BabyWhispererForums.com
SLEEP => General Sleep Issues => Topic started by: chell on August 21, 2005, 08:12:50 am
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Hi I just wondered if anyone is bringing up their baby as vegetarian. That was my plan. Now he is allergic to milk protein, dairy products, eggs and peas. So he is now a vegan baby. Just wanted to chat about what you are doing.
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Harvey is vegetarian, but he has no allergies, so we can follow a dairy diet. The main concerns are iron and B vitamins. We try to add iron to Harveys diet using fortified cereals & vegetables, the same for B vitamins (which is not such a big concern for us as he has dairy). Eventually we may have to move to supplements as he gets older.
Still it's not as simple as that, the human body doesn't absorb non-haem iron (found in plants, fortified cereals & pulses) as easily as it can absorb haem iron (only found in animal food sources), so you have to be careful to get the balance of a meal correct, as some foods will inhibit iron absorption (spinach, chard, beet greens, rhubarb, sweet potato, whole grains, coffee, tea, bran & Soy products), and some can help the absorption (Orange, Orange Juice, Cantaloupe, strawberries, grapefruit etc Broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomato, tomato juice, potato, green & red peppers).
For B vitamins it can help if your lo is a Marmite fan.
We provide Harveys omega 3 + 6 using flaxseed(golden linseed) and Pure vegetable spread (which is vegan btw).
As with most things that are diet related, what's essential is a healthy balanced meal, and then nearly everything else falls into place.
I'm not sure how much research you've done, but the Vegan society will no doubt have reference for vegan infants that should be able to help you.
HTH
:D
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Hi thanks for your reply, just wanted to check... I thought that spinach was full of iron, but you say it inhibits iron absorption, how can this be? I know that eating iron veggies with vit C veggies helps with iron absorption, so why can't we get iron form spinach?
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Also where did you get that info? sounds really useful.
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It's true unfortunately, despite spinach being high in iron, it's not easily absorbed, and can be an inhibitor;
http://medlib.med.utah.edu/NetBiochem/hi9.htm
Most of my info is from previous research when I was vegetarian, but I google regularly to try and stay up to date for Harvey.
I good resource is always the Vegetarian Society;
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/iron.html
Some good advice here, but it's a very slow loading page
http://www.choice.com.au/viewArticle.aspx?id=101450&catId=100545&tid=100008&p=5
HTH and please feel free to discuss further and offer your own advice
:D