Is it just me, or does that dropper look humungous?

Update: Sue reports that the product’s been discontinued – see the comments for more info and other options.

As followup to our parenting columns on Vitamin D (see Vitamin D for Vegan-Raised Infants and Vegan Infant Formula: Nonexistant?) we finally got around to getting some liquid form vitamin D2 in the house (remember kids, D2 is vegan because R2D2 is cool, and ergocalciferol is the good one because I’m vegan, ergo I know more about weird vitamins than anyone on the street!)

Rather than figure out international shipping (as many of you know, we’re in Canada,) we decided to let the professionals figure it out and headed to the pharmacy to order some of the Drisdol drops that Jodie pointed out in a comment on a previous post.)  We basically just printed out the PDF, brought it to the store (in our case, Shopper’s Drug Mart,) and said “get this for us, mmmK?”

And there were no hassles.  I’ll be honest, I felt a little weird custom ordering something from a pharmacy, but apparently it’s something they do all the time, and no prescription is needed.  We got the drops the next afternoon.

Just in case the PDF goes offline, it’s made by Sanofi-Aventis, and the DIN is 02017598. Ours was made in Canada for an American company, so hopefully it’s widely available.

So what’s it cost?

Jodie said it was $68 for her, but we got it for a little under $50 (Canadian.)  That might seem like a lot, but it’s actually pretty competitive with other forms of D2: the cheapest we’ve been able to find Now brand D2 pills (1000 IU strength) is $8 for 120 vcaps, which is 6.7 cents per 1000 IU.  The Drisdol drops come in a 60 mL bottle and each mL has 8,288 IU (there’s a handy dropper that’ll dose out about 207 IU at a time,) so that’s about 10 cents per 1000.  Sure, it adds up, but maybe there’s a difference between liquids and pills.  Who knows.

The Drisdol is almost a third of the price of the D2 spray we mentioned in a previous post (at the price we were charged,) so at this point it’s the cheapest D2 liquid we’ve been able to find, and liquids are pretty much the only way a newborn’s going to take it in, so we’re calling it a win.

Interestingly, if we were to dose the stuff out at 400 IU a day (that’s Health Canada’s recommendation,) we’d have  about a three and a half year supply from this bottle.  Unfortunately, it expires at the end of next year, so I guess Angela and I will start taking drops too to make sure we use it all up in time.

Speaking of which…

So how does it taste?

With such a small range of options available, there’s not a lot you can do if the drops taste like, say, raw sewage, but that’d kinda suck when you’re trying to convince a small child to take them.  Fortunately, we didn’t feel an urge to scrub our tongues with a steel-bristle brush after our taste test.

Angela and I both tried a drop directly on our tongue (the box says to add it to milk, by which I’m sure they mean soy milk, but we wanted to taste it fully.)  It wasn’t bad, but the closest flavour we could compare it to was burning.  It’s definitely something you’ll want to mix into another liquid; probably a sweet liquid at that.

For us, the D2 problem is fully solved.  If you’ve found another solution, or managed to order Drisdol from another country, let us know in the comments!

(As always, there’s a warning that you should consult with your health care provider before using the product, and we did, so nyah nyah nyah.)

Are vegan parents doomed to a small selection of jars? No way, says our Council!

This week’s parenting column takes a look at baby foods, specifically some of the very first solids your baby might eat, since it’s something that a lot of parents-to-be have written in about, and hey, even though they’re just doing what you tell them to, this is the point where you really start making a new vegan, really.

Do you need to rely on prepared jars of baby food? Are there things to watch out for? Does ingredient scanning for vegans start pretty much from day one?

As it turns out, a vegan-raised baby’s first foods are actually a little easier on a vegan diet, since many of the common allergens like eggs, dairy, and fish are out of the picture. The rest of the tips we got drive home the point that, like so many other things, feeding a baby isn’t a problem for vegans, or more specifically, it isn’t really a vegan problem.

Before we get to what the Council of Vegan Parents had to say, here’s a bit of stuff from Doctor Science and her band of Facts: the World Health Organization has recommended that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and then continue with breastfeeding while mixing in some foods for up to two years or more (we’ve got some stories from the Council here if you’re interested in learning more about breastfeeding.) The American Academy of Pediatrics also has some recommendations for getting started with solids that might be worth a quick glance.

So what solids work well with vegan babies? Here’s what some of the Council had to say:

Don’t stress over it

Stephanie gave this introductory advice which is really worth noting: “don’t stress. Particularly with a first child, it’s too easy to worry that you’re missing something, not giving baby the best they need, not creating enough variety or whatever. Stress is time-consuming and doesn’t serve anyone at all, so trick number one: keep it simple and low maintenance. Don’t assume a baby cares what they’re eating; it’s all new and they’re going to ooze it out their mouth in the first few instances anyway. Feeding an infant is giving them an experience, and a largely tactile-over-taste one at that.”

Rice (cereal) is nice

It seems to be a doctor-type recommendation, and lots of Council members had success with it as a first food, so here you go: baby rice cereal is an easy simple way to get started without any pesky chopping. Quinoa flakes were cited as a good second step. And can I just point out once again that this is one of those things that works for vegans and omnivores alike?

Purée, hooray

Mashed bananas, avocados, applesauce, pears, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, lentils, rice and couscous all made our Council’s list – this is one part of life where overcooking is actually a good thing since it makes things mushy, so steam away (no, don’t cook the avocados or bananas, unless your child is into it I guess…) What else? A few parents mentioned adding silken tofu to some of the purées, soups were also a hit in some households, and hummous time is, apparently, any time

If you’re looking for recipes, Sarah had these suggestions: “the biggest hit was lentil stew (mashed lentils, cauliflower, and spinach tossed in a food processor). We would steam carrots and process them with peeled tomatoes, a granny smith apple and some silken tofu, and flavour it with a little ginger. Peas and spinach in the blender was also a good one.”

By the way, as an extension to our time management for parents article, Sarah also outlined her baby food preparation technique for us:

“We set aside half an hour each Sunday for food making. What we would do is cook up a bunch of lentils, rice, fruits, and vegetables, and then puree/mush them in different combinations. We would then put them in ice cube trays, label them, and freeze them. We would take out a few cubes at a time and put them in the refrigerator to thaw. We got 2 dozen clean, empty baby food jars off of Craigslist for $3 and found that to be more than enough storage for her food.”

Ice cube trays were mentioned by a few parents (both for this and in the time savers article,) so I’m starting to think of them as some kind of secret weapon…

Milk-a-mole

I’ve seen a few references to adding breast milk to some of baby’s first solids (oh yeah, one of them was in this here article,) but Amy had a fun story around the theme:

“We started out with avocados, just smooshed up, and thinned with a little breast milk, we call it milk-a-mole, rhymes with guacamole. My mom did take a taste of the milk-a-mole, then was upset she had some breast milk.”

Weird how breast milk can upset people, but cow milk is “just what’s done” for the majority of society, isn’t it? Man, don’t get me started about eggs…

Jars are cool too

Don’t get the idea from any of this that everyone’s anti-prepared foods! While the above ideas can all be made from scratch, you shouldn’t feel guilty if you keep some (preferably organic) baby food jars in the cupboard – just like convenience foods for yourself, it’s a form of contingency planning and as Stephanie put it, “bottom line is, how much is your time and sanity worth? Having jars in the cupboard is smart and can be the difference between peace and not.”

Baby-led weaning

A few Council members were either practicing or expressed an interest in baby-led weaning, so it’s worth a mention here as well. In this case, rather than smearing purées acros your baby’s face (and the walls, I’ve heard,) you let the child experiment with food using his or her own hands. Everything you’re about to read is based on Council input, which may or may not be interpretive; if you’d like to learn from the source, there’s a site for that.

Here’s a summary from Julie:

“The first thing to realize there is that “weaning” means something different in other parts of the world than it does here. In the U.S., at least, “weaning” refers to removing breast milk/formula from a baby child’s diet. In the U.K., at least, it refers to adding solid foods into the diet. So “baby-led weaning” is about the process of introducing solids, not the process of taking away the milk.

“It’s actually a pretty cool concept. The idea is that the different parts of a baby’s body develop in unison to some extent; by the time their digestive system is ready to handle solid foods, they should also have the manual dexterity to pick food up and move it into their mouth, and the oral development to not push it back out (“tongue thrust”) Practically speaking, it means that starting at 6 months, we just stuck “chip-sized” (British-ese for “steak fry-sized) chunks of whatever we were eating on M’s tray. He mostly played with it at first, but that’s ok – when they’re that little, solid foods are really more about exploring tastes and textures than about actual nutrition, anyway, and most of what he did eat ended up in his diaper more or less unchanged. Creepy, maybe, but when you see solid chunks of carrot in the diaper, you know that not much is being absorbed, nutritionally-speaking.

“Lightly steamed carrot sticks, broccoli, avocado, etc. were big hits. As he got a little bigger and better with his fingers, he liked black beans, bits of cereal, etc. Soups were ok as long as he had some bread or something to dip in them. He made a huge mess, to be sure, but we only fed him solids once a day, at dinner, and dumped him straight in the bath afterward, so it worked out. I think it did a good job of getting us in the habit early on of only making one meal for the family, and it got him exposed to a wide range of tastes and textures, which I thin can only have helped him to be open to trying and enjoying a wide variety of foods now.

“We were fairly careful to keep things like peanuts out of his food for a while, and I saved the salt for our individual plates, but otherwise there weren’t many things that were off-limits to him. Big pieces are better than small pieces because they’re easier for little fists to pick up and gnaw on, and little pieces aren’t likely to get broken off and swallowed until they’re ready. In fact, one of the BLW things I remember reading suggested that spoon-feeding a baby anything remotely chunky was far more likely to lead to choking, since you were putting things into the baby’s mouth for them and they could then inhale things that they didn’t have the developmental ability to get into their own mouths yet.”

Once again: not a vegan problem

This was a real eye-opening topic for me personally, and I almost feel like I’m gloating when I say that from the looks of things, feeding a baby his or her first solid foods might actually be easier for vegans than omnivores, thanks to a reduced number of allergens to watch for and an overall familiarity with the source ingredients from our own cooking.

What about you? Any favourite first foods from your family? We’ve focused on really early foods here, but feel free to share some later-stage recipes (we’ve gotten a number of risotto mentions, for example) in the comments!

Thanks to Amy, Julie, Elaine, Lisa, Sarah, Stephanie and Jo for their help on this one!

No, this isn't Photoshopped: it's an actual Marvel Comics character (that someone in the health field needs to license for a D campaign!)

For this week’s parenting topic, we’re taking a look at vitamin D and your baby – while at a pre-natal class recently we’d heard that supplementation was advised right from birth, which triggered some alarms, since many vitamin D supplements aren’t vegan friendly. With that, we turned to the Council of Vegan Parents and the internet (have you tried that thing? It’s awesome!) for answers!

First, an overall disclaimer – not to weasel out of anything that appears below, but you really shouldn’t get your health and nutrition information from Some Guy On The Internet. Everything that looks like science in this article came via guidance from the National Institutes of Health in the USA and Health Canada, and I encourage you to follow those two links for the current state of vitamin D recommendations. As with all of our parenting columns, I reached out to the Council of Vegan Parents, but for this one I used their input as background on what a decent subset of the vegan parenting population was doing.

Secondly, even if you don’t have kids, this article might be pretty important, since most of it has to do with availability and requirements in everyone, but we’re paying more attention to infants, is all.

Why does any of this matter?

It turns out that vitamin D has been linked with a lot more than rickets, which was the primary concern when it was added to cow’s milk in the USA in the 1930′s. Research is suggesting links between vitamin D deficiency and issues including cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, depression, and possibly even autism.

What’s more, there’s been growing concern that current “acceptable” levels of vitamin D in the body are actually significantly lower than some new suggested levels that are going around.

This isn’t just a vegan problem, by the way – while there are some non-vegan foods with vitamin D in them (either naturally or through fortification,) the percentage of the North American population that’s deficient (by current or proposed guidelines) is much higher than the percentage of the population that’s vegan.

Is sunlight enough?

Worldwide, sunlight is the primary source of vitamin D: your skin synthesizes it after absorbing ultraviolet B radiation from the sun. With that said, there are a number of factors that need to be considered before we all start praying to the sun god for all our (and our baby’s) needs:

First and foremost would be the conflict between the “absorb sunlight” and “don’t expose your baby to sunlight” recommendations. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping babies out of direct sunlight for the first six months. I’ve seen many other (non-medical) sources saying that five or ten minutes a day isn’t a problem, and might be enough to synthesize enough vitamin D, but I haven’t done enough research on the topic to do more than repeat the AAP recommendation.

Even with sunlight, depending on where you live it might not be enough through the entire year. The NIH says that, in the USA, you need to live below 34 degrees North latitude (which stretches from Los Angeles, California through Columbia, South Carolina) to be able to use sunlight as a sole source year round. In other regions, a window from November through February (or larger) is a “dead zone” for sufficient sunlight.

Skin pigmentation is also a factor: paler skin absorbs UV radiation faster than darker skin does, which means that darker skinned people (both adults and infants) need to spend more time in the sun for the same dosage – up to 10 to 20 times as much, according to the Health Canada information.

Cloud cover, smog, shade and other factors can also reduce the radiation levels significantly, and the use of sunscreen above SPF 8 will reduce your ability of vitamin D absorption to pretty near zero (OK,it’s a 97.5% drop, which I’ll call “close enough.”)

Generally, advice seems to be that the hours between 10AM and 3PM are the best times to be soaking it in, as it’s when the sunlight is strongest.

Will breastfeeding supply vitamin D?

Vitamin D does exist in breast milk for mothers with adequate levels themselves, but it’s not considered enough to meet the daily recommended levels. On a semi-related note, your baby may have some vitamin D on backup from what it got through the placenta while in the womb, but this usually is only enough for a few months at most.

What supplements are available?

As we mentioned in our article about vegan infant formula, there doesn’t seem to be any formula out there with vitamin D2 instead of D3. Briefly, there are two forms of D: D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol.) D3 is derived from lanolin (wool) and sometimes fish or egg, so it’s not considered vegan. D2 is made from yeast. I remember the “good” one because I like Star Wars (R2-D2) and “I am vegan, ergo I make up silly mnemonic devices.”

As for supplements, there are many liquid drop supplements of vitamin D that would be easier to administer than a pill or a powder, but the majority are based on D3. As Julie from the Council noted, be careful to read the labels, since most D3 is lanolin-derived, which is wool, so the bottle could say vegetarian but not be vegan.

We live in a disclaimer-filled world, but one more probably won’t fill the internet: check with your health professional to determine suitability of any or all of these – other than “you can buy it,” “it’s liquid,” and “it’s D2″ we’ve done no vetting of these products whatsoever but hope they help speed up your search.

• Meredith pointed out this D2 spray.
• Monica mentioned Dalivit, which looks like it has to be ordered from the UK but doesn’t seem too expensive – here’s one source.
• Jodie left a comment about Drisdol Drops [PDF], which it looks like you can get from any pharmacy.
• Wow, I wish there were more items here! Please let us know what you’ve found in the comments and I’ll update the list!

Once your child has teeth, there are some vegan chewables out there that might be appropriate, including Freeda Vitalets and the VegLife Vegan Kids Multiple [affiliate links].

Depending on what country you live in, you might have access to fortified soy milk (or other plant-based beverages,) but it’s important to note that these aren’t viable nutritional substitutes for breast milk or formula.

Remember – it’s testable

This goes for infants and adults – vitamin D levels in the blood can be measured by your health care people, so if you’re concerned about current levels or your intake plan, it’s pretty straightforward to get a status check (subject to costs for some of you, of course.)

As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t just a vegan problem – the supplement options are just a little more limited, and if there’s nothing available where you are for whatever reason, I think the “do your best” clause we mentioned in the infant formula article would apply. This is also one of those areas where it’d be good to share what you’ve learned with non-vegan parents as well!

What about you? Have you found any products not mentioned here that could bridge the gap? Please share them (along with any other thoughts you might have) in the comments!

Thanks to Amy, Kari, Julie, Meredith, Kim, Monica, Doh, Erin, Elaine, Kelly, Rebecca, Kristie, Sylvia, and Dalyn for their help with this one!

Update May 6/2010: Lisa Tweeted Angela with a reminder about the Toronto Vegetarian Podcast’s interview with Brenda Davis about vitamin D – I haven’t had a listen yet, but they’re good people.

Update Aug 28/2010: The Health Canada link has changed.

This week’s question was from the Council, to the Council:

“One of our Council members was wondering about baby formula: it appears that there aren’t any vegan versions out there, at least where she lives, since the vitamin D is derived from lanolin (wool) in all of the otherwise vegan varieties. Is anyone aware of a vegan brand that might have been missed, and if not, or in addition to it, what are some alternatives you’ve used or considered?”

OK, before we get to the Council’s advice, here’s the basics from our research on the internet: as of the time of this writing (March 2010,) there are no fully vegan infant formulas.

The only ones that comes up online at all are a brand called Farley’s and Heinz’s Nurture line’s Soya product, both of which were offered in the UK. Both appear to have been Vegan Society approved, but that’s because they’re the same product: Heinz bought Farley’s.

Before those of you outside the UK start calculating what are sure to be insane shipping fees, we’ve got some more bad news: unfortunately, it appears that as of February 2010, the line has been discontinued.

So what’s a vegan parent to do if breastfeeding isn’t an option?

Do your best

Julie had this to say on the matter: “I’m not aware of any vegan formulas, and I’m pretty sure the conclusion in Raising Vegetarian Children is that there aren’t any (or at least there weren’t at the time that the book was published.)

“We’ve been fortunate to never need formula, since both of our kids seem to be champion nursers, but if we found ourselves in a situation where we needed it, I think this would fall pretty easily in the ‘do the best we can’ category, meaning I’d be more than willing to overlook the non-vegan vitamin D if that’s what it took to be able to feed my kid. They can’t grow up to be world-influencingly awesome vegans themselves if they don’t get the nutrition they need as babies, so one way or another their survival and thriving is my top priority.”

Examine other breastfeeding options

I’m no expert on the subject, but as Linda writes, there are people who are. Consult with a local La Leche League group or the IBCLC to see if there are ways to overcome whatever’s preventing you from breastfeeding.

I’m already well outside my areas of knowledge (thank you Council!) and this takes things even further, but Linda also mentioned the possibility of human milk banks, which wouldn’t necessarily be from a vegan woman, but may be worth considering.

Plan for the future generations

As Elaine put it, “we should probably all be contacting baby formula makers and asking for a vegan version. If we do, it won’t be long before a truly vegan baby formula will be readily available in mainstream US stores. Sometimes, I think, being a good vegan parent isn’t just about what we do for and with our children, it’s about acting like a parent for future generations of children so that other parents won’t have to make the kinds of compromises we have to make now.”

With that in mind, here are the contact addresses for some of the major formula makers. If I missed any (and that’s very likely,) please contact us and I’ll update the post.

If you’re looking for your activism action of the week, getting in touch with these companies and politely asking them to market a vegan-friendly formula (INCLUDING vitamin D2 instead of D3) wouldn’t be a bad way to spend your time. Here are links to the various contact forms:

• Mead Johnson (makers of Enfamil, Pregestimil, Nutramigen)
• Abbott Laboratories (Similac, Isomil, Alimentum, EleCare) (click the email link to get the form)
• Nestlé (Good Start)
• Hain Celestial (Earth’s Best)
• Nature’s One
• Wyeth nutrition

Thanks to Elaine, Steph, Julie, Pippi, and Linda for their help on this one!

Related stories:

• Weaning from breastfeeding – when and how?
• Breastfeeding: is your child what YOU eat?
• Vitamin D for Vegan Raised Infants

Flax is more awesome than I ever suspected

For this week’s question, we’ve got an email from SB reader Jessica: “I’m curious whether you have advice on omega-3 sources for a 4-year-old? It’s been hard to find the vegan chewables that we had been buying, and my child is resistant to drinking smoothies daily, so flax oil does not appear to be an option.”

In the old days when I volunteered at a vegetarian resource centre, we’d skim a few books and Google around to find things that might fit, but one of the things I love most about Spawn Better is that the answers come from real vegan parents who’ve actually dealt with these issues in real life. Here’s how the Council of Vegan Parents are adding omega 3 fatty acids into your children’s diets:

Flax takes the gold

While some alternatives were suggested, and we’ll get into those in a bit, flax was still the top recommendation even if it wasn’t working as a smoothie, what with it containing 7 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per quarter cup. It turns out the stuff is amazingly versatile:

Soups and stews. Sarah’s family grinds flax seeds into soups and stews, and this is an area where the nutty flavour of flax can really add to a dish instead of being something that other flavours need to hide.

Cookies. As Meredith says, “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with whole flax seeds are definitely appetizing to a little kid” and somehow I don’t think I need to find scientific literature to back that one up.

Just about any baked goods, actually. Flax is often used in vegan baking as an egg replacer, but you can add the stuff at will: Lisa’s trying to throw a little ground flax into almost all of her baking, which covers the cookies we mentioned earlier, as well as breads, muffins, brownies, cakes, and hopefully pies, because pie is awesome.

Kim will swap out some of the oil in a recipe for flax seed: “I reduce the oil in a recipe by half, replace it with 2x flaxseed meal. For example if a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of canola oil, I use 1/4 cup canola oil and 1/2 cup flaxseed meal.”

Also, we don’t judge here, but I’ll keep this one anonymous just in case there’s any lingering embarassment: Pilsbury crescent rolls with flax added before baking did come up in one email. I cannot confirm or deny reports of extensive testing of this idea here at Thrust Labs

Fruit toppings. You can sprinkle ground flax on just about anything, but adding it to fresh or cooked fruit can add a really nice texture and flavour.

Ground flax seeds are generally preferable to whole seeds since they’re more likely to be digested instead of passed straight through. We grind up large batches at a time in our Vita-Mix (other blenders, a coffee grinder, or possibly a food processor can also do the job) and store a jar in our freezer to keep the oils fresh.

Also, flax oil can be used for more than just smoothies. According to Doh, “while flax oil cannot be used for cooking, it can handle being warm. If it’s cool enough to eat, it’s cool enough for flax oil. After the food was taken off the stove, I added flax oil to mashed potatoes, spaghetti sauce, and salad dressings and dips. I used it with, or instead of, margarine on vegetables. I spread it on toast before adding whatever spread my son wanted. You can also mix it into hummus, or baba ganoush. When I buy the natural peanut (or other nut) butter that has separated, I pour off the peanut oil (saving it for stir-fries), and replace it with flax oil. Be sure to get lignan-free flax oil, and to store the nut butter in the fridge after you add flax oil.”

Other omega-3 sources

Beyond flax, several other choices came up in our discussions:

Soy and hemp milk. Silk makes an Enhanced Omega-3 and Calcium soymilk blend that contains 32 mg of DHA Omega-3 per serving, but other brands are worth a look as well, depending on what’s in your supermarket.

Shelled hempseed. These sprinkle well on salads, and we’ve also tried using them instead of pine nuts in some recipes – it’s not exactly the same taste, but it’s enjoyable just the same.

Walnuts. A quarter cup of walnuts contains 2.3g of omega-3s. Monica’s kids love pesto, so she’s been making good use of Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s recipe from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook (affiliate link, but check out page 65, yo!)

Granola. If you pick a brand with hemp or flax, you’ll get some omega-3 sources there. You can eat it by itself, or you can do like Sarah does and sprinkle it on top of her daughter’s soy yogourt or cereal. A quick scan on the interwebs found the Hemp Plus Granola, which contains 600mg of omega-3 fatty acids per serving, or you can make your own – here’s a recipe for cinnamon-maple granola that looks pretty simple.

Cereals. Many of the cereals that lack cartoon mascots make up for it with rich sources of Omega-3s. The Mesa Sunrise brand was mentioned by one parent, bu I can’t find the fat breakdown for this one from here.

Rapeseed oil. Also called canola oil, this fat works well when cooking and contains a 2:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio (discussed below.) Be aware though, that this product is commonly genetically modified and there appear to be other controversies with the product.

Chia seeds. A relative newcomer to the “superfood” roster (how did we go so many years singing the Chia Pet theme song without realizing the stuff was edible?), chia seeds are getting a lot of attention lately, with 64% omega-3 concentration in its oil.

Drink supplements. If all else fails, supplement! Celeste found the Omega To Go kid friendly powders, which contain 100mg of omega-3 DHA.

Some facts on fats

The main thing to understand about omega 3 fatty acids is that while the quantity is important, the ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids is also something to watch out for. I’m not a nutritionist, and nothing on this site constitutes solid medical advice, but I rely heavily on Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet (affiliate link) whenever I need to know about this topic (and pretty much any other nutrition question – Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina have done an amazing job!)

The challenge is that omega-6 fatty acids are way more prevalent in most people’s diets, but as Steph points out, fresh whole foods will be much more likely to adhere to a healthier ratio than processed items.

A big thanks to Meredith, Sarah, Steph, Monica, Lisa, Celeste, Kim, and Doh for helping out with this one!

When does broccoli win over breast? Photo by Fimb

In part two on this week’s series on breastfeeding (see part one here,) we asked our Council of Vegan Parents a simple question: for how long did you nurse your children?

The answers were pretty evenly split – and surprising.

About half of our respondents were in the six months to a year phase. The other half? Three to three and a half years.

I’ll admit it, I hadn’t done any real research before asking the question, and I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but wow! And I wasn’t the only one: as Dalyn says, “When the nurse came to the house for a visit the week after he was born… she told me that they recommend breastfeeding for a year. I nearly fell out of my seat – it seemed like a very long time to have a little body attached to my breast.” It looks like she got over the initial shock though: “in some ways, it is a long time, but the convenience and the health factors do, of course, make it worth every moment.”

One thing I’m learning from compiling these surveys is that every case is different, and sure enough, there seem to be a lot of different reasons to wean at various points.

In some cases, another baby was on the way, and in others, the child decided on his or her own. Some women weaned out of concern for their own health (typically other factors were involved) and others out of discomfort, decreasing milk supply or simply the inability to “keep up with demand.”

As for the transition, a few Council members shared their stories as well.

Most of the 3+ year group night weaned at around the two and a half year range. As Doh pointed out, later-stage nursing seemed to be more about the emotional connection and comfort than the need for sustenance, so preparing for the change was more mental than physical.

For Julie, by the end of the cycle, she had to work on teaching her son to soothe in different ways. “He was big enough at nearly 3 that we could spend the couple of months leading up to it talking about how things would change when he was 3 and a ‘big kid,’ and he was excited enough about his birthday that it was a date he remembered and looked forward to, so it was an easy event to attach the change to.”

Their transition went relatively smoothly: “He was noticeably needier/clingier for a while, but he had a lot of changes going on in his life (weaning, me traveling abroad, moving to a new class with new teachers and new kids at school), so it’s hard to say how much of it was directly related to the breastfeeding. For a couple of weeks, he would ask to nurse, but I just had to ask him to stand up and show me how ‘big’ he was now that he was 3 for him to accept no as an answer. For a while, he asked about getting to nurse again after the [second] baby comes, but now (almost 5 months after weaning) those questions seem to have gone away as well.”

As for solid foods, in most cases these were introduced between the fifth and twelfth month. Steph started out with rice cereal and introduced things gradually from there, keeping an eye out for problems (oats caused some issues, for instance.) She recommends avoiding gluten grains in the first year. Meredith supplemented nursing with soy formula, and at about the one year mark her son started consuming regular soy milk – a habit he continues two years later at the rate of several cartons a week!

If you’re looking for more information, Steph pointed out a few resources that helped her with nursing and nutrition, including Healthy Eating for Life for Children and Dreena Burton’s Vive le Vegan!: Simple, Delectable Recipes for the Everyday Vegan Family.

A huge thanks to Julie, Meredith, Kari, Doh, Steph, Trin, and Dalyn for contributing on this one. What about you – how were your nursing experiences? Let us know in the comments, or if you’d like to contribute to a followup article, consider joining the Council of Vegan Parents!

(Photo by Fimb)

Photo by sdminor81

This week we’re taking a look at breastfeeding – if you are what you eat, is it the same for your child?

Part one of our series was inspired by our friend Laura, whose baby seems to have developed some kind of soy sensitivity, and it seems to be coming from breast milk after Laura eats soy-based foods. Laura isn’t vegan herself, but she’s trying to incorporate non-meat protein into her diet, which is something we want to promote.

Does breast milk contain elements of the mother’s diet? Is there anything Laura can do to mitigate this? What other weird and wonderful side effects can happen? We put the question to our Council of Vegan Parents.

As it happens, the Council didn’t have many problems with this area, but they’ve heard from others who weren’t so lucky.

While Julie didn’t have any issues with food sensitivities herself, she’s been involved with various mentoring groups over the years. From what she’s learned, soy allergies and sensitivities are very likely to co-occur with dairy allergies and sensitivities, so this could equally happen to vegans and non-vegans alike. It still sucks though, so to work around the issue Julie recommends replacing soy milk with almond, hazelnut, or hemp milk.

Elaine is our resident foster parenting expert, so she hasn’t breastfed herself, but from her research she believes that very few people are truly allergic to soy, and she recommends further testing. As she points out, many baby formulas contain soy (even milk-based ones,) and soy-based formulas are marketed for “sensitive babies.” Of course, something’s clearly going on from the reactions Laura’s seeing, so Elaine recommends soy-free vegan protein shakes such as Vega, which was designed to avoid many common allergens.

Meredith didn’t have any issues with sensitivities either but she’s got an interesting theory: “the food I ate while breastfeeding does seem to have had an impact on his eating habits; I don’t know any other 3 year olds with such an affinity for salad, garlic, eggplant, hummus, and all types of fresh fruit (most veggies too).”

On a similar note, Steph found that periods of avoiding caffeine seemed to make her son sleep better. She suggests avoiding processed foods, which she knows isn’t easy during the first few months, and for convenience, she recommends granola bars as a quick way to keep energy high and hunger low when time and sleep are at a premium. The “Enjoy Life” Cocoa Loca snacks are one of several that avoid common allergens, and Steph sent a link to a list of allergy free snacks that might help:

Lastly, some words of praise and encouragement from Doh: “Breastfeeding is challenging at times, and having a little one to care for is challenging at times, so throwing a food sensitivity into the mix has got to be rough. She’s lucky that so many soy-free options are coming onto the store shelves, but I’d encourage her to look to “whole foods” such as grains and legumes and veggies. I commend her for dropping the allergen from her diet – many people don’t realize how important that is. She has the power to either prevent or establish a life-long allergy for her child, and a lot of moms don’t realize how much damage they can do by continuing to expose their baby to the suspected allergen. Others just stop breastfeeding so they can continue to eat the foods they’re accustomed to. So, kudos to her.”

From the feedback we’ve received so far, the food chain definitely adds a few links when it comes to breastfeeding, so care should be taken to maintain a balance between your favourite foods and what works best for your child.

In Laura’s particular case, how can she get enough protein in her diet without using soy products? While protein is abundant in many plant-based foods, dropping soy’s a tough one, since it’s the basis of a lot of vegan meals. As mentioned above, Vega is a great source of protein that doesn’t contain a lot of common allergens like soy, but it can be a it hard to get down if you’re not into the taste (between the hemp and the stevia, it can take some getting used to.) There are other protein powders out there that are pea, hemp, or rice based; check your local health or nutrition supplement store for details.

Powders aren’t very exciting, so for some actual meals there are two books I’d recommend, both by Vega creator Brendan Brazier: Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life and Thrive Fitness: The Vegan-Based Training Program for Maximum Strength, Health, and Fitness both contain a number of recipes used by high-performance atheletes that are free of many common allergens.

If you want to go your own way, and can handle wheat, vital wheat gluten is a great source. It’s available in many health, bulk, and even grocery stores, and is pretty easy to work with – a favourite around here is the chickpea cutlet recipe in Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook.

Other sources are quinoa, amaranth (we cook both like rice) or even simple greens, just like elephants and gorillas eat! With greens you will need to up your quantities, so in addition to big salads consider putting a few handfuls in your smoothies. I know, it sounds weird (and looks weirder!) but the taste is pretty surprising.

On Thursday, we’ll be revealing the results of our survey: how long did you breastfeed for? The answers might surprise you!

(As always, the ideas and opinions expressed here are those of the contributors and should not be construed as official medical advice. Please consult your physician for health matters, but say hi for us.)

(Photo by sdminor81)