Why can’t you feed a baby a vegan diet? | Vegan nutrition

Why can’t you feed a baby a vegan diet?

A balanced diet plays an important role especially for babies and children. Their bodies are in the developmental phase, which is why they need a wide range of nutrients. Due to evolution, the human metabolism has adapted to plant and animal products, which is why the development of children and babies also depends on animal products.

Therefore babies should not be fed vegan food. It is also important that also nursing mothers do not feed themselves vegan during the breastfeeding period, so that the babies can take all necessary nutrients from the breast milk. If a mother still wants a vegan diet, she should not breastfeed the baby and instead feed it with baby food, because all the important nutrients are contained in it.

For babies, in addition to the many vitamins that are absorbed from plant foods, trace elements such as calcium and iron are essential for good physical development. Thus calcium plays an important role in the formation of bones and teeth. Iron is needed for blood formation and therefore plays an important role in almost all development processes in the body.

Thus, iron plays an important role especially in the development of the brain. A sufficient intake of proteins is also necessary for the development of the baby, which is also hardly achievable with a purely vegan diet. Babies should therefore not be fed a vegan diet, especially because of their physical development (especially brain development).

A vegan diet is also not recommended for small children up to adolescence. Who would like to nourish its child nevertheless vegan, this should do only starting from the school age and only after sufficient nourishing consultation with the paediatrician. Are you interested in vegan nutrition for children?

What should vegans substitute?

The vegane nutrition brings many advantages with itself, since by the strongly plant-based nutrition particularly many Vitamine and ballast materials can be taken up. In contrast, Veganern often finds it difficult to supply their body with sufficient trace elements and vitamins, which are normally obtained to a large extent from animal products.These include primarily substances such as vitamin B12 and iron, which the body needs for blood formation. Vitamin B12 and iron are often deficient, but both can be substituted.

With Veganern also an attention to electrolytes such as calcium, particularly in milk products contained, should be put. Electrolytes play a major role in the signal transmission of nerve cells and thus, for example, in the function of the muscles (including the heart muscles). Deficiency symptoms can lead to severe rhythm disturbances and the kidney function can also suffer from the deficiency.

Calcium is also needed for the formation of vitamin D and for bone formation. In case of deficiency symptoms calcium and vitamin D should therefore be substituted.