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Fred Patenaude on Raising Vegan Babies

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bumberleybee:
Hello,

I read this article from Frederic Patenaude this week and was wondering what people's views are, especially those who have been through a raw or mainly raw pregnancy and have raised fruity or high fruit children.  Is fruit really not calorie dense enough to raise a child on?  I figured it was the perfect fruit for growing babes alongside breastmilk.

Not looking to discredit his views as such, he seems a really genuine and nice guy with a balanced view in today's climate.  See what you think . . . .

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/blog/?p=2030

sunmaiden:
I found this article fascinating.  From my own experience, I discovered raw after I'd had my kids, and they had begun life with breast milk and cooked vegan food.  They drifted naturally to high raw with me, and I'd have to say that trusting their common sense, and not being dogmatic or forcing them into any style of eating has surely kept them very healthy.

In retrospect though, I'd have to agree that the average cooked vegan diet has the potential to be deficient.  Our diet was grain/legume centered with roots, veggies, fruits, nutritional yeast, soy products, nuts and seeds and sprouts.  It was a whole food, natural diet, no sugar, maple syrup, etc.  We took vit/mineral/b12 supplements too.  We survived nicely but here were the problems I can see now: 1)lots of snacking, 2)mood swings induced by low blood sugar if snack wasn't quick enough, 3)inability to tolerate even small amounts of cooked sugar or a larger snack of fruit, 4)frustration, irritability and crying, probably due to #2, 5)no major cavities, but adult teeth came in very crowded.

BUT, this was on a cooked diet.  When we switched over to a high raw diet for our kids, they stopped having mood swings and could tolerate as much fruit as they desired, they became calmer, still no cavities and the adult teeth have straightened out, not perfect, but better as they grow, and less snacks.  They do include raw veg food (raw dairy and some eggs) and I have seen this bring them too a new level as well, including very healthy teeth, incredible calmness and much more sustainability between meals.
 
Of the raw vegan children in the spot light I can think of Storm and Jinjee's children, Shazzie's daughter, Doug Graham's daughter, Anne's children and Jeff's daughter.  Cappi is amazing looking, healthy, vibrant and obviously thriving.  Anne has been fruitarian for so long, that she is knows what she's doing.  She knows where to get the fruit, how to feed herself sustainable, and how to lovingly see to the needs of her boys.  Cappi's older brother is not fruitarian at the moment, I believe, and I think this speaks volumes about Anne's ability to be flexible, non dogmatic, and allow her children to choose for themselves.  This is of course, how we need to be as parents.  Jeff's daughter Rose is still breastfed and in addition to her fruit diet, also carefully selected and offered at appropriate times, she eats some raw veggies as she is attracted to them by sight and smell, on trips to whole foods, markets, etc.  I believe Rozi and Doug have raised their daughter similarly.

When it comes to Shazzie, she includes a lot of greens and superfoods.  Some of these, IMO are not so child friendly, at least from birth to about age 7.  Kids aren't attracted to high quantities of greens.  Nut and seed milks are great, but without a lot of fruit to fill in the bases, there may be a deficiency.  She breast fed, and made sure to carefully supplement her daughter's diet, researched things to include, and added some raw animal products.  I think these were wise choices for her to make, to round out the food choices available to her child.  Storm and Jinjees children look small and thin to me, and some of them include cooked food.  I don't really know enough to comment.

So, I really agree with Fred that until you have your own diet fully in hand, and are thriving, you should not impose your master plan on your kids.  And if you are doing something that seems to really work for you, you should feel confident feeding your kids similarly...BUT, you should keep vigilant attention on your child's growth, emotions and vibrancy to make sure that diet really is working.  Changes SHOULD be made if you have doubts or if issues arise.

As far as pregnancy goes, I was interested in his comments on morning sickness.  I experienced a full 3 months of it intensely, on a clean whole food vegan diet.  I didn't have cravings for non vegan substances, but many, many things would make me ill, just to smell them.  Veggies were at the top of the unattractive list, and onions and garlic were awful.  I think there is something to be said about the toxins present in those substances, and the nausea being nature's way of steering clear of them.  But I was also really attracted to bread and vegan butter (Earth balance, in the states), so who knows.  I too have heard of long term raw vegans who have to make changes when they get pregnant.  I find this very interesting, and I agree that it is better to make these changes than to suffer, and potentially put yourself or child at risk.  However, there are not enough pure fruitarians having babies to know whether this is an issue on a fruit diet.

I hope Anne will have some brilliant comments to add too! ;)

Best Wishes,
 <3 <3 <3
Sunmaiden

sunmaiden:
I wanted to add one more point of perspective.  I was raised completely vegetarian, by vegetarian western parents, in mainstream society. My parents were loosely part of a spiritual community whose other members and kids were also vegetarian.  Of my group of friends/peers from that community, I am the only one who never tasted meat and never wanted to.  Only a very few parents (mine included) let their children know that dietary choice was theirs to make, and so there was a lot of sneaking, a lot of guilt.  What began as testing dietary limits led to more of a tendency to go against parent's belief's, get into dishonest habits or become involved in drugs. 

Also, my mother was  always attentive and there for me, accepting choices I made and sharing her ideas.  That was SO important. I remember her discussing ethics and morals with me.  She once asked me if I would eat meat if I was starving and was surprised when I said no.  She thought it would be better to keep our own survival going if necessary at the expense of an animal's life.  But, in more than 40 years of being vegetarian, she hasn't been faced with the choice, and she has been healthy :)  I think those early conversations must have made an imprint on me, and I do think its important to share our beliefs as gentle guidance to our children.

fruitbat:
I think that there are various issues to consider here.

I, personally, have no doubt that children have the potential to be very happy and healthy on a raw vegan diet.
However, I feel that the quality of the fresh produce is extremely important.
In July I went to a talk by an amazing guy, Costa Georgiadis, who has a permaculture show on SBS television in Australia. Costa is passionate about the quality of our food. He said this statement during his talk, "We may need to eat four times the amount of produce that we did in the 1970's to get the same amount of nutrients."
So by putting profit before soil (and human) nutrition, we are doing ourselves and the Planet as a whole a huge dis-service.
So we can see that in just 40 years our food has declined so much in nutritional value. Wild, organic, home-grown, local backyard, and biodynamic fruits and veggies really do, I feel, need to be a big part of our children's diet.

I do personally believe though that if the quality of the fruit and veggies are great there is no reason why a child cannot thrive on the diet.
In my own experience, both my children are attracted to the higher fat or denser fruits such as Durian, Avocado, Sapotes, Sapodilla, Jackfruit, fresh Dates, fresh Figs, and Custard Apples.

Something else that I personally feel is vital to healthy raw vegan children is long-term breast feeding.
I think that milk is essential for the first three or four years of life. Other cultures where there are no domestic animals used for milk, usually breastfeed for four years.
The cases, I have personally known of where a child has failed to thrive on a raw vegan diet have been because the child has been weaned earlier than optimal or the mother has been unable to produce adequate milk.

So I believe if great quality fresh produce is available for the child, plus long-term breastfeeding, there is every possibility that the child will thrive.

I have only personal experience of feeding my children a simple unprocessed raw vegan diet with no stimulants or complex recipes. I do feel that a lot of processed 'raw' foods with 'raw' chocolate or other stimulants may cause an imbalance that may affect the child's ability to thrive on this type of raw vegan diet.

Cappi has bags of energy and has great health.


I would also not expect a child on a simple raw vegan diet to correlate with standard growth charts, these charts are based upon children fed SAD diets and not living in accord with Natural Hygiene principles.
Growth is governed by the endocrine system and I expect a child living in a Hygienic way on an unprocessed raw vegan diet to have a very well balanced endocrine system; this would be in contrast to the endocrine system of a child living in a chemical world and eating a SAD diet. So growth cycles between the two would differ.
100 years ago the average age of the start of menses was 15-16 years, now it is 11 years; 100 years ago,the average age to stop growing was 25, now it is 18.
For the other mammals, generally the longer it takes to start puberty and the longer it takes to reach full growth, the longer the life span.
So are we shortening our children's lives when they grow and develop faster?

Rather than look to standard growth charts to see if our children are thriving on a raw vegan diet, I would look to:
-General health and happiness
-Appropriate mental development
-Quick healing of wounds and bruises
-Good immune system
-Good consistant energy levels.
-Good condition of skin, hair, nails, and teeth.

Love and Peaches,
from Anne XX <3

Gosia:
Great points about the quality of foods, Anne. After years of experimenting with raw foods, I too came to a conclusion that simply eating raw won't do. The quality of foods is crucial. Unfortunately for me, the quality and variety of fruit in my area isn't great. I still prefer eating raw and vegan, but it is a struggle to find good produce at times. So it wouldn't feel right for me to get my kids go through this. I let them make their own choices and encourage them to do the right ones.

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