Overall nutrition advice??

[Peacemamalove]

My family has transitioned over the years from eating meat and drinking cows milk to now eating a vegetarian diet for the past 5 or so years. Most of the time we feel pretty good about our decision but recently we are concerned about our children's and our own overall health.

My son is still rather small he will be eight in a couple months he still only weighs 42 pounds . I know everyone is different but he is extremely thin he does not have any fat on him at all and you can see his heart beat through his chest. ( though my ND said that was okay and not alarming) He has asked to eat meat ( he used to eat it as well) on many occasions so I have bought the "fake products" instead like "quorn" and such.

I am afraid we also are eating to many soy products. My son loves Silk soy milk and could drink glass after glass we also eat tofu at least twice or more a week and some type of veggie burger once a week.

I just do not feel we are benefiting from our choices. We eat lots of fruits, veggies,beans and grains each day which I know are good but I just feel like we are not getting the right amounts of vitamins and minerals.

I guess I just am looking for some advice on how to improve our nutrition . Somedays I feel like we were healthier when we were eating meat and drinking milk. I just feel really confused and not quite sure right now.

[farmerjess]

I was vegetarian for 15 years, from age 10-25. I now eat lots of (local, pastured) meat because I like it, it makes me feel really good (basically less hypoglycemic) and because I really believe that it's healthy for me. It was WAPF's writing on vegetarianism that changed my mind. I think that if your son is asking for meat, he probably really needs it. And fake meat, especially processed, unfermented soy is possibly fairly bad for him. Good luck in your research and decisions.

[Alyantavid]

Our diet mostly consists of local fruits, veggies and grassfed meat. Most of which are raised by us. And kept in as whole a food as possible. We avoid most processed foods.

How much fat does your son get?

[crunchy_mama]

Regardless if you decide you want to be vegetarian or not I am sure you would all benefit in simplifying the diet and going away from the processed fake foods. If you want to do that vegetarian= I believe there is a resource in the veg subforum about soy free veg*n. However, if you do decide you want to eat animal products get the best quality you can afford. And with anything- your the momma do what you think needs to be done!

[mumkimum]

You know, I'd look back at why you have been eating a vegetarian diet so long and find something that still reflects those values that you might add or seek out.

I'm not sure what specific foods you do eat or avoid, but maybe adding organic dairy a few times a week, just replacing the soymilk with quality dairy milk, or even eating quality meat once a week or once a month would be something you could do. If you're eating tofu often - maybe sub tempeh instead half the time. If a mainly vegetarian diet is important to you, you can eat meat or dairy or eggs sometimes and still hold up those values that made being vegetarian important.
It doesn't need to feel like you're 'betraying vegetarianism', and I think it can feel that way. It might have been the meat and dairy you used to eat that added something for you, it might have been other dietary habits you had at the same time (especially if you feel like you're in a rut right now).

[Liquesce]

I know there are a million and one things wrong with the RDAs, but if you're concerned about vitamins and such specifically one of the easiest things to do is to keep track of what you're eating for a few weeks and compare what you're taking in to the RDAs. Because the recommendations tend to run quite high coming up short is usually ok, but if you're consistently very low in some thing(s) that might be where to start. When I was a low-dairy vegetarian iron and calcium were my big (predictable) trouble spots. And my health did improve dramatically when I started taking particular care to make sure my protein needs and vitamin/mineral trouble spots were being satisfied.

[Peacemamalove]

We do eat tempeh as well we like that a lot. For fats with my son I think he gets a lot but I am not sure we always do smoothies or shakes for breakfast and we add yogurt as well.

I can not really remember why we decided to start eating vegetarian except I think when I was pregnant I got grossed out by meat ( this was not good meat though this was store bought who even knows what meat) in general and we decided to change.


I am going to read up on some of those articles .

[YummyYarnAddict]

I think our bodies tell us what we need. Some people -- many people -- can thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet, and others need to be omnivores. I was a vegetarian for many years starting in childhood, then a vegan starting when I went to college and continued eating this way for over a decade. Overall, I had a healthy profile with amazingly beautiful labwork, but just felt "off" somehow, so I was constantly tweaking my nutrient ratio here and there. All the while, my docs kept telling me to eat meat and I summarily dismissed them as being FDA/USDA loyalists and Western medicine mainstreamers. I later went on to see an accupuncturist and one of the first things she did was say I needed to eat more meat. I told her that I wasn't eating any animal products. More? More than zero? She then said that my body needed it to realize its potential and that my particular constitution (to use a Western word) is such that I need meat. She told me that it didn't have to be a lot, but small amounts of the best quality meat I could afford would help me. I still didn't listen.

I went to have my daughter and raise her as vegetarian until the age of 2 when she got meat at a friend's house (I wasn't there). She had duck, lamb, and beef. It was all she could talk about for days and she kept asking for meat and saying that she *needed* it. I figured that she was listening to her body tell her what it needs and it's not like she was asking for candy, so I started buying small amounts of organic grass fed meat for her only. She genuinely enjoyed eating it.

All the while, my docs and acu kept telling me to eat meat -- my acu even told me to "think of meat as medicine" -- and once they found out that I was buying and preparing it for my daughter, all bets were off and they seemed to have launched a campaign so that I HAD to at least try it. I tried it and it actually tasted MUCH better than the meat my mom used to get in the super duper discount sales at the grocery stores when I was a kid. The texture took some getting used to, but ... all in all, it was okay. I eventually came to the conclusion that like it or not, my body needs meat.

Everyone's body is different and it might be possible that if he's asking for it, your son's body might be telling him that he needs it as well for him to feel at his best. Is there a reason you're opposed to letting him have meat for a trial -- say 4 weeks -- to see if it makes a difference for him? I know that some people are just grossed out by it or morally opposed to it, and that's fine, I'm not judging. But ... food for thought...

[natural_mama89]

We are mostly vegetarian be we eat meat (organic) about once every week or two. I cook with raw milk, but DP does not like it to drink. We really don't drink much milk period, just mostly water, sometimes a little juice or I will use my juicer, and we like herbal tea. I am of the opinion that anything in moderation is ok. We eat tofu a couple times a month and alternate between raw cow milk, soy milk, rice milk and almond milk, and coconut milk just because we like them all. So maybe you could just try to make your diet more varied. It is not that hard to be veg without eating too much soy. We eat tons of bean/legume and grain dishes with lots of veggies. Maybe more quality fats would help your son like coconut oil, nuts, nut butters, quality butter, etc. I also agree with cutting back on the processed food. Perhaps consider making your own seitan sometimes to use instead of soy meat, or bean burgers in place of the tvp ones, or falafel is always good! You can also make your own nut and rice milks. Hope some of this helps.

[*Aimee*]

I was a vegetarian for 6-7 years. I gained a lot of weight and didn't feel healthy. I started craving chicken stock so badly. I remember being pregnant with DS2 and wanting tuna fish so bad I was in tears (though I did end up making a wonderful mock tuna fish ). We started eating meat almost a year ago.

We try to eat only grassfed meat though I'm having a hard time being able to afford chicken so I go with just organic.

We feel a lot better now. I have to say now when we visit the inlaws who eat mostly vegetarian I can't seem to get full. I think my body is making up for lost time by needing lots of meat now.

Like you, I was sick of relying on processed foods. I try eat as little of processed foods as possible, though I'm having a hard time with that now because I have a really bad cream of mushroom soup pregnancy craving