Death by Veganism
New York
Times; May 21 2007
By NINA
PLANCK
WHEN Crown
Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds.
His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were
convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and
cruelty.
This
particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan
parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it
should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.
I was once
a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan
pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust
baby merely on foods from plants.
Indigenous
cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to
survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India,
invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats
and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan
diet is not adequate in the long run.
Protein
deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used
to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish,
eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today
this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.
The fact
remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals
and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed
for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which
are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
A vegan
diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins
A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals
like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients,
they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.
Responsible
vegan parents know that breast milk is ideal. It contains many
necessary components, including cholesterol (which babies use to make
nerve cells) and countless immune and growth factors. When
breastfeeding isn’t possible, soy milk and fruit juice, even in
seemingly sufficient quantities, are not safe substitutes for a quality
infant formula.
Yet even a
breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks
enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty
fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it
is for eye and brain development.
A vegan
diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need
plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which
actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and
minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and
other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though
— perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)
Historically,
diet honored tradition: we ate the foods that our mothers, and their
mothers, ate. Now, your neighbor or sibling may be a meat-eater or
vegetarian, may ferment his foods or eat them raw. This fragmentation
of the American menu reflects admirable diversity and tolerance, but
food is more important than fashion. Though it’s not politically
correct to say so, all diets are not created equal.
An adult
who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on
a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol
and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things
they need to live and grow.
Nina Planck
is the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and
Why.”
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