Should I contact child welfare regarding vegan children?

Question

My neighbors are forcing their children to eat a vegan diet and I am concerned for their health. I read about a baby who died on the vegan diet. Here is the link to this horrific story. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1598099,00.html

I just went over to their house and their kids look pale and thin. I am going to call for sure now because those kids look sickely. This vegan cult diet is dangerous.

Answer 1

Hi FHG! I see you're back from your enforced 1 week vacation (suspension). The prions must be really eating your brain now since you asked this same question last year or is it that you have a case of flu from eating turkey! C'mon guy! Go dig through espace for some new troll material to harass us with. Did you know the prosecutor in the case was a *real* vegan? Why didn't you post the article about the parents being members of a fundamentalist religious sect? Didn't you know the child suffered from a genetic defect and had no thymus gland? Did you know that most children born without a thymus gland die earlier than the child in question or that the rest of the families children were ruled healthy?

And finally did you know the couple was cleared of ALL charges of abuse?

I'd advise you to get your facts in order in your future attempts at trolling!!

Edit: I missed a line in there somehow. After the line about them being in a religious sect there should have been a statement about how FHG could then have trolled the religion section with the same stupid question!

Answer 2

Vegan diet is not a CULT! its a way of life. Its healthy and millions of people survive just fine. The amount of vitamins etc in foods nowadays is out 80% less than 50 years ago so eating meat etc is no more healthier than not eating - infact its worse. there is less calcium in milk than has ever been so there is no reason that a vegan diet is unhealthy. i have been a vegan for 15 years and never once had a problem with it. if i had a child it would also be brought up on a vegan diet.

Answer 3

I think a point you are missing here is a BAD diet may be leading to poor health. Vegan diet is in no way a cult diet or a diet that can be considered child abuse. In this specific case it may be they are not getting protein or the right vitamins which could equally happen in a non vegan diet. There are many vegan children who are perfectly healthy there are books written by nutritionists and scientists on bringing a child up on a vegan diet and there is nothing in a non vegan diet that can not be found in a plant based diet. I fully understand your concerns if these children are ill and maybe they need some help and advice on nutrition. I just wanted to emphasise it is not because they are vegan it is a bad diet. I have been vegan for 3 years and I have had more energy been more healthy and have put on weight, but that is because I fully researched it before I made my decision and I make sure I get all the things I need for a healthy diet without taking supplements.

Answer 4

I've read that story before, and the media focuses on the diet, but there's more to the story than that. All babies are on a breastmilk diet, thus vegan and this woman stopped breast-feeding at three months -- very early. As I understand, they basically did not feed the baby or their kids enough -- wasn't due to diet, but due to lack of food. They abused their children in other ways too, so being vegan really has nothing to to with it -- it's just a case of abuse which the meat hungry media jumped on pushing the word Vegan to the top. Not only that, but they were cleared in the death of the baby. That means -- not at fault.

Children die every day on meat and junk food diets. Children die every day from nutrient lacking baby formula. Children are sickly and fat in general these days. What about the continuous stories of children dying of 'adult' diseases due to horrible diet. Abuse? Yes.

I see sickly pale spaced out kids at the playground all the time. My vegan 3 year old was climbing all over the place at 1 year, while these other kids are still having trouble at 3. Do I call child welfare? No, because 98% of the kids are like this these days. Not only are these kids slow physically, but slow mentally too. I think it should be against some sort of law to feed kids formula, canned baby foods, sugar cereals, and generally stuffing them full of crap, but hey, these kids will die off sooner than mine, therefore the old survival of the fittest comes into play. Sad but true. It's too bad that children are abused on such horrible meat and sugar centred diets, but that's their own problem. I just mind my own business and let nature do its thing. If they are strong, they will reach the age of 18 and move away from home and start a better diet. That’s how it happens, all these current vegans have never felt better in their life and finally realize that the food they grew up on was actually crap. I also see pregnant women smoking, drinking, and pigging out on fast food and junk food. Who do I call? What can be done? Nothing. And I don’t think anything should be done to individuals; that’s their personal life and their personal choices. Sure, hey, it’s too bad for the helpless kids, but remember, those kids are carrying the same genes as the parents; might as well see that genetic line end. Society needs to change as a whole; not the individual.

Answer 5

As long as the diet is varied and balanced with fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, beans, legumes all contain various amounts of iron. If a child's diet is changed then the care and regulation of a physician is definitely recommended. Children are going to get sick because if the child didn't get the first milk of mother's breast then they won't have immunity transfered to them. Breast fed children are often the healthiest. Diet is a very personal choice that should be made after careful study is done.

With the scare of vCJD which is a jump from BSE-bovine spongiform encepholopathy or mad cow disease, many people are considering the vegan diet. Once a person eats meat with BSE just a bit of the prions ingested (not affected by digestive fluids or extreme heat) it becomes part of the tissue cells. The changed shape of the protien is the cause of the spongy effect, the prions cannot be destroyed with regular cooking. It takes about 800 degrees of heat to destroy it, so if you cooked your food to this degree and it was in your food say bye bye to your food because it will be charcoal once you cook it to this temperature. BSE can become part of the genetic material, so if a calf is born from a mother cow who had BSE then it may develop mad cow faster.

I would say, no, do not report the family to welfare. It was the first nature of humans to be lean anyway, not fat from meat eating. Why not suggest that the family go organic. Often times the body will build up toxins in the body due to pesticides, etc. So a 1,3 or 7 day detox would be called for to rid the body of toxins.

Certified organic food is best and NON GMO foods are best as well. Non-GMO foods have been found to be very destructive in children who need all the parts of the natural food for their developing bodies. Nutrients found in natural organic (unchanged food) are recognizable and hence usable by the body. When foods are modified they become practically useless to a growing body because the nutrients that match up with specific sites in the body are no longer recognizable, hence non-effective.

It might be good to suggest the the children take a multi-vitamin supplement. Practices in agriculture have deteriorated the nutrient value of the food supply. Be sure the vitamins come from a usable sources as well.

It used to be that farmers would plant of the land for six years and let the land rest the seventh year. Crop rotation practices seem to have fallen out of favor in exchange for profit.

Studies have shown that soil depletion is a major issue when it comes to the goodness of our food. Answer: grow your own! This would help you to know what is in the soil and the food. But for now there are a lot of causes that make our food questionable.

Answer 6

I think you should either mind your own business or if you insist on interfering then speak to the children's parents before you do anything else. Imagine if your concerns are undue? What will you have started then? Do you know they're 'forcing' them- I assume before taking such drastic action you have established this as fact. Calling welfare seems seriously over the top to me.

I'm not sure child welfare would take you seriously anyway.

Also, if you call welfare because essentially you disagree with your neighbours' childrens' diet then I hope you call all the parents of obese and overweight children. And the parents of kids eating McDonalds, and the parents of kids you see drinking a can of coke, and kids eating crisps.

Work out what's actually happening first- speak to your neighbours at the very least. Educate yourself too- find out what a vegan diet actually entails for children, whether it is as nutrionally unsound as you think it is. You'll look like a stickybeaked idiot if you just go slinging wild accusations around.

Answer 7

While I personally am not vegetarian or vegan, my experience is that most are actually very careful of their diet and are aware of which supplements to take and how to manage it properly. Unless you're like my niece whose only food seems to consist of chocolate, cheese and sweets! Her choice, though. If the child is unhealthy, then they will be visiting the doctor more often and the doctor will investigate. As they did in a friend's case. Where do you draw the line? We have children and we plan on bringing them up the way we want to. Why should other people interfere just because they don't agree with us? So let well alone.

Answer 8

Bringing a child up on a vegan diet is not neglect or cruelty, whilst it is recommended that children eat dairy, it is not essential and it is possible to raise a healthy child without dairy or meat products. It is possible to get all the nutrients neede for a normal healthy life from a vegan diet, it just involves the substitution of certain food types. If you feel it necessary to call child welfare then so be it, but please just bear in mind that it is legally, socially and medically accepted that children can be raised on a vegan diet

Answer 9

Obviously, you view being vegan as a cult, therefore, you are not qualified to judge whether it is healthy or not. So long as a vegan diet consists of a good variety of protein and other sources, it is probably the most healthy way of eating that there is.

As another poster stated, there are way too many obese kids out there...are you going to report them, too?? That is much more abusive than a vegan diet.

Frankly, butt out, get a life and find something actually useful to worry about.

Answer 10

Vegan is a good, especially for babies who need the most nutrients. I know about that story, but I'd like to know all of the facts that they don't share with us. There must be more to the story. When you eat vegan, it's best to eat raw. I have a sister who feeds her children raw-vegan and another sister who feeds her children the standard diet that the pyramid suggests. My vegan sister's children are the healthiest kids I have ever seen. They are strong, rarely get ill, sleep well and have good teeth. My other sister, whom I love very much, feeds her kids cooked food, meat, milk, etc. Her kids always have runny noses, get sick whenever sickness is going around, don't sleep well, cavities, dull (not shiny) hair. Anyways, the comparisons are like night and day and they go on and on. When I eat raw vegan, I feel really good. When I have children, I will definately feed them raw vegan. Heres some good web sites. There's more out there. Also, remember that plenty of kids die that eat the standard american diet. Nobody blames their deaths on that diet.