Healthy Food for Kids - Vegan Nutrition with Jill Nussinow, MS, RD

Jill Nussinow is a Registered Dietitian, culinary educator, cookbook author, speaker and consultant and all around proponent of a plant-based diet. She teaches vegetarian and vegan cooking at Santa Rosa Junior College in California and other places around the US. She has a son who is almost 15. One of her greatest joys is sharing her enthusiasm for vegetables and pressure cooking with anyone who will listen.

I have three children who are vegetarians. I have a four year old son, Spencer, and two daughters, Paideia, 2 and Sinatra, 14 months of age.

All three are being raised as vegetarians since the age of eating solid foods as babies. My husband and I are not vegetarians. I have two questions on the topic of kids who are vegetarians: How can I get my son to eat more vegetables with his meals which are meat-less and how can I get my 2 year old to get more protein based foods? Spencer loves protein based meals and Paideia loves the vegetables. Sinatra loves all of the vegetarian meals I cook for her. She doesn't have a preference like her older brother and her older sister.

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Consider yourself lucky to have kids who are vegetarians and at least one who likes most everything. It sounds as if you are offering all types of foods to all your children. Studies have shown that when children are introduced to a variety of foods when they are young they are more likely to eat them, whether or not they did as children, because they are familiar.

Try offering vegetables as both raw and cooked to see if your son has a preference. Give him the ones that he likes most often but offer others regularly, too. Children often like to dip vegetables and you can make a tofu-based ranch dressing for them that would satisfy the protein issue a bit for your vegetable eater. You can also make dips, with a variety of beans, in the same manner as hummus into which Paideia can dip her raw veggies.

To recap, what I see as the most important issue is to offer a variety of different foods for your kids to try. If they are healthy and growing well, there's likely no cause for concern.

I have a question for you: why don't you and your husband give vegetarian eating a shot? Your kids will have good role models.

Jill Nussinow is a Registered Dietitian, culinary educator, cookbook author, speaker and consultant and all around proponent of a plant-based diet. She teaches vegetarian and vegan cooking at Santa Rosa Junior College in California and other places around the US. She has a son who is almost 15. One of her greatest joys is sharing her enthusiasm for vegetables and pressure cooking with anyone who will listen. Her cookbook The Veggie Queen: Vegetables Get the Royal Treatment and her new DVD, Pressure Cooking: A Fresh Look, Delicious Dishes in Minutes are both available on her website www.theveggiequeen.com.

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Visit Jill's website TheVeggieQueen.com and her blog theveggiequeen.blogspot.com.

Disclaimer: The advice given here is for eductional purposes only. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified health care provider.
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