Calling all veggies and vegans…

So my husband and I just watched a vegan documentary film called Get Vegucated. I was interesting, funny, and moving.

I used to be a vegan. I was veggie for 6 years in my early 20s and vegan for 18 months of that time. The past six years though I have been omnivore.
It seems to be a pattern for me that during pregnancy I have constant nausea, develop aversions to certain foods and strong cravings for others, including meat. This was the reason I initially stopped being veggie while carrying my first child - i could barely eat anything and had strong meat cravings.

Anyway, I am now nearly 18 weeks pregnant with no 3 and although i had meat cravings early on it disappeared a few weeks ago and now meat feels yucky. And so do many other things. I feel dry and nauseous and yucky and full and am mostly wanting to eat raw.

My children are very picky and I struggle with the idea of limiting what they eat for this reason. But we are now having the same few meals repetitively and its got to the point it makes me feel sick to cook them, let alone eat them!

This is all really mostly background to the questions I really wanted to ask. I am exploring the idea of one or more of us moving to a veggie or vegan diet so I was wondering…

any vegans on here?

any of you transitioned to veggie or vegan since having children?

anyone transitioned *with* your children?

any difficulties or things I should be aware of?

what are your best resources?  (I have a load of books I have dug out but would value some links

has anyone read or tried any specific things like the kind diet?

I would be really grateful to anyone who would like to share their story with me.

Thank you,

Laura xx

I’m vegan, apart from from honey which I still eat.  My oldest is almost vegetarian, he’s never really eaten meat.  My youngest loves meat.

I gave up eating meat about 6 years ago after watching some documentaries.  I don’t think I could ever go back to eating it.  However, i’m mostly raw, and don’t eat wheat or gluten either so i’m guessing my diet is a possibly a bit different to what you’re looking at. 

I’d say the only health issues i’ve had relating to a vegan diet is iron deficiency, which i’ve dealt with by eating a lot of green veg, particularly in juices, and taking a gentle iron supplement.  My B12 and protein have nover been a problem.

I do feel much healthier, particularly since giving up dairy.  I used to have a lot of ibs problems and thats pretty much cleared up completely now.

If you have any more questions, i’m more than happy to answer them for you!

I am veggie and have always been and so are the kids.DH eats meat but only really when he is out or if he wants to cook it for himself.I have recently been through the whole ‘dairy’ issue as I think the diary industry is appalling!! I really like the idea of being vegan but is difficult with the kids(they are older-some of them and therefor have a big say in what they eat) and am not prepared to cook seperate meals. But to be honest about 80% of our meals are vegan anyway and i usually drink rice/soya milk in tea as I prefer it.What I have decided to do is where possible always buy good quality loca/organic dairy products as that feels a lot better ethically and have managed to fing a farm that does raw milk which is supposed to be a lot better. It is more expensive,but as I say,we dont eat that much dairy anyway. eggs I dont have a problem with as we always buy local/organic and same with honey.
I think pregnancy often brings up these issues. Itwas while Iwas pregnant with no 4 that I looked into the dairy issue.
Best of luck with it all.xxx

Thank you for your replies. It’s really interesting to hear other people’s stories. My daughter loves cheese and often has milk & cereal for breakfast. We get organic at the moment but have had raw milk delivered before. She has eczema and am wondering if removing dairy would help. Or perhaps raw milk would be a good compromise. It might help.
I also have IBS and have had issues with it during pregnancy. I am very interested in raw food. I have a few books and try to eat as much as I can within our Family meal plans.
The thing that wobbles me on the vegan front, and veggie too if I’m honest, is that I really want us to eat real whole foods. And my children are honestly so picky. My daughter especially is a Highly Sensitive Child. I find it hard for example not providing salmon or good organic cheese that I know they will eat and trying to replace with nuts and avocados and things I know they won’t currently eat. Especially as we are unschooling and they generally have free choice over as much as possible. I think to start with it will be a case of introducing new things rather than removing and see how we do. And of course I can alter what I eat slightly. The past few nights they have had things I couldn’t eat (pregnancy aversions) so I’ve had salads.

I am wondering now also about real food / traditional food vegetarianism or nearly so. Hmm. Such a difficult area to navigate with children.

Thank you for your thoughts xx

Just another thought on dairy, since giving it up and moving to a high raw vegan diet my asthma and eczema have completely gone, so it could be worth looking into.  My eczema used to be quite bad, and would constantly bleed.  I also went chemical free so that will have had some effect too.

Another thing i thought of, and I know there’s been a few posts recently about this, is juicing.  My boys aren’t really picky eaters and like most fruits and vegetables, but there are some they don’t like that I like them to have for their nutritional value.  Avocado is something neither of them will eat, but they’ll have it in a smoothie, and my oldest doesn’t like berries, but again he’ll have them in smoothies.  I add a large variety of veg to the juices, from spinach, broccoli, celery, cucumber etc.  It’s a great way to add nutrients to your diet.

These are just a few ideas, hope they are helpful.

Hippymum, thank you so much for this. When I watched the film I felt so strongly about it and it brought back all those reasons I was vegan before. But I am now in a place of chickening out and feeling scared of making a change. I have said to my DH many times that if I was single I would have been vegan again years ago. And probably high raw.
The trouble is really that I find it hard to get one meal on the table, let alone several, and my children really are v specific about what they eat. My son is a bit better but with my daughter it’s literally a case of me being able to list what she will eat. She won’t try anything new at all. Sadly, neither will eat smoothies. They will drink water or orange juice (but only certain ones) and my son drinks milk at the moment.
I have IBS & asthma but have had eczema before. My daughter has itchy red eczema patches and I believe they are worse now she is no longer breastfeeding (self weaned a couple of months ago). It’s so hard knowing if she would just try a few different things we could remove the dairy and she might not suffer so much. It’s not awful but not nice obviously.

I would be really interested in hearing more about how you eat and how you balance all your needs making different foods for your children. Have you written about it on your blog at all?
thank you.

Laura xx

It is difficult having to make different foods for everyone.  My partner lives on meat, and junk food.  We couldn’t be more different.  It does take a lot of organising, but it’s worth it.  It’s hard when you have children who don’t eat a wide variety of foods as it’s very worrying as a mother.  I have found though that when i’ve tried new vegan or raw foods that the boys have wanted to have a try, so I guess if you do make the change, the children might be interested to try it eventually.  They probably won’t like everything, but you might find some new foods they like. 

If you look on my holistic life blog, the “My Journey” section is a bit about how I changed my diet and other areas of my life, and if you go back a few posts I did one called “a typical day on a raw food diet”.  They might give you some help.  I will be adding some recipes soon, when I get chance.

If I come up with any more ideas for you i’ll let you know. xx

Thank you! Had a quick look at your blog and I love it. Really interesting to read. I am also really interested in nutrition. Just took part in the Whole Food Kitchen course at Beauty That Moves, after a kind friend gifted me a place. I think I just need to do what you did - do more research and throw myself into giving things a go. After all, it would be better for me to eat the way I feel called to and expose my children to that alongside their usual diet than to carry on with us all eating as we are and me feeling unhappy. Oh and even though I know I don’t have to say this and no one will be reading and judging - we do eat organic, cooked from scratch food and most of our shopping is done from Riverford and SUMA, so their diet isn’t awful or anything. Just limited.
Thank you for your help, and yes if you do think of anything else useful please shout.

Laura xx

Thanks Laura, just had a look at your blog too and it’s lovely. 

I think it is important to follow what you want to do in life, and hope the children might follow in some way.  Mine won’t eat everything I eat, but they have a healthy diet and i’m happy with that.  We also buy from Suma, and are trying to grow lots of food in the garden this year. 

If you make changes, you might just inspire others to do the same.  Positive change is always good. xx

Thank you.
DH has just said he will happily go veggie & eat whatever I cook so that’s a great start! Now I really should tear myself away from the vegan boards on pinterest and get some sleep!
Night xx

I have been veggie for years, I don’t drink cows milk as it sets of my crohns disease, but I do eat cheese and eggs.  My dh is not veggie and I have never tried to ‘convert’ him.  I do all the cooking in the house so most of what we eat is veggie.  I am not bringing my children up as veggies so I do occasionally cook meat or fish, but only about 2 to 3 times a month.  I will let them make that decision for themselves. 

There are a few veg’s that my children will not eat but they are very much in the minority so I usually avoid these.  We eat a lot of pulses (which they love) and grains.  I love cooking as did my mother and I hope that my children will too one day, they certainly enjoy eating!

Thank you for sharing how your family eats.
I always find it interesting to hear about other people’s families and how they function.