters degree in Food and Nutrition from Marywood University. In her first career incarnation, Marty worked in the entertainment field, mainly in film and television. During her first college career in the 1970's, Marty moved from her blue collar meat and potatoes diet to learning to eat a variety of beautifully meals set in a relaxed dinnertime while studying in France. She became a vegetarian in 1980 when she discovered that the French didn't want our meat products due to factory farming methods. She began studying nutrition while cleansing her diet to a totally plant-based lifestyle. After having her son, she embarked on becoming an RD.
Marty has taught nutrition and cooking classes for many years. She was the Program Coordinator of the SNAP! program at Marywood University. This was a family weight management program that focused on the family dynamic in dealing with weight issues for both parents and children. Currently, Marty is working on a book for elderly vegetarians/vegans discussing daily nutrition needs and including issues with acute and long term facility care when following a plant-based diet. A website is being built for Marty to further educate people about plant-based diets. She also has a private practice specializing in assisting clients transitioning from the conventional Western foods to a plant-based regime. See full index of questions 
I have been vegan for almost four years and I just had my first child... YAY!! I've been trying to look around on websites to see what I will need to feed my son as he gets older. I just want to make sure that my son gets everything that he needs to the healthy vegan that everyone thinks he can't be. Do you have any advice, any websites that can help me get prepared for this fabulous adventure I'm about to embark on? Thanks for all your help.
 My first resource for anything vegan is Becoming Vegan, by Brenda Davis, RD and Vesanto Melina, MS, RD. As you may know the chief issues for vegans are B12 and Vitamin D intake. The Vegetarian Practice Group of the American Dietetics Association states that as long as the mother is getting sufficient B12, the breast-fed infant should be also. Davis and Melina think the infant should get a B12 supplement from age two weeks on. As a vegan mom, I made sure my B12 was up to snuff. Every Monday and Thursday I take 1000mcg of B12 and I had fortified foods. If you aren't sure, I would err on the side of caution and give your son 0.3mcg per day. B12 is water soluble and will not build up in the body, so I wouldn't worry if he gets a little over the recommended amount. Vitamin D is another nutrient that should be supplemented. The recommendation is 5mcg per day or 10mcg per day, if you live in a northern climate. Taking your child outside to get sun will provide them with some Vitamin D, but, again, err on the side of caution. Vegans need to take Vitamin D2. Vitamin D3 is from animal sources. Another concern I found was with essential fatty acids. As a breastfeeding mom, make sure you have enough and the right ratio. The idea is not only to intake enough omega-3 (flax), but to decrease oils high in omega-6 (saturated fats, transfats, safflower, sunflower, corn and tropicals). Most recommendations are two tablespoons of flax meal daily. You can buy a cheap coffee grinder and grind flax seeds. They are much less expensive than the flax meal or oil. Keep the flax meal in the refrigerator and use it within the week. It is a perfect egg replacer when cooking and baking. Also, you may want to consider taking a supplement of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. There are many companies you can choose from, just make sure it is based on a cultured microaglae. One trademark listed by Brenda Davis is Neuromins. The website listed below by Ms. Davis will fill in the full story. When your child begins to eat tofu check below for my suggestions. Realize that flax meal absorbs a lot of water, so please maintain a good hydration level. Here is an important note: Do not use unfortified nondairy beverages as formula or as a primary milk source for infants. Do not make your own forumla. They do not provide the nutrients a growing baby needs. If you choose not to or cannot breast feed use a soy-based formula with DHA (essential fatty acid). There are a few in the marketplace. I just searched for "organic baby formula" on line and came up with three different companies. I'm a real stickler for growing what I can of my own food, making my own bread and cooking my own beans, but even as a Registered Dietitian, I would never concoct my own formula. The official recommendation for introducing solid foods from the American Dietetics Association, in addition to Davis and Melina, is between 4-6 months and the child meet the following criteria: sits with help or support, doubled in birth weight and weighs 13+ pounds, and is hungry after 8-10 breastfeedings a day or needs more than 32 ounces of formula in a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization states that infants do not need any foods but breast milk for the first six months. Web addresses to both of these organizations are listed at the end of this article. My midwife had a quick tip: when your child begins grabbing your food, they are usually ready for something more than breast milk. Some parents want to keep their infant solely on breast milk for the first year. Your child needs the extra nutrients from solid foods as they grow. The main thing I learned when feeding my son was to give him nutritious food, but not a lot of fibrous, bulky foods. It fills them up so that they can't eat enough calories. The introduction of foods, according to Davis and Melina, should be in this order: iron-fortified infant cereal (4-6 months); cooked and pureed vegetables, peeled fruits, cooked and pureed hard fruits (6-7 months); protein-rich foods such as mashed tofu, cooked, pureed legumes, unsweetened fruit juice (7-8 months), finger foods, teething foods such as bread crusts, cooked, mashed whole grains such as quinoa and brown rice (8-9 months); stews, casseroles, nut creamed with non-dairy milk, water or juice (10-12 months). Okay, so you read the above. What happens in your actual kitchen on a busy morning? Well, I was not a perfect mother. Due to my work schedule I breastfed for 10 months, not a year. When I started the infant cereal, I mixed it with full-fat, enriched soy milk. Infants need fat for their brain development. I didn't add one fruit or vegetable per week to check for allergies. We were . . . financially challenged at the time. I bought dollar bags from our neighborhood grocer. Whatever was getting over-ripe, he put in a bag and sold for a dollar. Our foods changed daily. The dollar bags introduced my son to turnips, parsnips, squashes, plums, pomegranates, mangoes, and other products I couldn't afford fresh. However, we got a lot of apples. I made apple sauce and added it to my son's cereal. A month or so later, I started with plain mashed tofu. That didn't make him very happy. However, tofu with applesauce did. I started putting flax meal (1 teaspoon) in it to support his essential fatty acid intake. He ate this throughout the day. When he started teething, I started with more grains and fed him what he wanted off of my plate. This was a series of trials and errors. Children have a gazillion more taste buds than you do. You have killed off a sufficient amount via burning coffee, tea, and soups to tolerate or need spices added. No infant or child needs salted foods. Cook with seaweeds and iodine is not an issue. I lived in a very culturally mixed neighborhood. Moms of other cultures would tell me that their child liked moderately spicy foods. My husband and I love spicy food. No matter what the preparation ratio it did not work with my son. However, he did eat a number of vegetables in smoothies. Smoothies can have raw greens such as kale and collards. I call it Green Monster Food. (A note of caution: black or blueberries will turn an orange smoothie gray or charcoal. Only acceptable at a Halloween party.) When he was around a year, I hid everything green in quesadillas or burritos. Legumes are very high in iron and he was happy to eat them like this. When he was three, I switched to enriched rice milk from soy. He didn't need the fat, but he did need the calcium and Vitamin D from the enriched milk. I am not a big fruit juice proponent. I would rather kids get the fiber with their fruit. I did not serve juice in a bottle. When I served juice, the ratio was 1 part juice: 8 parts water. I increased the juice slowly until my son was three. He still only has 4-8 ounces of juice a day. Here are some other tips in surviving in the kitchen: Have a snack shelf or snack place in the kitchen and in the frig that kids three years and up can reach by themselves. Everything in this place is available for them to eat all the time. You set the portions. My frig has fruit in a bowl. The fruit is cut up, if necessary. The shelf has pretzels, dry fruit and nuts. The snack shelf closes an hour before lunch and two hours before dinner. We eat dinner late, so it is not open after dinner unless it is a special night or I find out a new recipe was better used for compost. Remember that it can take 9-10 times of exposure for your child to either accept or reject a food. It took four years for my son to eat real salads. It started with carrot sticks. My husband and I just kept eating salads and giving my son a type of salad he would eat, such as apple sauce or two leaves spinach. Don't make foods a punishment or reward. Food is what you need to live. Turning it into a battle zone is no fun and can lead to eating disorders. Your job is not to tell you child how much to eat, their tummies are smart enough to do that. Portions sizes should be one tablespoon per year of age for dinner. That means one tablespoon of beans, one tablespoon of quinoa and one tablespoon of steamed kale for a three-year old. If they want more - great. If not, honor their choice. During growing spurts they will eat a lot. The next day, maybe not. Your job is to present healthful food for them. Obviously, we don't want to keep presenting food they don't like, but if their tastes for everything on their plates change with the wind, your kitchen is not a restaurant. Ask if there is an easy fix. Sometimes just not putting two foods together or mashing something makes it palatable. I grew up in a family of seven, what was on the table was it. If you didn't like the vegetable, you could have a leftover from the previous day. This rule works for me because I am not spending my time making two meals. Check your own eating habits. How much variety do you have? If you limit their exposure to food, they will not be willing to try new foods. If you have unhealthy snacks, they will want them. If a parent doesn't eat salad, neither will they. Toddlers, as a rule, do not take themselves to fast food restaurants. If your kids have a chauffer, you are on your own. Seasonal fruit makes a great dessert. One tablespoon of a non-dairy frozen dessert over fresh sliced strawberries, peaches, cherries or baked apples is quick, looks special and makes a low-calorie dessert. (Sliced apples can bake during dinner.) If food becomes a real issue, have your child plan menus with you and assist in preparing the food. When I ran a kid's weight management program (ages 6-12), this was the best way to have them try new foods and understand the time and effort it takes to get meals on the table. My eight-year old just had his first culinary disaster. Instead of one teaspoon of baking soda in our pancake recipe, he put in 1/4 cup. He was devastated. My husband and I shook his hand and congratulated him for joining the "Cooking Disaster Club." We recanted some of our disasters. Mine was a breakfast where 12 people were attempting to eat my buckwheat "hockey pucks" (pancakes). My husband made squash cake for my birthday. (Don't go there.) We all laughed and had bagels. Sources: Comprehensive vegan childhood nutrition: Coughlin, C.M., Vegetarian Dietetics Practice Group: http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/Vegan%20Children.html? Recommendations from the American Dietetics Association: http://eatright.org/ada/files/infant_book.pdf Recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatricians: http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics%3b100/6/1035 Essential Fatty Acids: Davis, B., http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/essentialfat.htm Vegan infant and childhood nutrition needs: Mangels, R., Vegetarian Resource Group, http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/kids.htm Everything you want to know in a list format: Mangels, R., Vegetarian Nutrition Resource List, Food and Nutrition Information Center, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/pubs/bibs/gen/vegetarian.htm Ask Marty your nutrition question here. |
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