Moved from page[edit source]
The following was removed from the article page because it is not true. This very sad case is about grave child abuse with a criminally veiled excuse of veganism. There are many vegan diets that have been deemed by nutritionists and doctors as safe. In fact, almost all infants are vegans or vegetarians for their first months.
- Warning a vegan diet is not suitable for children under a year old in fact children have died from this.[1]
Here is a link, although maybe not the most credible, that has some information: http://web.archive.org/web/20090901204222/http://www.vegsource.com:80/parent/growing_vegans.htm
Please feel free to repute this with some credible evidence. --Lonny 23:27, 9 May 2007 (PDT)
I check out the link and it states
"Breast milk is the only food your baby needs for the first 4 to 6 months of life. Continue to breastfeed your baby for a minimum of one year".
Hence while the site is advocating vegetarianism it agrees with me that making an infant go vegan is a bad idea. Baron 11:06, 10 May 2007 (PDT)
- Hi Baron, I think this problem may be in definition. Infants are still vegan if raised on breast milk, because it is not the milk of a different animal. Here is a another link on the subject from VRG and Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet is a nice starter book on the subject. I have changed your warning to:
- Warning Research is crucial when entering into any significant diet change.
- I hope that this works for you. If not, please continue the discussion here on the talk page. Thank you, --Lonny 15:47, 11 May 2007 (PDT)
Lonny we both know people interpret word differently and even if we go by a Dictionary just what a Vegan is will remain up to individuals.
I truely don't have a problem with adults who decide they want to be Vegans but there have now been two cases of infants dying because their parents tried to feed them a Vegan diet.
I can't stand the idea of this great pedia being blamed for a kids dead. Baron 20:47, 15 May 2007 (PDT)
- I hadn't thought about veganism defined in the way Lonny describes, though of course it makes sense - breastfeeding doesn't count as exploitation of animals.
- It's important that content is unambiguous, even if the reader holds a common misconception, so it's worth explaining this where appropriate.
- It's also good to have appropriate warnings... and unless it's an incredibly well researched and referenced page, then a broad warning as suggested by Lonny is a good general idea. Something additional about infants could be good, along the lines of "Particular care should be taken with infants who are not breast-fed. Infants have critical nutritional needs and medical advice is strongly advised." --Chriswaterguy · talk 06:58, 16 May 2007 (PDT)
Criticizing veganism at all for the insane diet some completely uneducated folks fed to a child resulting in the death of the child is either willful fearmongering at worst or ignorance of the rational arguments for veganism at best. This has nothing to do with veganism whatsoever. It's akin to saying abortion is categorically bad because of one incident with a parent whose intentions were malicious. It's acceptable to have a debate about veganism on rational grounds but this is simply not rational. There are many, many cases where a person has been on a strict vegan diet since they were in utero and lived healthy into adulthood (indeed probably much healthier than those around them). The overwhelming evidence ends the debate over whether a normal vegan diet is healthy and appropriate for children. Ethical veganism is about minimizing our contributions to the suffering in the world; there is no suffering or exploitation involved in breast feeding an infant and therefore there's no reason to not classify it as vegan. All the normal nutritional guidelines for adults still apply. - Jay —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jay, 8 July 2012
- "a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice" is definitely insane for a child. Re the conversation above, I think we resolved the worst of the distortion about veg diets, and Baron isn't editing here any more, so I might put it in an archive soon.
- I've made a bunch more changes, also - see what you think. --Chriswaterguy 04:39, 8 July 2012 (PDT)
"Usability" removed from article[edit source]
KVDP, we've had repeated conversation about the assumption of native crops being more suitable than - which is simply untrue if taken as a blanket assumption. I've removed the section, and place it below:
Usability[edit source]
- Soy is not a native crop outside Korea (and/or the immediate region around it) yet it is one of the main protein crops used in vegetarianism/veganism. Vegetarianism/veganism does know some substitutes (ie quorn, Valess, beans, nuts, ...) though. In regions outside Korea (when eating soy-based meat-substitutes) and regions where Fusarium venenatum is not native (when using quorn), it is more ecologic to use another diet (ie by using a relatively efficient animal as (cultivated) fish, ... or entomophagy, artificial meat, ...) Valess can be used as a intermediate solution only, as the cow is not native anywhere (ancestor=Aurochs, now extinct).
--Chriswaterguy 18:28, 22 November 2012 (PST)