A meat-free diet and kids

Richard Bennett at Mossback Culture links to an interesting item in The Independent regarding parents who subject their young children to the same dietary frivolities they enjoy: From Richard:

Mentally-impaired children
If you want your children to be impaired, feed them a strict vegetarian diet.

From The Independent:

Children on meat-free diets 'suffer impaired growth'
Strict vegetarians who insist their children live by the same principles were criticized today by a leading nutrition expert. Denying growing children animal products in their diet during the critical first few years of life was "unethical" and could do permanent damage, said Professor Lindsay Allen, from the University of California at Davis. She conducted a study which showed that adding just two spoonfuls of meat to the diet of poverty-stricken children in Africa transformed them both physically and mentally. Over a period of two years the children almost doubled their muscle development, and showed dramatic improvements in mental skills. They also became more active, talkative and playful at school. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, Prof Allen said: "Animal source foods have some nutrients which are not found anywhere else. If you're talking about feeding young children and pregnant women and lactating women I would go as far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods during that period of life. "There's a lot of empirical research that will show the very adverse effects on child development of doing that." She was especially critical of parents who imposed a vegan lifestyle on their children which denied them milk, cheese and butter as well as meat. "There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans," she said.

The Human Animal is an Omnivore -- we are not Carnivores or Ruminants or Herbivores, we are Omnivores. (Omni = All / vore = eat (think: Voracious appetite)) I was Vegan for a while but fell out of it because I was catching every cold that came along and never felt energetic or happy. And I was careful to take vitamin suppliments... To force this on a kid is inhumane and classic Hubris - I wrote about this here and here before.