+1 for trying the vegan diet
If you do this, please go to restaurants and request a vegan meal. The environmental benefits of the vegan diet are well-documented.
The best way to enact change is to get restaurants to start listing vegan options.
If you do this, please go to restaurants and request a vegan meal. The environmental benefits of the vegan diet are well-documented.
The best way to enact change is to get restaurants to start listing vegan options.
Oh, and something slightly offtopic: if you have children, do not raise them with a vegetarian or even vegan diet. That should be classified and punishable as child abuse.
That's ridiculous. Would you not agree that vegetarian people are likely to be more conscious of their nutritian than the average person?
Here's an anecdote. I know three children brought up in vegetarian* family. All three were high achievers academically and athletically. It's worth noting that their mother was very conscious of nutrition, and did give them supplements.
*Pescatarian, actually. Though many pescatarians call themselves vegetarian, including this family.
That's certainly true, and actually a necessity for vegetarianism to be healthy in the first place (just removing meat from your meals isn't going to magically be more healthy, it's actually the opposite). It's still pretty much impossible to supply a growing child with the needed nutrients on a purely vegetarian basis. While it's of course possible for children to grow up into healthy adults this way, it's still not without heavy risks to the child's physical development.
If the above children are still too young for the alleged negative health effects, read up on older vegan children at [1]. If you want the American Dietetic Association guidelines [2]:
"Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes."
Instead of "pretty much impossible", I would say it's quite easy to provide all needed nutrients. All parents, not just vegan parents, should read up on childrens' nutritional needs. But it doesn't matter if the protein comes from meat or kidney beans, or if the B12 and calcium come from cow's milk or fortified oat milk.
It seems to me that that kind of diet is not appropriate for the majority of the population.
Why? A good number of children in India are raised with a vegetarian diet. Of course, Indian cuisine has a large number of diverse and flavorful vegetarian dishes (unlike most other countries) The lack of availability of good vegetarian/vegan food could also be a concern, but again, that does not hold true in India. In fact, there are diets way more stricter than just vegan/vegetarian which are fairly common as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism for example.