Don't Forget About Feeding Your Vegan Kids
Hey! This is Krishna
As you can see, this is my siblings and I. We are all Vegan.
As you can see, this is my siblings and I. We are all Vegan.
Trials And Tribulations Of Being A Vegan Kid (by Krishna, since Miranda is not Vegan and I am!)
Positive affirmations and approval from my siblings and I about the dietary changes and foods that we consume as a vegan family was not something that happened immediately.
Steering away from our traditional native Indian vegetarian cuisine, which is what I grew up with was not an easy task.
More often than not I would look at the food placed in front of me with an unhappy face and I would ask the same repeated questions. ” Why do I have to eat this?” or ” Do I have to eat these vegetables?” and many similar questions would be thrown to my mum
To make this transition easier for all of us there are a few things that my family implemented.
1) Educate and Explain
My parents decision to encourage us to become vegan started with showing us certain parts of various educational vegan DVD’s available on the market today.
They also spent some time daily explaining to us why as a family it was important that we make this positive change in our lives.
2) Implement Dietary Changes Slowly.
My parents were able to eliminate the dairy products out of our diet pretty quickly.
This was not the case with us kids.
To start my mum decided that she would change one product at a time.
So she began by purchasing many different types of non dairy milk that were available at my local grocery stores and slowly encouraged us to try them out. It took
a couple of weeks for my siblings and I to make the switch to non dairy milk but with encouragement from our parents we eventually were able to make the switch
and stopped purchasing dairy milk.
She then proceeded by slowly changing the cheese and then the yogurt that we consumed. By changing one product at a time she found it much easier and less
stressful for us kids. There were many arguments and temper tantrums along the way! But she persevered and it paid off.
3) Reinforcement of the Facts.
Reinforcing the reasons behind why we are vegan was very important especially for my younger sister. My parents would repeatedly show us when necessary
articles and pictures from various books and online websites.
Now after almost a year and a half my family and I have embraced the diet change that we made with much positive enthusiasm.
Many school projects and essays and science presentations have centered around our new diet.
I am happy and proud that we as a family are vegans.
I think it is important to teach our future generations to eat healthy and help preserve the planet not only for themselves but for future generations too.
The implications of what we eat today are so profound on our bodies, our health, our environment, our water supply and the planet at large.