If you are a vegetarian, and you have kids of your own, you’ve probably already thought about introducing them to a vegetarian diet. Of course, if you did put them on a vegetarian diet, you’d certainly find meal planning a lot easier, but apart from that, you may feel that it would be a wise choice as far as your children’s dietary requirements are concerned.
Conversely, you may not be a vegetarian but you may have a child who is at a vegetarian phase where he or she is rejecting meat but doesn’t eat enough healthy foods to compensate for the nutritional gap.
Either way, you’re probably wondering whether or not a vegetarian diet would be a healthy choice for your kids, although at the same time, you may have heard rumors that vegetarian diets can stunt a child’s growth.
In fact, these concerns may well have stopped you from putting your child on a vegetarian diet in the past.
You should be aware that these concerns are in-fact legitimate issues and that if a vegetarian diet is poorly planned, it can cause serious long term and short term deficiencies especially in children who do not have sufficient stores of vitamins and minerals in their bodies as yet.
If you have not done sufficient research and are not well-prepared for the task of putting your child on a vegetarian diet, then you probably should not. However, if you’ve done your research and are aware of the kind of nutrients that vegetarian diets lack, then you know that these problems can easily be over-come with some meal planning.
You will probably be aware that putting your child on a vegetarian diet can greatly improve his or her health and limit the exposure to animal products that are often linked to hormones and preservatives.
If you decide to go ahead and start your children on a vegetarian diet, then your meal planning will need to take into account that a vegetarian diet usually has a few deficiencies, and as such, you’ll need to make sure that you provide enough of the following:
1) Protein – your child’s diet needs to contain a sufficient amount of protein so you’ll need to include things such as nuts and soybeans.
2) Calcium – always make sure your children are getting enough calcium by including plenty of leafy greens in their diet.
3) Iron – the amount of iron in your child’s diet can be increased by adding more beans, soybeans, and cereals.
4) Zinc – zinc intake can be enhanced by increasing the amount of nuts, mushrooms, and peanut butter in their diet.
Providing you focus on the common nutritional deficiencies which can result from a vegetarian diet, you can safely put your children on such a diet without having to worry about any negative consequences whatsoever.
Take advantage of Charles Carr’s extensive culinary experience as a home cook, and what he has learn from a few master chefs by getting free access to his vegetarian guide. Also, here’s a free limited report Master Chef Secrets on how you can save a ton of money on your cooking equipment.