Posted on 02/21/2005 2:06:27 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative
Lindsay Allen, of the US Agricultural Research Service, attacked parents who insisted their children lived by the maxim "meat is murder".
Animal source foods have some nutrients not found anywhere else, she told a Washington science conference.
The Vegan Society dismissed the claims, saying its research showed vegans were often healthier than meat eaters.
'Development affected'
Professor Allen said: "There have been sufficient studies clearly showing that when women avoid all animal foods, their babies are born small, they grow very slowly and they are developmentally retarded, possibly permanently."
| There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans Professor Lindsay Allen, US Agricultural Research Service |
"If you're talking about feeding young children, pregnant women and lactating women, I would go as far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods [animal source foods] during that period of life."
She was especially critical of parents who imposed a vegan lifestyle on their children, denying them milk, cheese, butter and meat.
"There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans," she told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Missing nutrients
She said the damage to a child began while it was growing in the womb and continued once it had been born.
Research she carried out among African schoolchildren suggests as little as two spoonfuls of meat each day is enough to provide nutrients such as vitamin B12, zinc and iron.
The 544 children studied had been raised on diets chiefly consisting of starchy, low-nutrition corn and bean staples lacking these micronutrients.
Over two years, some of the children were given 2oz supplements of meat each day, equivalent to about two spoonfuls of mince.
Two other groups received either a cup of milk a day or an oil supplement containing the same amount of energy. The diet of a fourth group was left unaltered.
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HAVE YOUR SAY A wide-ranging mixed diet with exercise is essential for any child James, Cornwall, UK |
These children grew more and performed better on problem-solving and intelligence tests than any of the other children at the end of the two years.
They also became more active, talkative and playful at school.
Adding either meat or milk to the diets also almost completely eliminated the very high rates of vitamin B12 deficiency previously seen in the children.
No quick fixes
Professor Allen stressed that although the study was conducted in a poor African community, its message was highly relevant to people in developed countries.
She accepted that adults could avoid animal foods if they took the right supplements, but she said adding animal source food into the diet was a better way to tackle malnutrition worldwide than quick fixes with supplements in the form of pills.
"Where feasible, it would be much better to do it through the diet than by giving pills," she said.
"With pills it's very hard to be certain that the quantity of nutrition is right for everybody and it's hard to sustain."
In Africa, good results had been obtained from giving people a dried meat on a stick snack which proved both nutritious and appealing.
Professor Montague Demment, from the University of California at Davis, said more emphasis should be placed on animal source food to combat global malnutrition.
Vegan defence
However, the claims have been dismissed by the Vegan Society in the UK.
In a statement, it said increasing numbers of people were opting for a plant-based diet.
Kostana Azmi, the chief executive officer, said: "The vegan diet can provide you with more energy, nutrition, and is bursting with goodness."
She said plant sources were sometimes a safer, and cheaper source of nutrients.
For instance, animal sources of omega-3 oils, needed for the development of the brain and nervous system, were often contaminated with pollutants, such as mercury in fish.
In addition, the vegan diet was often a healthier alternative. She said dairy and meat products were rich in saturated fat, while plant based diets were low in it.
The society does recommend that vegans supplement their diet with vitamin B-12 pills.
The US Agricultural Research Service is part of the US Department of Agriculture.
How does PETA deal with the "loaves and fishes" bit?
When this diet is fed to an infant/toddler, serious and often permanent brain damage results (among other health problems). This is akin to lacing your child's food with large quantities of lead. Doing things to your children that are guaranteed to make them retarded should qualify as felony child abuse, whether it involves giving them poison, withholding essential types of food, or withholding sufficient amounts of food.
I've been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 30 years and am exceptionally healthy, but this vegan business is totally insane.
Hmmm. I know some neighborhood kids that should be worried.
In some cases it's canine.
Which is not to say that it is required, to eat anywheres near the amount of meat that a typical American does.
You notice that he is not eating meat.
You should read some of the medical literature or related news stories about children who were kept on these diets, particularly if they were also born to a mother who was on a vegan diet while pregnant. These kids get severe neurological damage, which is only partially reversible upon taking up a healthy diet. Making a child eat a vegan-only diet is just as damaging as feeding a child so little that they barely stay alive and don't grow to their normal size. Everybody is horrified when we see a news story about a 4-foot-something teenager who weighs only 50-60 pounds due to starvation by wacko parents. Why the defense of wacko parents who do similar harm by imposing a vegan diet?
What about parents smoking in the home, are they going to lose their children because it's considered bad?....where will it end? who gets to decide the good bad and the ugly?
No, this is just too invasive. Keep the goverment out of our homes.
My theory is you should eat whatever tastes good to you, I would think we all have a built in self protection mechanism to stay away from food that is harmful to you. If you get sick after eating something, stay away from it !
"While I personally think the vegan diet is stupid, I certainly wouldn't want some busybody telling me what I should feed my children. BUTT OUT!"
In other words, he can do the studies, but he should keep the findings to himself?
Interesting angle.
Why did you conceal the rest of the verse?
Every Passover, the Jews ate a Passover lamb, and there are many many other Biblical references and instructions on what meat was/is Kosher for the Jews. Plus, Jesus ate fish.
I am not defending people who don't know how to meal plan,etc. Don't try to make me out to be doing something I never said.
True, and vegans are in fact quite tasty.
In Texas, a vegitarian is someone who chews on the end of his cigar after a rare steak dinner.
So9
I'm not proposing that government agents be empowered to barge into your home without cause, and monitor exactly what your kids are eating. But the effects of a strict vegan diet on children are so harmful, that I think states should be free to declare it illegal, and take action against parents who are known to be doing it -- or at least require frequent physical exams by an impartial doctor, and require the diet to be changed as soon as there is any sign of significant harm from it.
You could make the same slippery slope argument about parents who starve their kids. And though I'm no fan of expansive government powers, I've never had any problem with government agencies seizing children who are seriously malnourished and underweight due to their parents' refusal to feed them a minimum amount of food necessary for good health and normal growth.
A big problem with this issue is that most of the parents who are doing it have been brainwashed with PETA-type nonsense, and really have no idea how harmful it is. If it were declared to be explicitly illegal to impose it one children, I think it would it prompt a lot of serious investigations by groups who are interested in such diets, with the ultimate effect of making more of them knowledgeable about how harmful it is, and fewer of them wanting to promote it and impose it on their children.
So let's see. In one verse, God explicitly gives us permission to eat meat. And in the next, he gives us a condition under which it must bedone. Only by your interpretation, it is a condition that is impossible to satisfy.
Um, no.
I give God a bit more credit than that, thanks.
I'll not be giving up my place in the food chain.
Who says they weren't?
But of course, the serious answers are severalfold. First of all, the prohibition against murder prevents us from killing humans for food. Secondly, God affirms our natural aversion to the practice in several verses where he suggests that we will practice cannibalism in times of intense suffering.
And thirdly, we do practice cannibalism of a sort, through the Eucharist/Communion.
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