My Decision Not to Feed My Baby Meat

A topic of conversation came up on Thanksgiving that I knew would come up and will come up anytime a family get-together happens and food is involved. I haven't come out and announced that I am vegetarian like most people might imagine people do when they make these lifestyle decisions but I just didn't want the uncomfortable opinions and laughs. Somebody mentioned that I hadn't gotten turkey on my plate and the subject of not eating meat came up. My brother-in-law who I love dearly and respect had a serious look of concern on his face and expressed how important it is for me to feed the baby meat because she can't make the decision for herself and I shouldn't do that to her and because they knew someone who was vegetarian and is now anemic. He asked if I have been feeding her any meat. I said no and that she is only 10 months old and has only 2 teeth (barely) anyways. I took his concern respectfully and didn't start a debate. Someone made the comment that we might as well have all of our teeth ripped out if we weren't meant to eat meat.

I woke up the following morning and I was wondering about all the things that were mentioned about the problems associated with not eating meat as a baby or even a growing child. So I began doing research. Even though I went to school to learn all about the nutrients needed by various ages, genders, races, nationalities, religious sects and special needs cases, I take everything with a grain of salt and want to look into things for myself. I know that some things that were thought to be healthy 20 years ago even 5 years ago aren't today and it changes constantly. So I like to look at studies and collected data.

What I found was that vegetarian kids are slimmer, healthier, and live longer than meat eating kids.

Meat contains unnecessary saturated fats, cholesterol, and other substances kids do not need to thrive or grow. In my opinion the meat you buy at the supermarket these days is full of hormones, antibiotics, arsenic, ammonia and other things including genetically modified organisms from the feed they give the animals. I don't see the need or desire to put that into my babies body. You can buy organic meat which won't contain those dangerous things but I still don't like the idea of putting a dead piece of flesh into my baby's body or my own.

My first main concern about what he said was anemia and so I looked into that. I already knew that iron and B12 are a neccessary part of a vegetarian's diet that they may need to supplement as these are nutrients highly found in meat. So I checked out all the foods I typically feed my baby and noticed that there is a high amount of iron and B12 in the oatmeal, rice, and whole grain cereals that I feed her at every meal. Plus there are amounts of iron and B12 in the baby food and not to mention what she might be getting from the table foods that I feed her like my organic whole grain seeded bread. She eats lentils several times a week and a variety of vegetables, legumes, and fruit.

Vegetarians have been found have be less likely to be obese, have heart disease, digestive disorders, diabetes, and a number of other health issues that those who consume meat tend to develop. The argument that many meat eaters make about the teeth that we have is actually false and uninformed. Our teeth are designed like herbivores. Here is a copy of this description from an article by a Medical Review, "Our teeth (incisors, canines, premo- lars and molars), have their characteristic structure and function. The incisors are sharp and they split food into small pieces, the canines are pointed and they separate the softer parts of the food from the bones. The molars and premolars with their wide and flat surface grind and crush food. The above technique of forming a bite is more similar to feeding of herbivores [9,10]. Unlike herbivores, carnivores have small, sharp incisors which are used for catching the victim, and long and sharp canines which are used for killing the victim. The molars are sharp and by closing the jaw and making movements in only one direction, up and down, they separate the meat from the bones and such pieces of meat are swal- lowed without being mixed with saliva. Saliva of herbivores and human saliva have a high pH val- ue, which results in better digestion of carbohy- drates in the oral cavity. Saliva of carnivores pro- vides an acidic environment which is more suita- ble for digesting protein and it is not capable of converting starch into sugar [9–11]." (Here is the link with more information

http://dlv.org.rs/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MedicinskiPregled1-2-2014comp.pdf#page=6).

Many people will say that you have to eat meat to get certain nutrients. And this is not true. They will also say that your brain needs meat to fully develop, and that is not true either. In fact a Harvard study took 3 groups of vegetarian school aged kids and found that they actually tested at a higher IQ than meat eating children, which they concluded couldn't be directly linked to the fact that they were vegetarians but proved that their brains had no problem developing or functioning.

Amino Acids are needed by the human body to properly function and enact and secrete hormones and cause chemical reactions by the various endocrine systems of the body to maintain homeostasis. Meat contains all Amino Acids and an ill informed person may think that vegetarians lack AA sources but that is not true. An Ancient Grain food called quinoa actually contains all the AAs as well. I am glad to have been using quinoa on a regular basis in my family's diet and is consumed several times a week at our table. Of course other grains will contain AAs it's just that quinoa is a complete protein like meat.

I think I know what I am doing and trust that I am properly feeding my baby the right amounts of nutrients she needs to stay healthy. I do still breast feed her and that is a great source of nutrients for babies as well. My 12 year old daughter decided a couple of months ago that she was going to stop eating meat as well and I have been making sure that she takes her multi-vitamins as well as making sure she gets enough iron and b12. Another concern I had was about her developing properly as she will be going through puberty so I looked into that and found that vegetarian adolescent's growths in height and weight are comparable to meat eaters. Vegetarian adolescents may grow at a slower pace but eventually catch up and fully develop to their potential. My 12 year old daughter is wearing a size 11 shoe and growing like a weed so I am not concerned about her growth. Vegetarian adolescents also have less acene, allergies, and gastrointestinal problems than meat eaters. Meat eaters were found to have an earlier onset of puberty which is thought to be abnormal.

My recommendations if you are thinking of raising your baby vegetarian or vegan or even as a meat eater is to do your own research. What are your concerns? Health of course. Having a healthy baby, child, adolescent, and adult. Having a thriving healthy child. Be conscious and aware of your baby's development and notice if they are getting sick more often or losing too much weight or gaining too much weight. My baby was 8lbs 1 oz at birth and then lost half a pound and was taking her sweet time getting it back up to birth weight. My doctor made me extremely paranoid and I worried constantly. I became obsessed with making sure I breastfed her every 1 and a half to 2 hours all day every day until she was about 6 months old and I started introducing pureed foods.

Having a baby is scary in so many ways, yes a blessing, but so scary. I appreciate my family's concern about not eating meat but I also understand that their opinions are from an older generation that believe that eating meat is neccessary to thrive. Meat was a delicacy and expensive, and only made during special occassions and so on...but I don't think from what I have read in research and from my own experience of eliminating meat and most animal derived products that it is needed for maintaining health and homeostasis. I will not feel bad for not feeding pureed chicken meat and beef to my baby and I am really happy to see my children thrive eating a plant based diet.

From my experience and my family's, what I can say about the 5 of us in this house is that the girls, the 3 of us have not been sick in months and have no allergy problems, while my son and fiance who consume meat are sick every month, take longer to recover, and have the worst allergies I've ever seen. And how us girls have managed to refrain from getting sick from them is amazing since we are exposed to them daily. So I think that is something to be mentioned. Eat your veggies, fruits, and grains!! Also if you think drinking cat milk would be weird, why do you drink cow's milk? Enough said. TTYL. Love and Peace to you and all our animals!