Help!!

[louli]

I am so glad to have found a vegan forum. I have 4 children:J7mths,A9,D6,M3. We are all vegan that is were till recently. I started to worry about their diet. They are all really fussy and have always been. A list of what they'll eat is: pots. carrots, peas, sweetcorn, green beans, broccoli, rice cakes, hoummous, bread and pasta, fruit, breakfast cereal, various burger/sos mixes, some salad stuff:lettuce, toms. cucmber, avacadoes, olives. That's about it. They don't like sauces(can't hide anything), nuts (occasionally salted cashews/peanuts) seeds or sprouts and most legumes. They won't eat soups/stews/bakes. Basically they want steamed veg. pots. and some kind of proccessed sos/burger. It seemed so limited we went veggie. Iworry on such a limited diet they must be missing out on vitamins/efa's etc. I give them a vit. tab. though know it's better to get nutrients from food. I don't want them growing up with food disorders or resenting me or veganism. I can't starve them till they eat what I cook, that,s not in my heart! Any advice!!:p

[Erin Pavlina]

I'm not a nutritionist, but here what's you have going for you from your list:

Fruits and veggies look covered.
Grains look covered to me too: bread, pasta, rice cake
Legumes: Hummus, veggie burgers (probably made from tofu right?) Good sources of protein.

Nuts: Do they like nut butters?
Essential fatty acids: Avocado is good but they need more. Try the Soy Flax frozen waffles from Van's International. Full day's supply in there!

I woudln't go vegetarian to solve this problem because often the vegetarian stuff is void of vitamins and nutrients. Will they drink enriched rice milk? Try fruit smoothies with flax oil and rice milk in there.

[louli]

Thanks for your reply. We live in the UK so haven't heard of the product you mentioned. The problem with the list I gave is they won't all eat everything, ie. only 2 like avacado, fruit shakes, hoummous. Lots of burger/sos mixes here are made from tvp but also contain hydrogenated fat. They won't eat my home-made burgers. Again only 2 of the 4 will eat burgers!!

[Fiona]

Dear Louli

I think the issues here may be more to do with psychology than food preferences. Some foods e.g. olives I would consider quite a sophisticated taste for a child. I would guess that most children who are fussy eaters would not be so keen on some of the foods you mention e.g. fruit and veg so I'm sure this is a situation you can turn around.

First of all, do all of your children eat cereal and have margarine on their bread? Eating fortified cereal and margarine (we use 'Pure') are good ways of getting B12 and D2 into children's diets.

Do your children eat together, and is there an element of copying each other's behaviour when food is rejected? Perhaps you could try feeding them separately for a while (a lot to ask with four children to feed!) Alternatively, have you tried eating together as a family - sometimes it can help if children see parents eating the same meal.

I would also get your three eldest children involved in preparing the meals that they eat (e.g. helping to measure things out) - kids feel very proud to have helped make something and may well be more interested in eating it.

When introducing new or previously rejected foods, keep it simple and include a fruit or vegetable you know they like so at least they can pick that out, and without thinking about it they might get to try some of the rest of the dish.

My daughter can be encouraged to eat some foods when I (sparingly!) add some tomato or brown sauce - she loves it if the sauce is squirted to resemble something familiar e.g. eyes and a mouth.

Other tricks I use when my daughter hasn't eaten much is to suggest she eat a spoon for someone she likes e.g. "this spoon is for...." This works very well, although I would never force her to eat everything on her plate if she didn't want to.

Finally, another forum you might find useful is the Purple Vegan board in the UK, where quite a few mothers, some with young children, post. You can reach this board by visiting www.veganfamily.co.uk. - it's listed on their home page.

Good luck.


Fiona

[louli]

Does anyone sneak nuts/ seeds into food? How? Any recipes for burgers?? I think in the US vegan products are more plentiful than UK.

[Blinky]

Here is a website that has an unbelievable amount of recipes. Maybe your kids will like something from here.

http://www.ivu.org/recipes/regions.html

Sometimes, I blend up the things my kids don't like and mix it with something else, and they never know the difference. Soup is an easy way to do that if you could get them to eat it., although you can do it with casseroles and sandwich spreads as well.

Check out the "vegan barbeque ribz" under the "Entree heading" in the recipe section of this website. It is absolutely wonderful! My kids love them. They are loaded with protein and are "finger-lickin'" good".

[5xblessed]

I have five kids so I can sure sympathize with you. It seems if some like dinner at least one won't. I try to make sure there is at least one thing at each meal for everyone. Their diet sounds better than chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese I see lots of kids eating. My kids also do not like legumes so I tend to blend them into a hummus like spread. Almost any legume will work, or I use half chick peas and half some other bean. Cereals or breads with flax are a good source of efa's. I also find that if I just keep making something over and over and putting a very small amount on their plate without any pressure to eat it they eventually (like after 20 times) come around to trying it. Sorry I don't have more concrete answers but I sure do understand.
Lisa

[Deborah Barrass]

Hi Louli,

Congratulations on bringing up 4 vegan children !
I don't think they'll starve or suffer nutritionally on the list of foods that they eat - especially when you consider the rubbish that non vegan kisds eat. Do they have soya/plant milk with added vitamins eg.Plamil Soya or White Sun ??
Could you tell me what vitamins you give them as I would like to give some to my children, Tabitha and Felix (2 3/4 and 15 months) as a safety net. The only thing I do worry about is iron, though a recent article in the Vegan magazine suggests most children (vegan and non vegan) have an iron deficient diet.

Regards, Deborah Barrass

PS I live near to Hexham in Northumberland - not too far considering !!

[Lesley Dove]

My children are very fussy too and I don't think abandoning veganism would help, because what would that add to their diets other than cholesterol and other unhealthy things such as hormones anyway? As Erin says you seem to have so much covered, my son mostly likes biscuits and crisps far too much and hardly any veg, except potato and a little carrot now and them, and not even pasta or rice, he does like peanut butter and apples and bananas, so it sounds like you are doing better than us. He eats too much junk already so I'm not going to add animal products to the mix. My first daughter is quite fussy but has different tastes from my son so we just can't get them to eat anything the same at all. We have yet to see how my youngest daughter is going to turn out in her preferences, she hasn't learned to be too fussy yet though.

I don't think your kids would resent you for raising them vegan, assuming you explained why you were vegan, I would think giving them non-vegan food would have confused them though after being vegan for so long. I suppose I would be surprised if the older ones would eat it anyway if they know what it was, I'm curious how did they react to being given non-vegan food? Meat-eating kids often resent their parents when they know what they are being made to eat. I resent mine for feeding me on dead animals and I also even resent my mum for smoking round me, although that is a health issue and not ethical, it did harm my health a lot more than the meat, so trust me you could do an awful lot worse than be vegan as a family! Have you the support of their father in all this? Erin put it well how you have it so well covered, it sounds like you are doing great.

Do you have any peer support from like-minded parents? Maybe it would help, many vegan families are so isolated and the more isolated you are the more likely it is that doubts creep in, so although we have no doubts about it ourselves we have found it helpful to set up a group in London meeting 4 times a year for peer support for both the parents and the children. There should be enough parents in the northern areas to do the same.

I give my older two a supplement from Seven Seas, a vegan multivitamin and mineral, but it is only for 7s and above. We did try them with some chewable teddy shaped ones for kids from Veganstore.co.uk, but they didn't like the taste of those and preferred the ones they have to swallow, so we used the kids supplements for ourselves.

Lesley

[kkmc]

Instead of peanut butter, we use almond butter and our son loves it. It has more nutrition (calcium) than peanut butter and it tastes wonderful.

[kkmc]

We also use fortified rice milk with cereal and he drinks it throughout the day and loves it. Here's the product website:
http://www.imaginefoods.com/pages/products/ricedream.html

[duckie1978]

Don't most kids go through a fussy stage in eating? My mom told me that there were lots of foods that I wouldn't eat and then all of a sudden I ate them, like peanut butter and nuts, and lots of veggies, we used to only eat corn, iceberg lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers. (I am still mixed on bananas and mushrooms) We wouldn't eat cranberry sauce until they told us it was jell-o, then we ate it like crazy! Same with fish-they told us it was chicken and we ate it until my dad said it was really fish. (sorry, I grew up eating animal products until I learned better!) Now my twin and I eat tons of veggies, fruits and nuts. It is normal that they won't eat some foods, kids have to develop their own tastes. Just keep them available and they should come around. Maybe there are some more "kid-friendly" foods you could make? My childhood consisted of finger foods, pastas, sandwiches, cereals and salads. We only made things that were simple and easy.

Maybe if you looked at what foods each kid won't eat, you can figure out what they are "missing" in nutrition? I know it might take some time, but our diets require some planning. I wouldn't feel bad about given them a multi vitamin, if they aren't getting the nutrients from food they need to get it from some where. My doctor was so happy that I take vitamins and eat enriched foods (cereals and "milks") because she knows that I am covered for important things like folic acid, D2, calcium and B12.

[HoneyNBen]

I hope this helps....my son doesn't like to eat substitutes. You know the Wow! I can't believe it's not chicken...type things. He doesn't like the textures I think...not really sure, but anyway, I found a way that makes us both happy...he gets his protein and he doesn't feel like he's eating it. I cut them up into little bites and make mashed potatoes for him to 'hide' it in. One bite on the fork, dunk it in mashed potatoes or apple sauce ( I know! Yuck!) and voila! It's chewed up and swallowed. This has helped so much! I hope it helps you out!

[louli]

Sorry it's been a while. Thanks for all your replies. We spent the last 3/4 mths being veggie - though not really consuming loads of dairy. Veganism is in by being though and that's where we've ended up. I've decided that yes my kids may be fussy and for now not eat much variety, but that won't be for ever. There are very few adults who only eat 3 kinds of food! I've ordered Erin's vegan parent book from VIVA as the Vegan Society don't stock it, even though I requested it, so look forward to reading it. The older kids still want chocolate but I'm happy to get some from veganstore.co.uk I think it'll all work out OK.