Don’t call me a bad mother because my children are VEGAN
Other mums wagging fingers. Aghast relatives. But TANITH CAREY says
WHO knew a mushroom risotto could qualify me as a neglectful parent? Now it was all that stood between me and a finger-jabbing mother.
She had heard that both my daughters, aged 14 and 11, had chosen to go vegan — and that I was joining them. From the other side of a log-pile of sausages on her plate, she set out to decry everything veganism stood for — and patronisingly explain why she would never let her children follow such an ‘extreme’ regime.
Didn’t I know kids needed protein to grow strong? And what was so wrong with eating animals anyway? Didn’t I agree it was wrong to care more about animals than people?
As a parenting author, you might think I’d be sensitive to accusations I was allowing my children to be malnourished.
But six months into giving up meat and dairy last year, I’d already discovered that the hardest thing was not giving up my favourite milk chocolate or creamy Camembert on bread. It was how the merest whisper of the word ‘vegan’ seemed to represent an attack on the values of all meat eaters.
I wondered why friends and relatives, who until now had not been at all interested in my children’s diet, suddenly found it a compelling subject, and one that entitled them to share their opinions with me.
Or why Lily and Clio’s food choices were being picked over by great aunts and uncles who hadn’t held an inquest when their grandchildren had started smoking.
Their concern, of course, could be down to stories like the one two weeks ago after Professor Mary Fewtrell said: ‘It’s difficult to ensure a healthy and balanced vegan diet in young infants.’
BUT I would argue that for every piece of research questioning a vegan diet, two or three studies show it’s the best thing you can do for your health. In 2015, the World Health Organisation declared that processed meats such as bacon and sausages are a group 1 carcinogen — on the same level as tobacco smoke and asbestos.
A report last year from the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food found that a global switch to veganism could save eight million lives by 2050 and cut greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds.
Then there’s the evidence that your children are likely to live longer. Research in the journal Nutrients in 2014 found that going vegan protects against heart disease, some cancers, obesity, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
Last year, a study in JAMA Internal Medicine monitored the health and diet of more than 130,000 people over 30 years. They found that every 3 per cent increase in calories from plant protein reduced the risk of death by 10 per cent.
As a society we have been raised to believe that meat and dairy are the only ways to make children strong. But there are many ways of getting the protein and calcium they need from plant-based sources.
It can be hard to move on from tradition. But like slavery and denying women the vote, just because it’s gone on a long time doesn’t mean it should carry on. Though I was never a heavy meat-eater, I assumed I was doing the right thing when I introduced Clio and Lily to meat when they were toddlers and told them to drink their milk before bedtime. I valued shoes, jackets and bags if they were made out of the finest leather. But over time, I stopped being able to ignore the objections. I had signed up to a couple of animal welfare feeds on Facebook. I saw videos of animals playing, skipping — loving being alive.
These were in sharp contrast to the clips of cows calling out desperately as their newborn calves were taken away so humans could drink their milk. It dawned on me that being vegetarian wasn’t enough when I saw male chicks being crushed because they couldn’t lay eggs.
But it was my elder daughter Lily, then 14, who decided last year to take the step which I had been too lazy to make myself.
She watched the documentary Earthlings, narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix, which investigates the conditions for animals used by humans for food and clothing. Three-quarters of the way through, she declared she had turned vegan.
We were not sure how long it would last. But I was impressed by Lily’s resolve. And it was also clear how easy it now was to have a nutritious vegan diet. There were no end of recipe books and foods to make her meals just as tasty and well-balanced.
Clio, then 11, followed suit a month later — and finally I signed up. It was a no-brainer. My skin looked brighter. I woke up with more energy. My digestion improved and animals didn’t have to die for my food choices.
DIE-HARD carnivores can — and do — bombard me with all the comments they like. They can argue the whys and wherefores of whether humans are designed to eat meat (although no other apes, with the exception of chimpanzees, kill animals for food.)
But no amount of debate, or marketing featuring jolly pictures of smiling cows or pigs looking content can whitewash the fact that eating meat means murdering a living creature that did not want to die.
Maybe I should have asked that finger-jabbing mother why the choices she makes are so virtuous when eating meat is causing environmental damage that will affect us all?
One cow can produce between 250 and 500 litres of methane — a greenhouse gas which is around 21 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide — every day. The United Nations says rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars. Then there is the water, pollution and land that it takes to raise livestock.
Possibly I should have asked why my decision not to pay someone to kill on my behalf makes me the ‘extreme’ one. Instead I smiled and changed the subject.
Veganism a fast-growing lifestyle movement. The number of vegans has risen 360per cent in the last decade to more than half a million people.
So in a few years’ time, I believe the question that mother should be asking won’t be, ‘why have you let your daughters go vegan?’ but, ‘why are my children still eating meat?’