Children and Meat Eating
Children and Meat Eating: This is one of those very personal and sometimes controversial subjects that can generate intense debate.
At our Nollamara early learning centre, we take no position on this subject. It is a matter for each individual family to decide upon. However, we can here summarise our understanding of current official state and national government advice on the subject.
Meat Eating – why it generates debate
Protein is critically important for a balanced, healthy human body. We obtain that through the consumption of protein-rich foodstuffs.
For millennia, most of humanity, excluding the rich of most civilizations and ages, probably ate comparatively modest amounts of meat as part of their overall diet and therefore, protein source.
Some societies, like that of traditional Japan, ate very little meat relative to fish and vegetable products. Others did not eat meat for religious reasons, including followers of Jainism and some Hindus.
Providing the loss of protein can be compensated for (there are other sources apart from meat), cutting out meat from a diet should not, for most adults, create health issues. However, historically, protein-deficiency illnesses were moderately common, partly as a result of overall poverty and partly due to having little meat in the diet and trying to compensate for that with carbohydrates.
Though today very rare in the developed world, protein deficiency illnesses remain fairly common amongst children in parts of Asia and Africa, mainly because of poverty and a lack of easily available and affordable protein sources (including meat).
While meat is a potentially important source of protein, that has to be counterbalanced by its health downsides. As relative wealth has increased and the cost of meat has reduced in the developed world, there is ample evidence that meat consumption has rocketed globally. There is robust medical evidence now that the over meat eating, notably the so-called ‘red meats’, can also cause major health issues.
All of this excludes discussion of the morally important dimensions associated with meat eating.
The children-specific issues
Nobody disputes that meat eating as a protein source can be replaced by other protein sources, such as beans and pulses etc.
However, it needs to be remembered that the dietary requirements of children differ in many ways to those of adults and not just in terms of quantities. So before removing meat from a child’s diet, for whatever reason, it’s important to be absolutely certain that the protein requirements of the child are understood and that a diet is provided that clearly provides such proteins in the quantities necessary.
An expert qualified dietician will be able to offer advice and a professionally-constructed diet regime recommendation. It is worth being heavily cautious of much that’s written on internet article sites, as many of those are poorly researched or may have been written with financial objectives in mind.
Your doctor may also be able to offer further advice on the subject.
Official government position
The state government supports the principle and feasibility (though not necessarily advocating) of meat-free diets for children and babies. It stresses that there are no negative health effects noted in such diets, provided common sense is applied.
Therefore, it strongly stresses the need for meat-free diets in children to be balanced and carefully managed to ensure that the children concerned are getting sufficient protein to compensate for meat being excluded. There is a list of recommended substitutes.
If you’d like to know more, we’d be only too happy to pass on the contact details of reputable sites where non-meat diets are discussed in more detail.
