I’m aware of the consequences this statement may provoke with vegetarian or vegan parents, but I’ll give it a try: Without meat children are damaged, and denying them meat is unethical. Correction: this is what a leading US nutritionist says, and well, last time I checked, if you’re a leading anything on a national scale as opposed to Ms/Mr So-and-So, people tend to listen up.
According to what Professor Lindsay Allen of the University of California says, “If you’re talking about feeding young children and pregnant women and lactating women I would go as far as to say it is unethical to withhold these foods during that period of life. There’s a lot of empirical research that will show the very adverse effects on child development of doing that.”
Being a strict vegetarian, I can’t help thinking that this idea doesn’t resonate well with me, but on the other hand, I know that meat does contain very essential stuff that a young body needs – the “building blocks” like protein and iron. Plus, a leading nutritionist is highly unlikely to make up the results of her study. Or is she?
Prof. Allen felt that she had a right to make such claims after she got the final results of her research. What the research says is basically this: adding just two spoonfuls of meat into the daily diet of kids from impoverished regions makes a whole lot of difference in how they develop both, physically and mentally. The group of African children involved in the study have shown very good progress over a 2-year span, being more active in school and developing muscle (almost double, in fact, as compared to kids who weren’t getting meat).
Truth be told, a lot of experts have questioned the results, claiming that her research was conducted in a very different setting and that the results of the research may not be applicable to kids from developed countries. Others (and here I will do some name dropping – Sir Paul McCartney – who’s been a vegetarian for 20 years) have gone as far as to say that these claims are just a good way to boost the meat business again, as the sales have been going downhill.
Whichever side you have chosen, I say it’s important to agree to disagree, but also – to provide your kid with a balanced diet. And apart from protein (again, whichever way you choose to include it into your child’s diet) you should make sure you include veggies, too.