Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

We are all genetically different to some degree, but we are all still human beings. You, me, and that baby all need the same nutrients. What makes us different is where we get the nutrients. I can say that I am genetically different from many others in that I cannot drink milk. Do I just kick back and say, "well, I'm genetically different so I don't need calcium."? No, I just get my necessary nutrients from a different source. It's the same for children. If they don't get what they need out of animal milk, they can get it elsewhere. Just cause the kid can't drink milk doesn't mean that he doesn't need his vitamins and fats and proteins.

All parents make decisions for their children. It's what parents do. Children don't have the experience and knowledge to make many important decisions concerning the way they should live. You can say that a meat eating parent makes the decision that the child will eat meat just as easily as you can say that a vegan makes the decision that the child will not eat meat. As long as the child is healthy, it shouldn't matter. When a child grows up, it will eat what wants to, date who it wants to, become a rock start instead of a doctor, etc. Until the child grows up, mommy and daddy make the rules. Some parents are good at what they do and some are not. Veganism has nothing to do with it. In fact, I can link you to a couple of blogs where vegan parents have raised happy, healthy, and active vegan children.

http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
http://frugalveggiemama.blogspot.com/
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/

Check on the recipe archives on some of these and you'll see the range of healthy and nutritious foods a healthy vegan eats. there are unhealthy vegand that eat only veggie burgers and drink cola, but there are healthy vegans who eat a variety of greens, fruit, grains, nuts and legumes. I think that many of the people who dismiss vegan diets are simply uninformed.

There are also the children who cannot drink any form of animal milk, as a previous commented said. I know of such a baby. His mother is currently feeding him a soy formula on the doctors suggestion and he's doing fine. So those parents from the article were ignorant vegans and bad parents. Not all vegan babies need to die of malnutrition.

I just think it's ridiculous that a parent makes a decision about how the child is going to live before they can even speak for themselves. It's one thing for the parents to be vegans or vegetarians because they have their own moral or health reasons and that conclusion has been made through experience but a newborn child has had no experiences and should be able to grow up to make a choice on their own not what mommy and daddy whacko have to say. Just ridiculous, like vegansexuals, ridiculous!