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My name is Christine Marquette and I am a registered dietitian with theAustin Regional
Clinic and I am going to talk to you about how to raise vegetarian children. Vegetarian
children go through a lot of the same things that kids who eat meat do. They'll go through
their periods where they have food jags, where they may not like particular vegetables or
they may not like particular fruits. So, in a lot of ways, it's the same type of concepts
that you would apply to a child who is a meat eater. You want to make sure that you're offering
as much variety as you can. And you want to really try to include different fruits and
vegetables and whole grains. But the primary thing to keep in mind is make sure that there
is a very good quality source of protein on a daily basis. Whether that's coming from
milk, cheese, eggs, beans, nut butters, like peanut butter. Make sure you have all those
options available so if your child is going through a food jag and maybe they don't want
to eat yogurt or they don't want to eat cheese, you've got peanut butter or you have nuts
or you have some other option that is high protein source that they can choose to eat.
And keep in mind that food jags usually are temporary. They are just a period of time
when kids are growing very rapidly, their taste buds are changing, so their sense of
taste is very acute. They taste things much more intensely than we, as adults, do. So,
that's something you want to keep in mind. Have patience with your child. Again, just
make sure that you are offering different things. Also keep in mind that as a child
is growing, their portion sizes are actually a lot smaller than an adult portion size.
For example, if some child is still in the toddler age range, for them, a serving of
a high protein food, if it's beans, it's only a quarter cup. So it is a very small portion.
So, if your child eats half a cup of beans in a day, they've actually gotten two servings
of high protein food. So, keep that in mind when you are doing your meal preparation,
make sure when they are toddlers the portion size is very small. As they do start to get
older, get to be grade school age, the portion starts to increase somewhat, but it's still
not at the level of an adult portion. So, if they are going through a food jag, just
make sure you do have other options of protein sources available. Continue to offer the different
fruits and vegetables. Continue to different offer the different grains. A lot of the concepts
are the same. The main difference is that the protein is coming from a plant source
as opposed to a meat source. So, just a couple things to keep in mind when raising vegetarian
children.