Hi I'm new, Dr. Spock & rice cereal

[go4green]

Wow, wow, wow, you all are on the ball! I am so happy to have found this group, I love everything I have read here. My name is Jenna Boudreau, I am a 31 year old, Breastfeeding, Vegan Mom. My Daughter Elle, who is very healthy and 9 1/2 months, reside with her father/my husband Kris in Washington State USA. I was a vegetarian for many years and decided to go vegan, on advice from a nutritionist, when I discovered I was pregnant with Elle. It took me a while to fully make the transition, unfortunately, I had a hard time giving up cheese when I was pregnant. For many people veganism is a cold-turkey epiphany, for me it was more of an unfolding. Finally, after eating veggie cheese for several months my nutritionist informed me that my brand contained casinate-a milk protein. After reading something about puss in dairy products, and treatment of dairy cows, I committed and the three of us have lived a completely vegan lifestyle for about 7 months now.

I wanted to share something I found yesterday- Dr. Spock's book, 'Baby and Child Care', the one my parents raised me on, well, later in life after he had health problems, he supported a meat free dairy free diet for children. I really enjoyed sharing this with my omnivorous mother, someone she always recognized as an authority, also went veg! She has always viewed me as more of a radical, than a concerned mother. My mother-in-law is another story she can't even talk about our diet.
I found this info on the lifelight website http://www.lightlife.com/smartkids.html
while looking for information, for a library display my local vegan group is doing.

The local group is great however, I am the only parent there, so far. I have questions about when to introduce new foods, especially rice cereal. Elle currently eats tons of fruits and veggies, sunny milk, made with sunflower seeds, she eats a few cooked lentils, and recently we added the rice cereal (earth's best) after her nine month check-up, but I originally intended to wait hmmmmm? I am really happy to be here, and feel free to bombard me with children’s recipes and ideas.

Thank-you, Jenna and Elle

[Lucy S]

Welcome. This is a great place to rant or ask questions from like-minded (or at least like-dieted) people. We bought Dr. Spock's latest (and last) book when I was pregnant because we knew he had converted to the vegan way of thinking. I like to pull that one out to use on people when they bug me about being vegan.

See ya' around the boards!

[Erin Pavlina]

It's great to have you on the boards, Jenna.

It's always nice to welcome another vegan mom (or dad) into the fold.

My daughter, Emily, was very into solids at a young age. We couldn't stop her. She was eating fruit first at 6 months, then veggies. At 9 months we added grains (bagels, toast, pasta) and she just loved them! I think we added tofu at 10 months. She loved that even more. So I think you're right on for starting grains. At 9 months, I've heard, that the baby finally has the enzyme to digest grains.

You may want to check out my book, Raising Vegan Children in a Non-Vegan World. You can learn more at:

www.vegfamily.com/raising-vegan-children

When you buy the book online here you get coupons totaling more than $148 off some great online vegan products, including vegan cheese!

Oh, the book also has 32 kid friendly recipes.

Handling mothers-in-law...that's a whole thread in and of itself.

Is your hubby as committed to being vegan as you are?

[go4green]

Thank you for the warm welcome, to answer your question Erin;
Originally my husband was neutral to the vegan diet, he new it was good for Elle and I, but he didn't make any effort to change himself. That was hard for me because I wanted it to be something we did together.

Finally I decided to go for it, with or without him and all meals I made, ordered, purchased and packed were vegan. I can not speak for when I was not with him though, but after reading the book Mad Cowboy, my husband started to watch what he ate (no cheese) when away from home too. Now he is completely vegan and supportive and I can even send him to the store! I must say it helped a lot, that he started to shed excess weight without trying and he felt great when I started cooking and packing vegan meals for him. Now, I even get email forwards from him on animal rights info. I put extra effort into it at first making sure he had vegan lunches so he wouldn’t eat out, and doing all the nutritional research for the family, however it really paid off!
There’s the long answer

[Erin Pavlina]

Great story. That's great that he came around. I was the hold out in my relationship. My husband wanted to go vegan but I didn't think I could do it. 6 years later, here I am...

[go4green]

Hi Erin,
I wanted you to know, I purchased your book. It's great and this website is very well done too. Kudos!

Enjoy your pregnancy!!!
~Jenna

[Erin Pavlina]

Thanks Jenna! I'm glad you liked the book and like the site!

[go4green]

Renee, I would love more easy recipes, and I can't wait to try the pudding!!!

Elle's 1st birthday is coming up-do you have any cake suggestions? I was thinking something simple maybe lemon/rice flower/maple syrup type stuff.

Thanks tons~Jenna

[go4green]

Thanks for the cake recipe, the rice flour was a little different, it seemed to crumble more. I used molases and carob to sweeten. Elle didn't mind the crumbs, she loved it! I made a regular (wwflour) cake for us very yummy!!!