From the Associated Press:
A vegan couple were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for the death of their malnourished 6-week-old baby boy, who was fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice.
I realize this is an extreme example, and these two were way out of the norm in their ignorance about vegan nutrition. I am not posting this to slam vegans. I'm just using it as an opportunity to give some unsolicited advice to any of you with children who are planning to go vegan: educate yourself thoroughly beforehand. Talk and listen to experienced, knowledgeable vegans first. Cross check what you learn against a licensed pediatrician to make sure you get enough non-meat protein in their diets to feed their rapidly growing, protein-hungry brains.
Update [2007-5-11 13:1:32 by biodiversivist]: My apologies all, for not looking into this story in greater depth. I've been too busy to check in on the blog and I see it has a pile of comments already. An infant can die of malnutrition even if fed large quantities of food that does not contain adequate nutrition, such as fruit juice, and that is what I mistakenly thought had happened in this case. I did not realize that the child had actually been fed small quantities in addition to being fed inadequate nutrition.
I overlooked the one short sentence in the entire article that should have clued me in: "The child died because he was not fed. Period." The headline and subtitle, both crafted to sensationalize and maximize readership sucked me in. This was a generic case of child abuse and veganism had little to do with it. I have added more to this article below the fold and I'm sorry I didn't get back to it sooner sparing several rants.
Accepting that this particular story was not an appropriate one to open this subject, the main point I still want to emphasize is that impoverished, poorly educated, parents make poor candidates for raising children on a vegan diet, which takes consistency, education, and effort to avoid compromising a growing child's cognitive development. A diet somewhere between the extremes of fast food and veganism would be best for them, and certainly would be easier to pull off. Just as a traditional Inuit diet of blubber and meat is at one extreme, veganism is at the other. A vegan diet for children is doable, but appropriate safeguards must be taken.
Here is an article by a vegan giving advice on what to feed your vegan child. The editor prudently put a disclaimer at the end of the article to make sure readers get the complete picture. Such information should be a part of any article that suggests parents should raise children on a vegan diet.
This child may or may not have died had these parents provided large quantities of what they thought was a vegan diet, but there is no doubt that this child would have been impaired as were the infants of these two vegan parents in this case study (who did not go to court and did not make the headlines).
There is no hidden epidemic of malnourished vegan children in America, in part because only about half of a percent of American children are vegan and very few of them include America's disadvantaged urban poor. But that could change if enough people get the idea that a good parent should provide a vegan diet and then not follow through on the education and discipline necessary for a positive outcome. Certainly few people would advocate that the poor in third world nations like Africa strive to raise their children on vegan diets. There is an epidemic of obese children, which suggests that stronger efforts should be taken to convince parents to provide better diets. The extreme of veganism is not only unnecessary to accomplish that but could also do more harm than good if pediatricians began promoting such a diet because a significant number of parents out there simply would not take, or even fully understand, the proper precautions.
I recall the time I was in an apartment helping out an impoverished couple with three children. They had been homeless and I had paid the first and last months rent to get them off the street into shelter again. As is quite common in that economic bracket, at least according to a pediatrician I know, different fathers had sired all three. The children were fending for themselves, as is also common in this bracket. Parents are often either off at work, or recovering from some form of substance abuse. I watched the three year old walk over to the refrigerator and open it. She dragged out a hunk of cheese and started munching down. I remember it because I was surprised that a child that young had learned to open a refrigerator. Had the only options for that child been fruits and vegetables she would have been at even greater risk from this intellectually impoverished environment. She is a teenager today and can barely read.
I have made this point before. Grist is stereotypically top heavy with contributors who were born with silver spoons in their mouths. They have been handed six figure educations at private colleges and will one day receive inheritances. However, missing from their education is an understanding of poverty. They have witnessed poverty, possibly lived temporarily in less than optimal apartments or neighborhoods, and can empathize with those permanently stuck in it, but they will never fully grasp its essence because they will never experience a life without hope of escaping it. Veganism is not a diet that should be promoted for the impoverished.
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Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:44 am
10 May 2007
Actually, apple juice, and other juices have recently been shown to have a devastating effect on children's teeth...leading to rot and decay which then affects adult teeth growth.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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astetica Posted 2:46 am
10 May 2007
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Chris Schults Posted 2:51 am
10 May 2007
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:02 am
10 May 2007
A dreamer looks at the world as it might be and says "why not?". An ideologue looks at world as it is and says "no it's not."
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Chris Schults Posted 3:08 am
10 May 2007
"No matter how many times they want to say, 'We're vegans, we're vegetarians,' that's not the issue in this case," said prosecutor Chuck Boring. "The child died because he was not fed. Period."
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David Roberts Posted 3:14 am
10 May 2007
Recall that this country's parents are involved in systemic, almost universal child abuse, raising their kids on diets of fat, salt, and sugar, leading to epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes, etc. etc. We really think vegan parents are some sort of unique problem?
grist.org
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amc89 Posted 3:24 am
10 May 2007
The important phrase here is "appropriately planned". Some people make a big deal about protein, but getting protein from plant-based foods in really fairly easy. The main nutrients you have to watch out for when you give up meat and dairy is vitamin B12, calcium and vitamin D (which is added to cow's milk). Calcium can be found in a number of green leafy vegetables, nuts, dried fruit, legumes and fortified soymilk and soy yogurt. Vitamin D you can get from 20 minutes of sunlight a day or from fortified soy milk like Silk. Vitamin B12 is the only vitamin that can't be obtained naturally from a vegan diet but a B12 pill or drinking 2 cups of fortified soymilk a day (try making lots of smoothies) is more than adequate. Studies show that vegetarians have lower risks of cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and suffer from fewer food born illnesses like salmonella. Not to mention the benefits to animals and the environment, which I'm sure most Grist readers are very well aware of.
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:32 am
10 May 2007
Victual Reality
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astetica Posted 3:52 am
10 May 2007
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caniscandida Posted 4:10 am
10 May 2007
This subject is outer-galactically anomalous. It has nothing to do whatsoever with normative vegetarianism and veganism.
There are so many more important stories involving animal abuse that much more richly deserve our attention.
I am very disappointed in my good friend BioD, for selecting this circus sideshow to bring to our attention, when there are so many much more significant stories about unfortunate relations between human beings and non-human animals that we ought to know about.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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PBrazelton Posted 4:12 am
10 May 2007
As a side note, having been a vegan and having known many vegans, there is a stupendous lack of nutrition knowledge amongst the community. What could be the foundation for an excellent lifelong diet has been turned into horrid 'lifestyle' with idealism and fanaticism serving as the core principles. There are certainly many well-read vegans who enjoy superb health, but in my experience this is not the norm.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 4:19 am
10 May 2007
The diet of the parents is neither here nor there. The child wasn't fed.
Newspapers that use such exploitive titles are irresponsible.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has some excellent information on child and adult nutrition.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
http://www.pcrm.org/
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:24 am
10 May 2007
It comes down to the right combination of getting all the amino acids necessary for protein building.
The reason meat is successful is that its easy. It's meat. It's us. It has all the amino acids.
When you go veggie the most important thing is combinations...you have to combine the right vegetables to make up for the missing aminos in each.
Native Americans knew this...hippies never learned. The Indians of South America and Mexico had the "triad" -- corn, beans and squash. Eating those three vegetables, combined, gave them all the needed amino acids.
Even a very smart, very talented, vegan or vegetarian could be starving themselves right now in terms of one or more key amino acids by not adopting a mix that includes all the amino acids.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Baby Boomer Posted 4:53 am
10 May 2007
It wasn't the vegans, it was the disturbia.
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wiscidea Posted 5:12 am
10 May 2007
By the way, this topic does belong on the Grist website. All the hype that lays a guilt trip on people for consuming one food or not consuming another food because of its effect on the environment is dangerous when it is presented out of the context of what a healthy diet consists of. If 10% of Americans have not heard of Global Climate Change, I imagine an even higher percentage of Americans are not aware of the fact that a child's diet has to include adequate protein and fat for normal development. And an even higher percentage are not likely to know that there are nutrients found ONLY in animals (including insects) or artificial supplements.
I guess they looked into their hearts and decided all that scientific information was bogus... they knew better then anyone else what was best for their child. They didn't even take it to a doctor! Send them a Darwin Award.
Forward!
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Rotel Posted 5:17 am
10 May 2007
Vegan is an extreme biological lifestyle choice that should not be forced on anyone, especially your own child. Let them decide when they're old enough if they WANT to be vegan or not. My sister's friend was almost removed from her parents care when she was little, due to the fact that she was so malnourished because of her parents severe vegetarian diet restrictions - they had no clue what they were doing, they were just "not eating meat". Their kid has severe deficiencies now.
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Chris Schults Posted 5:18 am
10 May 2007
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Jason D Scorse Posted 5:45 am
10 May 2007
J.S.
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info. I am a proud liberal, who stands on the shoulders of giants.
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amc89 Posted 6:24 am
10 May 2007
To those think veganism is "extreme", I would argue that it's a normal reaction to learning about factory farming and the environmental consequences of our high consumption of meat. I think it's our modern system of raising animals that is "extreme". If you don't eat anything but lettuce, that's extreme, but a well balanced vegan diet is a perfectly normal and healthy diet.
People in Asia traditionally have consumed little dairy and there's no data that their bones are worse off than western people who drinks lots of milk and eat lots of cheese. In fact, some of the nations that have the highest dairy consumption, such as Norway, also have some of the highest rates of osteoporosis.
The bottom line is going vegan is great in so many ways, but I agree with the original poster that you should read up on the nutritional facts about the diet. Because if you don't pay attention to things like vitamin D and vitamin B12 and you develop health problems, you'll not only be harming yourself, but you'll be giving the diet a bad name. The best way to promote veganism is to be a healthy, active person and set a good example to others.
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WKB Posted 6:34 am
10 May 2007
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Chris Schults Posted 6:39 am
10 May 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 7:10 am
10 May 2007
Some cattle are fed agricultural by-products such as corn stalks,
that are inedible by humans, as well as manure scrapings from hog and
chicken intensive confinement "factory" farms.
Some feedlots have begun experimenting feeding cattle cement dust,
cardboard, paper, and industrial oils and wastes.
From this current site of Beyond Beef, Washington, D.C.:
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html
Beyond Beef is an excellent report addressing resource depletion, global warming, human disease, animal suffering and other compelling reasons to eat less beef.
Also read about The China Study
The research project culminated in a 20-year partnership of Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, a survey of diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan. More commonly known as the China Study, "this project eventually produced more than 8000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease."
The findings? "People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease ... People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.
From the introduction to The China Study:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 7:18 am
10 May 2007
It probably follows that with ethanol production in overdrive and the price of corn rising, these feedlot "experiments" (animal abuse) will grow.
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wiscidea Posted 7:40 am
10 May 2007
Please post a reference regarding animals being fed industrial oil. It would not surprise me, but I'd like some details. A solid reference might put an end to my consumption of meat. If true, the idea is absolutely idiotic. We already know that animals accumulate certain toxins -- like organic compounds commonly found in petroleum products!!! -- in their bodies. Now we are going to skip the step where we dump the toxins into our streams and lakes and allow it to percolate up through the food chain? Hell... just feed it directly to cattle? Are the TRYING to kill us? We reduce our consumption of seafood to avoid all the !@#$%^&*()_+ toxins in fish, so the agriculture-industrial complex has to find a new way to get it into our system?
Oy vey!!!
Forward!
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Veganica Posted 8:11 am
10 May 2007
There was a nearly identical case in New York City in 2002-2003. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health& ...) In this case another vegan African-American couple were sentenced for assault. Their 15-month-old daughter had also been malnourished, deprived of milk or formula, and had rickets, no teeth, broken bones, and internal injuries.
These couples could have known better given the right conditions. There's so much information available if you know where to go, and there are lots of community support groups as well.
But, you know, not everyone who chooses veganism (or Christian Science for that matter) does it for rational reasons. Maybe these couples were a little out of touch with reality. And even among the rational vegans and vegetarians, many neglect to educate themselves about proper nutrition. Vegans - if they wish to be healthy in the long run - especially need to understand how their bodies metabolize food, and must pay close attention to their energy levels.
Whose fault is it that so many people are out there in the dark without any understanding of the role food plays in the body - the very basis of life itself? Seems like the kind of thing everyone in the 21st century should learn from their school or their balanced, edifying media system, no?
Anyhow, this sentence has to be appealed. It's ridiculous. These two have already been rehabilitated. They learned their lesson. Let's set them free, and help them to do better next time.
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| Scott at Veganica
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 8:17 am
10 May 2007
The Beyond Beef report can be read at this link:
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html
- - -
See what's in fish, chicken and pork according to this Washington Post report ~
The tainted Chinese ingredient that was incorporated into U.S. pet food
and later made its way into chicken and pig feed was neither wheat
gluten nor rice protein as advertised, but was seriously contaminated
wheat flour, government investigators said yesterday....
Officials said, some of that contaminated flour, mislabeled as gluten,
was mixed into fish food in Canada and exported to the United States,
where it was fed to fish raised for human consumption.
Accordingly, some American fish may be laced with melamine, the
industrial toxin whose spread has revealed in startling detail the many
ways in which the food chains for pets, farm animals and humans are
internationally intertwined....
"Our food-safety system is broken," said Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro
(D-Conn.), who chairs the subcommittee that funds the Food and Drug
Administration and the Department of Agriculture.
-- From "Farm-Raised Fish Given Tainted Food," by Rick Weiss, at
this May 9, 2007 site of the Washington Post, Washington,
D.C.:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007 ...
060.html
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wiscidea Posted 8:44 am
10 May 2007
The Republican plot to dismantle the government by neglect continues. Can't trust them to read the intelligence reports regarding terrorist attacks, can't trust them to attack the right country after a terrorist attack, they can't warn us about or prepare us for coping with natural disasters, they are afraid to let us know that there might be prions in our food supply, they can't prevent toxins from entering almost every item we consume, they don't want to provide basic health care, they don't want there to be a safety net for people who lose their jobs, they don't want to enforce labor laws, they don't want to ensure our forests provide a sustainable supply of construction material, they don't want to invest in basic infrastructure essential for our economy, they don't want to educate children and adults so they can take care of all of these matters themselves!!!
WHAT GOOD ARE THEY???!!!! THE REPUBLICAN PARTY MUST BE DRIVEN FROM EVERY OFFICE IN THE NATION!!!! They are not even qualified to serve as coroner.
It is ironic that they wish to reduce our nation's standards to the absolutely lowest common denominator on the planet... trampling state and individual rights... all to enrich corporations, but in the end they will probably cause the dissolution of These United States. And corporations will have to cope with far more than the myriad of laws they currently despise so much.
Forward!
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Veganica Posted 8:47 am
10 May 2007
Now when I prepare and eat food I know I'm doing the least harm possible, and I have not deprived any beings of their life or security. I don't have to provide myself a single comforting social justification at mealtime, and that's a liberating thing. Finally, as a Buddhist practitioner, it makes devoting the energy derived from my food "to the welfare of all beings" seem a little less hypocritical.
So sure, ultimately I think everyone should strive to be as close to vegan as possible. I understand that not everyone sees the wider implications of their everyday (culturally-sanctioned) actions, or wants to let go of their (culturally-sanctioned) rugged individualist outlook. By the look of things, most of us humans just want gratification all the time, and I suppose that's a fine approach. We all have pleasure buttons, why not push them whenever we want?
It just seems that when we can freely choose to do no harm, we should.
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| Scott at Veganica
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wiscidea Posted 8:49 am
10 May 2007
Ohhh... sorry for straying from the topic, but I did not bring up the industrial farming, oil, and melamine controversies. I'm just going with the flow... wherever the thread leads.
Forward!
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Matt Leonard Posted 10:31 am
10 May 2007
It's quite clear - from the PROSECUTOR even, that the dietary choice was not the issue here - it was the fact that they simply didn't feed the baby. I even bet these vegans might have considered themselves progressives, or environmentalists - why doesn't the story read "Environmentalists starve baby"?
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mihan Posted 10:59 pm
10 May 2007
My understanding is that, for babies, fat is just as important as protein: protein builds your muscle, but fat builds your brain. Feeding your baby skim milk is no better in this regard than feeding your baby apple juice. Nutritionally, then, the veganness of the child's diet is irrelevant, and the headline (as others have pointed out) is completely off the mark.
[Similarly, why is it that after the VA Tech bombings there was more backlash against Korean-Americans than against brooding English majors? Because it is easier to make them Other.]
One wonders, if the couple is emaciated themselves, how they managed to conceive in the first place. But let's not think about that.
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wiscidea Posted 11:32 pm
10 May 2007
(1) As pointed out earlier, when a groups stresses the value of a certain diet -- say, veganism -- it is very important to provide sufficient information so people don't harm themselves. To repeat what has already been said several times, there is more to it than eliminating meat from your diet.
(2) This case MIGHT reflect a failure of our education system. Children should learn about proper nutrition in school. Our society cannot rely on parents for this. Indeed, an educated child might improve his or her family's health.
(3) This case MIGHT reflect a failure of our food distribuion system. Why were these people essentially starving? Unable to afford GOOD food?
(4) This case MIGHT reflect a failure of our health care system. Why didn't anyone notice the condition of the parents? Why did they deliver the baby at home?
(5) This case MIGHT reflect a failure of our mental health care system. The family clearly had some problems caring for themselves. Was depression a factor?
(6) This case MIGHT reflect a failure of community. Someone should have been aware of this and able to find help for the family.
It is absolutely disgusting that in a nation with one of the highest obesity rates in the world there are people staving to death. Is this what rugged individualism and the ownership society is leading us toward? Will it be every man and woman for themselves and no one care about stepping over starving people on the street?
We should care about this and similar families simply out of compassion for other people. But that is not what the Grist website is about. So... why is the an ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE? Cold rational evaluation suggests the following... poorly educated, malnourished, mentally ill people are not likely to have the resources required for living responsibly and devoting time to restoring ecosystems. Furthermore, as long as there are people living under such awful conditions, it will be difficult to persuade a large segment of humanity to deovte resources -- an investment -- toward preserving the environment. We must find a way to improve quality of life AND preserve the environment.
Forward!
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caniscandida Posted 3:21 am
11 May 2007
And, as part of this renunciation of my earlier criticism, I agree after all with my pal Mihan, that this post is quite appropriate for Gristmill, by this principle: The fundamental environmentalist value is the preservation of the Earth's biodiversity; Gristmill's focus on issues relating to climate change and energy is ancillary, not an end in itself; everything having to do with a love of any class of living things, and a desire to preserve them, is entirely appropriate as Gristmill material, indeed is most welcome.
But by that same principle, I stand by this earlier point, that Gristmill would be much richer for cultivating more attention to stories of environment-related social injustice and animal abuse.
By the way, Mihan's comment on the Virginia Tech University massacre is very interesting. I knew there was a real fear, within the Korean immigrant community, of an anti-Korean backlash, but I do not think that amounted to much. By the same token, owners of Glock (and other) handguns were not at all pilloried: it passed quickly in and out of the news that the son of former Governor Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican presidential candidate, attempted to board an airplane with a loaded Glock in his bag; and among many Americans, it is apparently received wisdom that all those people at VA Tech ought to have been carrying loaded guns.
But as for demonizing English majors, which did not occur after the massacre -- but of course not: the celebrated poet Nikki Giovanni was one of the principle hostile character witnesses -- , I wonder if that is not just a matter of time. Here at Gristmill, one might observe, there seems to be an unexpressed impatience with us liberal artists, as getting in the way of the conversations of real value, which can only be conducted by scientists, engineers and economists.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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wiscidea Posted 3:46 am
11 May 2007
That's all I can think of right now. Perhaps one of you liberal artists can add more.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 3:56 am
11 May 2007
I apologize if I'm part of the problem. I sincerely appreciate non-scientific fields as much as scientific field, just not all of them.
Perhaps you can attach your reply to a more-appropriate thread.
Forward!
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savvyveg Posted 11:07 pm
17 May 2007
savvyveg
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atreyger Posted 11:51 pm
17 May 2007
It seems to me from everything that I have learned that the majority of Himalayans, Mongols, Central Asians and northern Chinese (Manchurians) had dairy as the MAJOR part of their diet.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:20 am
18 May 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:00 am
18 May 2007
You buy catfish wisci? Grown in the southland on sewage and manure runnoff? For your health? In a bushwacked nation with only industry self (no) regulation?
Have you ever been in the southland? Wheew.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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