Episode 60 :Vegetarian and Vegan Diets in Kids

Episode 60 :Vegetarian and Vegan Diets in Kids

Is a vegetarian or vegan diet right for your child? In this episode, I take a deep dive into plant-based eating for kids—covering everything from the different types of vegetarian and vegan diets to the key nutritional considerations parents need to know.

With more families choosing to reduce or eliminate meat, it’s essential to understand how to ensure kids get the right balance of nutrients for their growth and development. I also share my personal experience with plant-based eating and why it’s a topic I’m incredibly passionate about.

Join me as I break down the pros, the challenges, and the practical ways to make vegetarian and vegan diets work for your little one.

Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Highlights:

Introduction (00:00.118)
Understanding Plant-Based Diets: A Personal and Practical Guide (00:29.474)
What Type of Plant-Based Eater Are You? Breaking Down the Labels (02:45.718)
Why I Choose Plant-Based: A Personal Journey Through Ethics, Health & Sustainability (05:02.166)
Behind the Barcode: The Hidden Cost of Meat (07:25.132)
Milk, Mothers, and Misconceptions: The Hidden Cost of Dairy (09:43.63)
Marketing vs. Nutrition: The Truth About Meat, Dairy, and Our Kids (11:51.598)
The Plant-Powered Path: Better Gut, Heart, and Immune Health (14:12.736)
Can You Get Enough Protein on a Plant-Based Diet? Absolutely—Here’s How (16:29.482)
Raising Plant-Based Kids: Values, Nutrition & Making It Work (18:42.04)
What’s Really in Your Child’s Diet? From Meat Ethics to Plant-Based Nutrition (20:59.544)
Vegan & Vegetarian Kids: Breaking Myths and Building Nutrient-Rich Plates (23:15.892)
Raising Plant-Based Kids: A Dietitian’s Guide to Doing It Right (25:29.868)
Raising Plant-Based Kids: Nutrition, Ethics & How to Get It Right (27:47.63)
Reducing Meat the Smart Way: Health, Ethics & Everyday Tips (30:03.946)
Raising Healthy Kids on Less Meat: What You Need to Know (32:12.364)
Going Veggie with Kids: Nutritional Must-Knows and Honest Reflections (34:24.494)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

Join me as I break down the pros, the challenges, and the practical ways to make vegetarian and vegan diets work for your little one.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

Types of Plant-Based Diets – Understanding vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, and flexitarian diets and how they differ.

Nutritional Considerations for Kids – The essential nutrients to watch for.

Health and Environmental Benefits – Why many families are shifting to plant-based eating.

Common Myths and Misconceptions – Debunking the biggest concerns around vegetarian and vegan diets for children.

Practical Tips for Parents – How to introduce more plant-based meals without stress, plus simple, nutritious foods that even fussy eaters will enjoy.

Show Notes:

🔗 Explore my collection of healthy, kid-friendly recipes: https://nourishwithkarina.com/healthy-recipes-for-kids

🔗 Learn more about nutrition for fussy eaters and how to build a healthy diet for fussy eaters with expert advice from a paediatric dietitian. https://nourishwithkarina.com/nourishingkids

If you’ve been considering a more plant-based approach for your family or just want to ensure your little one is getting all the nutrients they need, this episode is a must-listen!

Introduction (00:00.118)
You're listening to the Easy Feed podcast, episode number 60, vegetarian and vegan diets in kids. Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed podcast.
Understanding Plant-Based Diets: A Personal and Practical Guide (00:29.474)
Welcome back. It's so good to have you here. Today's topic is very close to my heart for a number of reasons. Number one, I have been, I guess you could say semi-vegetarian now for many years. I think I cut out red meat and pork. Well, would be over 10 years ago now, probably actually 15 years ago now at least. And then, yeah, my daughter's now vegetarian and
For many reasons, I feel very strongly against the way that we farm many of our animals. And I think this podcast episode's probably been a very long time coming. And I will try and approach it as objectively as possible, but obviously I do feel very strongly about some things. And I think knowledge is power and it's important to be informed.
The more I learn, the more disappointed in some things that I am about the way that our food is produced. And I think it's important for us all to know. And I also want to share the pros and cons of vegetarian and vegan styles of eating. So without further ado, let's dive into the two types of eating, which obviously have significant crossover. Look, we've actually got more than just two types of
plant-based diets. We've got vegetarian way of eating, we've got vegan eating, then we've got your pescatarian eating, and then we've got your flexitarian. So there's a lot of different versions of a predominantly plant-based diet. So if we just quickly run through what those definitions are to start with. So if we start off with what I would say a lot of the population or the majority of the population.
They're called what we call omnivores. So they consume both plants and animal products. Actually, I guess one step above that is your carnivores who just eat meat and don't eat any plant foods. And don't get me started on the gut health implications of that. But so you've got your carnivores which just eat meat. You've got your omnivores, which eat both. Then you've got your pescatarians, which are mainly plant-based, but include fish.
What Type of Plant-Based Eater Are You? Breaking Down the Labels (02:45.718)
Then you've got your flexitarians who are mainly plant-based, but do occasionally include meat or fish or poultry. Then you've got your vegetarians who exclude all meat, but may include animal byproducts. So they may include say gelatin, for example, in jelly or lollies, or they will consume dairy or eggs, depending what they choose. So you can have lacto vegetarians, you can have lacto.
Ovo vegetarian, so lacto is the milk and Ovo is the egg. So it really depends on the individual. And then you have vegans who exclude all animal products, including dairy, eggs, and any animal byproducts such as gelatin and often honey as well. And then your extreme vegans will also not use leather, not extreme, many vegans will not use wool or...
animal products as well. So it's very variable. As you can see, there's a huge spectrum and it really comes down to the underlying principles of why you choose to eat that way to start with as to how limited your food choices, because a vegan and vegetarian way of eating can still have huge variety of food. It's not like you're limited, I don't believe, but as to how far the...
avoidance of animal products goes really depends on your underlying reasons for avoiding those things. If it's from environmental, then you may still choose to avoid all of those animal byproducts as well. So there's lots of different categories of plant-based diets. The most rigorous plant-based diet is your vegan plant-based diet, which is where there is no animal products, no dairy.
No eggs, no fish, no honey, and no byproducts such as gelatin or anything like that. Look, there's many reasons why people will choose plant-based eating. And as I said, there's many people that will have predominantly plant-based, but then include a little bit of meat. So it may be flexitarian or they may be pescatarian for that reason. So they can still have a little bit, but be predominantly.
Why I Choose Plant-Based: A Personal Journey Through Ethics, Health & Sustainability (05:02.166)
aligning with what they value and how they want to eat. And people will do it for health reasons. So some people will choose to eat mainly plant-based for lowering the risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure. They may do it for other health reasons because they're concerned about additives and contaminants in animal products or antibiotics and hormones used in animal farming. So it could be from that perspective.
It could be from an environmental perspective, so reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with livestock farming. could be to do with conserving land and water resources. It could be to do with reducing deforestation linked to animal agriculture. So there's a lot of environmental impacts of livestock farming and a lot of people choose to avoid meat for that reason.
Then there's the animal cruelty and inhumane farming practices, which is why I don't choose to eat most meats because it's incredibly horrible and torturous and I cannot stand that whole industry. And that's why I do not eat beef. do not eat lamb. I do not eat pork. And I really choose to avoid most fish. I will eat organic chicken, but even then I'm bordering on whether I
get rid of that just because I feel like I potentially, and this is quite a personal perspective, but I feel like if I'm going to be really true to what I believe, I probably, I almost need to get rid of it. But then, you know, another part of me thinks it's actually the mass production that I have a problem with and the inhumane practices that come with that livestock industry. And also the stuff that gets pumped into these animals and therefore.
How they're treated, how they're killed. I have a real problem with all of that. And for me, if it was like the olden days where everyone just had an animal on a farm and it lived a great life. And then at the end, it got killed very quickly, humanely, and you ate that meat. I would feel so much less guilty about the, yes, you're eating the animal, but I guess I probably would still feel guilty, but I feel like that's a much better way. And I know that with the population numbers.
Behind the Barcode: The Hidden Cost of Meat (07:25.132)
And Australia, we make a lot of money in Australia out of exporting meat. And don't get me started on live export. That is one of the most torturous things of all. And hopefully that's banned, hopefully in the, in 2028. But I think if it was a little more old school, then meat would be better for us. And I'm not saying that meat is bad for us because there's a lot of
Nutrition in meat, there is protein, there is iron, there is zinc. There is a lot of nutrition in meat, but it's not to say you can't get it from plants. Like you absolutely can get it from plants. and it's really up to personal choice. So if you're listening to this podcast and you're about to like flick the radio on because you feel like I'm just on my bandwagon about animal cruelty, then I'm not going to apologize because that's how I feel. I feel very strongly about that.
It's really important to me that people are aware of the horrible industry that it is, because I think when we buy a piece of meat in the supermarket or at the butcher, you don't see what that animal's been through. And if you had to see and witness what that animal went through or be a part of that torture, you probably wouldn't eat the meat. So I think we are very ignorant to what goes on and also ignorant to what happens to those animals. The hormones that are pumped into them.
About 40 % of our cattle in Australia still is implanted with growth hormone to make them grow quicker so that we can kill them quicker so that they can make money quicker. And that's, that's banned in parts of the UK or all of the UK. And do we actually want our meat to be pumped with hormones? Then where the implanted
hormone device goes, they give them antibiotics in case the wound site gets infected. So then not only does this cow have growth hormone going in it, it's also got antibiotics. And then what does that do when we eat the cow in terms of, we then have the passed on antibiotic resist? So we're not just consuming meat. We're also consuming what's pumped into the cow. And this is the same with the dairy industry as well. There's a lot of these.
Milk, Mothers, and Misconceptions: The Hidden Cost of Dairy (09:43.63)
poor cows that just get repeatedly impregnated, bakely. you know, they're not wanting to have a baby, but they have a baby. And then when they have this baby, it's ripped away from it within days, not even. And the baby just gets off to, if it's a male, it goes to get slaughtered. And if it's female, then it goes into this torture cycle of dairy farming. Now you're probably about to switch off.
I'm going to continue on because this is what happens and people don't know you just get milk in the bottle and it's not actually milk that's made for us, it's breast milk for babies that humans are drinking. Why do think so many people are lactose intolerant? We're not actually meant to drink milk past weaning. We are the only species that drinks milk beyond weaning.
And we don't even drink our own milk. We drink, we steal it from baby cows and these cows are treated with antibiotics as well because they get mastitis because they're constantly having to breastfeed. And that's also coming through to us. And so you just think what is in our food these days that is doing harm to us that we don't even know. So I think for many reasons, people choose to be vegetarian or vegan because of inhumane farming practices.
cruelty to animals, environmental reasons, but also the unknown as to what is actually going into our food. Because you don't know when you buy that piece of steak, what's gone into that cow or how that cow's been treated. And so you're never going to know. And I know that we need to look at this as a part of holistic health. did a masterclass with my nourishing kids members the other day on
food additives and they said to them too, this is like one part of holistic health. And we also have to consider things like I talked about on sunrise recently, microplastics and nanoplastics, because those things hang around in our cells and they can cause problems. And you just think there's so many different things in our life that can increase our risk of diseases and cancer and whatnot. So you need to look at it holistically, but I also think you need to consider.
Marketing vs. Nutrition: The Truth About Meat, Dairy, and Our Kids (11:51.598)
your values and what's important to you. And I think from my perspective, there's been so much marketing money poured into the necessity to eat meat for iron and zinc and eat dairy for calcium. And it's to support those industries. get that and that's an important industry in Australia, but at the same time, you don't have to eat those things and you can 100 % be nutritionally complete.
Without those things, look, I see so many babies and kids that have calcium protein allergy and they're completely fine to not have dairy. We give them protein from elsewhere, they get calcium from elsewhere. Same with vegetarian little ones, even vegan little ones. We just make sure that they get their protein from elsewhere and their nutrients from elsewhere. Granted, it needs to be done properly. So this is not an approach that you would take lightly for a child.
You need to get proper advice and you need a professional plan to guide you to make sure that the nutrients are adequate on that vegetarian diet or vegan diet. So that's important to know that 100 % support it, but it needs to be done properly. Okay. I want to pause just for a second to let you know about something very important. If your child's eating is driving you nuts, it might be time for a new feeding plan.
A plan that gets your kids eating well with no battles or bribes at the table. If you're a busy, time poor mum who's tried everything to get her child to eat better but nothing is working, then listen up. It's not your fault, but there is a new way, light at the end of the tunnel. I've been there and I know that there is a new way. The thing is there's no feeding kids rule book, which is exactly why I've used my 23 years experience as a paediatric dietician and 12 years experience as a mother.
including my own fasciitis, to create my own method to improve my children's eating habits and nutrition that actually works. I've helped thousands of parents over the past 23 years to improve their children's eating habits and reduce the stress and burden of feeding. The mum guilt is real, I get it. Creating a healthy feeding plan is the only way to get your child eating healthier and end the food stress and worry for good. The feeding burden is so real, it's so overwhelming.
The Plant-Powered Path: Better Gut, Heart, and Immune Health (14:12.736)
I've felt it, I've lived it, but I want you to know that there's absolutely hope that things will change for you. It did for me and I know that it can for you too. I'm here to stop your food stress, boost your feeding confidence and end the battles for good. I'm here to give you freedom from worry, frustration, overwhelm at meal times from the battles and the bribes, freedom from it all. Click below on the show notes to take your step towards feeding freedom. All right, let's get back into it.
Okay. Now we're going to talk about some of the pros and cons of eating vegetarian, eating vegan, the benefits, things to think about potentially nutrients at risk. So let's go through that now. I want to start by talking about fiber because certainly eating more plant-based diet, then you're going to be increasing your intake of fiber. So people eating vegetarian, people eating pescatarian.
Vegan, all of the above. you're increasing your intake of plant foods, you're to be increasing your intake of fiber, antioxidants, phytochemicals, which are plants' natural defense against diseases. And so when we eat them, we get the benefits as well. It helps our immune system. So when we eat plants, we get a lot of nutritional benefit. It's going to improve our health, right? So fiber feeds our microbes, feeds the healthy microbes you now got.
It helps populate those healthy microbes in good communities, like in good numbers, basically. So we have lots of good bugs in our gut and we have a really healthy, what I call gut microbiome and that supports our immune health. so fiber, which you know, the sexy name for it is prebiotics really supports gut health and plant foods or plant, sorry.
And plant rich diets, so vegetarian diets, vegan diets, pescatarian diets are typically higher in plant fibers, which is going to support our gut and immune health. Plant-based diets tend to be lower in saturated fat, contributing to better heart health or cardiovascular health is the proper terminology. Plant-based diets also reduce risk of obesity and associated metabolic complications, lower incidence of type two diabetes and some cancers.
Can You Get Enough Protein on a Plant-Based Diet? Absolutely—Here’s How (16:29.482)
Also improves blood pressure, it lowers cholesterol levels. So look, there's plenty of benefits of increasing plants in your life. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, flexitarian, or just trying to increase your intake of plants, it's going to benefit your health. Now, when we talk about vegetarian way of eating or vegan diets, we need to then look at nutrients such as
protein and protein is what I call a macronutrient. So protein is really important for building muscle. It's important for, yeah, basically protein. Protein is broken down into amino acids and amino acids are the building blocks for our body. so we, proteins are essential and important for almost every function in our body. So we only need about a gram per kilo of protein per, we don't need excessive amounts of protein.
But we do need protein every day and we do need what we call these essential amino acids. And these essential amino acids are amino acids that our body cannot produce on its own and we need to get them from food. There are nine essential amino acids that the body cannot produce. Histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and valine.
So these amino acids are critical for muscle growth, brain development, hormone production and overall health. So look, there are definitely foods that are non-animal foods that contain the essential amino acids. And if you're eating a vegetarian diet, then certainly eggs and dairy will contain the non-essential amino acids. But if you're vegan, then absolutely, soy products like tofu and tempeh and edamame, they will have...
essential amino acids, so will quinoa, buckwheat, hemp seeds and chia seeds. So you absolutely can meet all your essential amino acids through a vegan diet or through a vegetarian diet. It's not that you need to worry about that. It's more that if you're not having those essential amino acids containing foods, then you have to be a little smarter about pairing things up. So for example, if you said to me, Karina,
Raising Plant-Based Kids: Values, Nutrition & Making It Work (18:42.04)
but my child hates soy and they don't eat quinoa or buckwheat or hemp seed or chia, then we need to be smarter about pairing up vegetarian or vegan type foods that do together provide the full complement of essential amino acids. So for example, legumes, beans, red kidney beans or chickpeas paired with grains, rice or whole grain bread.
Those two together will provide all the non-essential amino acids or for example, nuts and seeds and grains will together provide all the essential amino acids. So it absolutely can be done, but you just have to be a little smarter about it. And if you're going down this path, it's absolutely recommended to get support from a health professional in this area, such as a pediatric dietician like myself, because you just want to make sure that, especially if you're doing it for your child, you're doing it properly and
they're going to get everything that they need. If we're talking about protein, as I said, most children get well above their protein needs per day, but we just need to be making sure that it's not all from dairy, for example, if they're vegetarian, because if it is, it may increase the risk of iron deficiency. And iron deficiency is probably one of the biggest nutrients at risk on a vegetarian diet, especially if they're big dairy eaters. Because yeah, their protein needs are going to be met. Yes, they're going to meet all their essential amino acids, but
Dairy does not contain iron and it is actually an inhibitor of iron absorption. And that's where I see a lot of iron deficiency with the patients I work with, the moms that I'm talking to inside nourishing kids with their kids that are fussy eaters or iron deficient. We talk a lot about iron deficiency actually, because it's a common theme and it's a common theme in our fussy eaters that love a white diet. It's a common theme in kids that have a high dairy intake.
Whilst protein needs are met, essential amino acids are met, it's the iron that's the one at risk typically on a vegetarian diet. Vitamin D is the other nutrient just to be mindful of, but look, you can still get vitamin D. Egg yolks are one of the richest sources of vitamin D. And most of our vitamin D actually comes from conversion from sunlight. And so it's about 90%. So only a small proportion of vitamin D comes from food anyway. So it's just important to be mindful of.
What’s Really in Your Child’s Diet? From Meat Ethics to Plant-Based Nutrition (20:59.544)
But the further away from the equator you are, the higher the incidence of vitamin D deficiency. We see that the lower parts of Australia, such as South Australia and Victoria have a higher incidence of vitamin D deficiency in winter. It's up in the 40 % of the population versus the northern parts of Australia, such as Northern Territory in Queensland. Especially if you're living in Darwin, you're much closer to the equator. You're going to have more radiation exposure basically and lower risk of vitamin D deficiency.
One other nutrient just to be mindful of, we do see iodine deficiency in Australia and iodine is found in animal products, but it's also found in plenty of, not plenty, but it's also found in vegetarian products. And in this day and age, we have so many kids loving seaweed and seaweed is a rich source of iodine. They love sushi and sushi has the seaweed has got iodine in it. You can now readily use iodized salt in cooking. So we typically don't see iodine as
being as much of an issue and we put iodine into all of the wheat flour now. There's mandatory fortification of all wheat flour in Australia with folate, diamond and iodine. so iodine is less of an issue, but something just to be mindful of. But if your child loves sushi and seaweed and you use a bit of iodide salt at home, it's potentially not a nutrient to worry about too much. Okay. I now want to move on to vegan diets because
As I said, vegan diets are a little more risky in terms of long-term nutritional risks. And that's why you definitely want to engage with someone like myself. If you want to do it either for yourself or your child, for your baby, I've certainly advised parents who've six months old on how to start solids with a vegan baby. And it's very important that you are laser focused on specific nutrients and we have to do things in a specific way. And you even have to.
reduce fiber in a vegan baby start just to make sure that we get all the nutrition in for the baby. So it's very important to seek the right help if you want to do this properly for your child, because the risk of deficiency is higher. So we have B12, which is a risk. It's not a risk in vegetarian way of eating or any other form of eating, but vegan, yes, because B12 isn't found in any of those plant products.
Vegan & Vegetarian Kids: Breaking Myths and Building Nutrient-Rich Plates (23:15.892)
It is supplemented in a lot of the plant milks, especially the soy milks. And so I would definitely make sure that you are finding a plant milk that has been supplemented with B12. And often that's enough because if you're consuming a good amount of that plant milk, then that could be enough. Or if you're using say nutritional yeast that's been supplemented or other foods that have been supplemented with vitamin B12, then that could be enough. But otherwise you may need to use a vitamin B12 supplement.
As I said before, iron is a big one and iron needs to be increased in the diet. So it's basically doubled. You need to double the RDI for someone following a vegan diet, their iron requirements are basically doubled. But what you need to also do is make sure that every time you're having the iron containing food like the peanut butter or the cashews or the wholemeal bread, that you are putting vitamin C rich foods with it because it triples the absorption of iron. And that's really important. And it's important that they're having.
iron containing foods throughout the day, just to make sure that they can get those in. So as lentils and beans and fortified cereals, look, there's iron in a lot of things. It's just about being consistent with those foods and making sure that you're maximizing the absorption. Calcium is another one that we need to be mindful of. Look, half of the plant-based milks will have calcium added. You just need to make sure that plant-based milk that you're using has calcium added. 120 milligrams per hundred meals.
is standard, it's what is found in cow's milk and it's what they would typically use as a substitution dosage to put into plant milks. It's 120 milligrams of calcium per hundred mils. The calcium is also found in tofu, edamame, leafy greens, you know, almonds. You will find calcium tahini, sesame, there's a great source of calcium. So
You can absolutely meet your calcium requirements, but again, you have to be knowledgeable about where to get this calcium from. And if you're really struggling and they're not having enough plant milks with fortified calcium, then you can use a calcium supplement. That's another option. And often those calcium supplements will have vitamin D in them. So that's basically the double whammy for bone health because calcium and vitamin D are equally as important for bone health.
Raising Plant-Based Kids: A Dietitian’s Guide to Doing It Right (25:29.868)
Okay. So I've mentioned iodine and the importance of using iodized salt and sourcing iodine rich foods such as seaweed, sushi and nori rolls. They're a good source of iodine. And look, you absolutely can get iodine supplements if need. Prunes and lima beans are also other sources of iodine. But I do encourage you to use iodized salt at home if you have used salt in cooking. You will also see iodine present in.
wheat products on bread, you'll often see iodized salt used because there is mandatory fortification of all wheat products in Australia with folate and iodine. So there is iodine in food already without us even realizing it. And that's a national public health mandate. Okay. So we've talked about protein. We've talked about vitamin B12. We've talked about iron. We've talked about calcium, vitamin D, iodine.
And zinc is probably the other one to be mindful of. Zinc is crucial for growth and immune function, but you absolutely can meet your zinc requirements through vegetarian and vegan foods, through foods such as legumes and nuts and seeds that are very high in zinc. Again, it's just being knowledgeable in which foods contain these. So you're providing yourself or your child with enough of the nutrients. Healthy fats you can find in
Avocado, extra virgin olive oil, olives, nut butter. You know, there's plenty of sources of amigas and healthy fats. If you're wanting the DHA, can get an algae version of DHA. There's a supplement that you can get. So you can definitely get vegan DHA supplements for healthy fats. Flaxseed oil is a great one. I encourage parents to add to babies foods. Avocado oil is another one. So yeah, there's plenty of vegetarian and vegan foods that...
are rich in healthy fats, but if you're specifically wanting DHA, you can get an algae vegan source of DHA as a supplement. Okay. I'll start to wrap it up in a minute, but I just wanted to give a bit of an overview of why people may choose to reduce their intake of meat, fish, poultry. As I said, it's for various reasons. It might be environmental, it might be health, it might be ethical, animal cruelty.
Raising Plant-Based Kids: Nutrition, Ethics & How to Get It Right (27:47.63)
There's a whole host of reasons why people will choose to cut out animal products from their life. And that's completely to be respected and I fully support it. And I will always help families that choose to do that because as I said, it's very close to my heart. And today I've been quite vulnerable and open about my viewpoints. And I think the more you know, the worse it is because it's just horrible what goes on. And I think most of the time.
We turn the blind eye, we see a horrible animal getting tortured on Instagram and we just keep scrolling. But that's actually the reality. That's their day in, day out. These poor pigs that are just kept in cages for their entire life, like metal cages. These pigs are the same intelligence as kindergarten age kids. Could you imagine keeping a kindergarten kid in a literally a metal cage the size of their body their entire life? Like it's just horrendous. I've been pretty open about why.
I choose to avoid those products why I will never buy bacon, why I will never buy pork products, because it just does not sit with me at my core. And I'm not afraid to say that because it's the truth, right? These pigs aren't living amazing lives out on farms and then they die. That's just not what happens. And I want to be honest and I'm not going to apologize for that. So I wanted to give you a bit of background as to why people may choose to be vegetarian or vegan and then.
the health benefits of being more plant-based and then the nutritional risks of being more plant-based and basically saying you can do it, but you just have to be smart about it. You have to do it the right way. You can absolutely get all the essential amino acids and you can absolutely meet your needs for healthy fats, for iron, for zinc, for B12.
It just needs to be done under professional guidance, especially if you're going to the level of restriction that a vegan diet is for children. So please reach out to me if this is what you want to do for your family. I fully support you, but it needs to be done properly. at the end of the day, absolutely increasing intakes of plants is going to benefit health and the degree to which you do that and the degree to which you
Reducing Meat the Smart Way: Health, Ethics & Everyday Tips (30:03.946)
reduce me is completely up to you and you have to respect everyone's individual choice on that. So I'm not going to slander anybody else, but I'm just here to offer information, obviously with my bias, personal opinion. This is my podcast, so I get the right to give you my two Bobsworth, but at the end of the day, it's up to you and what you do for your family. look, I think.
buying meat, if you're going to continue to buy meat, it's about trying to buy the best quality meat you can. Organic farming practices are likely to produce better quality meat with less hormones and hopefully antibiotics. Like I just don't know the legislation around antibiotic use with organic farming. So if you're sitting here thinking we are going to keep eating meat, Karina, then...
The best way I think to feed your family meat is to try to buy meat that is as good quality as possible. And it's really hard to know when you're buying mints in the supermarket or a steak in the supermarket to know whether they've used hormones, whether they've used antibiotics. I think buying organic is better if you can, but organic meat is a lot more expensive. So I think the best thing you could probably do is to
try to swap out meat for lentils and other legumes where possible. A, it's going to be cheaper. B, it's going to be healthier. Instead of doing meat bolognese, can you do lentil bolognese or can you reduce the mince by 50 %? Keep the other half for another night and then put in a tin of lentils so that you're reducing the meat and increasing the fiber. So you're doing half, half there really. And therefore you'd...
You're making the meat last twice as long and you're increasing the fiber. So that could be a really nice place to start. Definitely the processed meats are worse for your health and they're going to come with higher health risks and higher risk of cancer and whatnot. If you look at the literature, so your Frankforts and your Spam and your salami and your Fritz or Devon, depending on what state you live in, you know, they're all going to be more unhealthy, but.
Raising Healthy Kids on Less Meat: What You Need to Know (32:12.364)
In terms of a piece of fresh steak or chicken, a lot of people will be like, Karina, what is wrong with that? And there may be nothing wrong with that. It really comes down to personal choice. I'm not here to demonise meat per se. What I have a problem is the way that meat was treated when it was an animal. And if you look at how we ate in the cavemen days, we did eat meat, but we ate it only when we could catch it.
So it was a very different life for the animal and it was a very different death for the animal. And it was probably a much healthier animal because it was free range and ate what it could. It wasn't fed feedstock that was loaded with stuff that again, isn't healthy. So it's just this whole system, this livestock farming system that is so different to, I think, where we first started. And I think if we look at where we first started, then we probably
could continue to eat meat healthily. Whereas I just feel like now it's changed so much. look, meat is still healthy, but it's just changed. So I'm sure there are plenty of farmers in Australia who would be, who, if they listen to this, would be wanting to strangle me. They're probably thinking my cows are super nutritious and super healthy. And look, maybe they are, but I'm more.
referring to the mass production where you see these cows and these massive concentrated areas with no grass. The only grass fed that they get is indoors where chopped grass is tipped into their feed bowls, basically. They're not free range. They're not out in the paddocks. so I think if you were to buy meat that
was pastured and you know, out in the, it's going to be very different. But again, when you buy the meat, you just don't know. You just don't know what you're eating. So at the end of the day, it comes back to why you want to eat meat or you don't want to eat meat. And I think I could probably talk about this topic days and days, but at the end of the day, meat, yes, it can be nutritious. It's a very rich source of protein. It's a very rich source of iron and zinc and
Going Veggie with Kids: Nutritional Must-Knows and Honest Reflections (34:24.494)
amigas and it is nutritious, but it depends on whether you want to choose it or not. And the purpose of this podcast was not to tell you how nutritious meat was. It was to talk about those people that want to avoid meat and educate them about how it can be done safely, but there are nutritional risks. So if you choose to continue eating meat, it's a healthy choice.
But if you're like me and you're erring towards the vegetarian slash vegan way of eating, then I fully support you and it can be done healthy. You just need to be mindful of those nutrients at risk. All right, I'll wrap it up there. If you made it to the end, well done. Thanks for listening to episode 60. And I look forward to chatting with you next time. Please leave me a review. If you've got any comments about this podcast or questions, please send me a message on Instagram. Send me an email to hello at nourish with Karina.
HUM?
and I'll chat to you soon. Bye for now.