Kids Cuisine

I wasn’t going to say anything. Some things you really shouldn’t bring up in Berkeley, home of the Free Speech movement 40 years ago. But there were some hard-core vegetarians in our student family complex at U.C. Berkeley, and I used to worry about their kids.

They were so skinny. So small. So…malnourished looking? I understood the politics behind choosing to be a vegan, but surely, I thought, would it hurt to slip your kid a little scrambled egg or a piece of cheese now and then?

The babies usually looked fine. They were always breast fed, of course, well into their preschool years. Breast milk, with its complex mix of protein and fats, was obviously doing its job of keeping the babies fat and healthy. It was the older kids, the preschoolers and beyond who didn’t look as strong as the other kids in our courtyard.

But I couldn’t say anything. It wasn’t my place. And these kids were well-loved by conscientious parents who were doing what they thought best. No meat. No dairy. No eggs. Nothing to do with any animal on the food chain. Plant food only. I was a vegetarian, too, but one who ate fish and eggs and dairy… and who allowed my kids the occasional hot dog. Who was I to question their parenting choices?
That’s why I was so struck by an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times. Writer Nina Planck bravely states that a plant-only based diet is “irresponsible.” She points out that the recent conviction of a vegan couple whose baby died of starvation, the third such conviction in four years, demands a more open discussion on the topic.

I would agree with her, but I’d quickly duck, too. Her piece is sure to invite lots of passionate debate, pro and con — in print and in the blogosphere. But then someone had to start the discussion, didn’t they? Who better than a mother — and former vegan?

(Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy USDA Agricultural Research Service)