Comments on: Vegan Parenting Under Fire–Again

By: Neohippie

Neohippie — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:43:33 +0000

Johanna,

Actually, I don’t know if my sister was diagnosed or not, I just heard about the pregnacy scare! Maybe her health problems were caused by something else, but as I understand it, she did basically remove meat from her standard American diet, which is I know is not the right way to do it.

I suppose what I meant is that there are ways to really mess up a vegetarian diet, and I know that doesn’t mean a vegetarian diet is unhealthy in and of itself.

As for the planning, well, it’s probably not a bad thing to have to think about your food more anyway. I have a friend who keeps strictly kosher and it seems he has similar issues to strict vegans about making sure he can get food that’s ok for him to eat (and before I knew him I didn’t realize it was more complicated than just not eating pork and keeping meat and milk separate).

I didn’t mean to make vegetarianism sound impossible to pull off or anything like that. I’m sure there are lots of very well-nourished vegans out there.

By: Best Parenting Websites Guide

Best Parenting Websites Guide — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:53:42 +0000

Gathered the news on Visitthebest.it was interesting and shared the contents to my teacher too.

By: Mythili

Mythili — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:45:42 +0000

I’m a vegetarian, have been one all my life 35+ yrs :=) half the population in my country is vegetarian ( india) , true we eat diary and it’s not as extreame as vegan, but absolutely no meat no eggs either. didn’t need too muc reading up to be one, it’s a way of life,didn’t need to consume supplements either, i have 2 healthy kids ( begetarians again) and finished the boston marathon in under 3.20 …btw my grandparents are in their late 80′s and leading active lifestyles, no sign of any diseases or alzheimers either. so i wouldn’t diss the vegetarian way of life so easily. If you are a meat eater then maybe it’s hard to understand the choice just liek i find it hard to understand why someone would eat flesh!!!

By: Sherri

Sherri — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:29:04 +0000

@Alexis – Had my main point been about Vit D and its various sources, rather than *becoming vegetarian without research, ending up a junkfood vegetarian*, I probably would have looked up and included information about Vit D sources.

Since I am not a vegetarian, and consume dairy and greens for calcium, and eat salmon and take Vit D supplements, and also try to eat magnesium rich foods or supplement occasionally for it, I’m not too concerned about my bone health to research it just to comment on a blog post, especially when my point is not about Vit D sources.

However, if I decided to become a vegetarian, I would certainly research Vit D sources to ensure I was getting enough of it, as well as the nutrients listed above. I believe that most intelligent vegetarians have already done this, but obviously not everyone does, as stories like my friend’s teens shows, and possibly the parents with the daughter having rickets.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:12:01 +0000

Well, all we really know about the diet is that it was deficient in vitamin D. And for vegans in a sun-poor area like Scotland, the only real sources of vitamin D are dietary supplements and fortified processed foods. So a diet that avoids processed foods (by focusing on fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, and other whole plant foods) can be very healthy in every other respect, but result in severe deficiency in vitamin D (and also vitamin B12).

I don’t know if this is the sort of diet that this particular girl ate. But in the majority of cases I’ve read about where a vegan diet results in a nutrient deficiency (usually involving breastfed infants of vegan mothers developing B12 deficiency), that’s how it happens.