‘It’s easy to be a vegan family!’ #easy2bvegan
We’ll show you that it’s entirely safe, possible and incredibly rewarding!
There are many scare stories and much misinformation surrounding pregnancy when vegan, raising children vegan and living as a vegan in a non-vegan family.
So this section of our website offers help with all these issues.
On our newsblog VEGAN24 we’ll be talking with and interviewing many real life vegan families too, each with
fascinating stories and great advice on how to best enjoy this wonderful way of life together.
Look out for our “VEGAN BABY DIARIES” series on the VEGAN24 news blog – exclusive to the VLA.
Read our first post here and meet lovely vegan family Rebekah, Gavriel & little Isobel!
Gain further help, support and advice with our top tips:
“I’m going Vegan but my family isn’t! Help!”
When you change to a vegan lifestyle it can be an exciting opportunity for those closest to you as well. But if it’s a totally new concept to them, then here’s our advice on how best to handle this change:
- Keep dialogue open at all times. If you’ve made the decision by yourself to be vegan, then it’s very important and helpful if you can have a conversation with your family about your decision.
- Calmly and gently explain to loved ones why you’ve decided to adopt a vegan lifestyle – you may even wish to show them any information that influenced your decision – such as this website, a film or a book etc. This will help them to understand and respect your decision – they may even feel the need to become vegan as well!
- Plan ahead on issues such as food. Liaise with other family members and discuss how it may work best if you’re all going to be eating different meals etc and consider issues such as cross contamination of equipment in your kitchen.
- If your family aren’t ready to try a vegan lifestyle yet, try not to criticise and instead be patient and understand that different people reach this decision in different ways and at different times. Just focus on you for now.
- Look for / seek advice from others who have been there; we like this post by Elena Orde “How to show your family you’re serious about veganism.”
“Is it safe to be Vegan through pregnancy? Can I raise my children Vegan?”
Website: Plant-strong diets and children, a healthy diet for life
Advice and guidance from the Vegan Society, including a comprehensive PDF written by State Registered Dietitian Sandra Hood.
Website: NHS Guide to pregnancy
Proving it’s more than possible to get all the nutrition required through a varied and balanced diet.
Website: Healthy Vegan Kids
We love this site – it offers great ideas, recipes and a lovely human approach to helping children be happy healthy Vegans.
Book:
As recommended and endorsed by the Vegan Society and covering all aspects from planning a pregnancy right through to creating a balanced diet for a toddler.
PDF: Eating Well: Vegan infants and under 5’s
This is a really comprehensive guide that will help you to give your little ones the best, most nutritional start in their lives.
Books:
A beautiful series of books explaining Veganism to children (and adults!) by this highly acclaimed compassionate US author.
Book:
An American authored book but a very comprehensive resource on all aspects of pre- and post- baby.
Book:
A lovely colourful guide that explains to children aged approx 3 to 8 years what being Vegan means.
Article: How to survive a non-Vegan birthday Party
A great piece by writer Kate Reimann – mum of two mini Vegans – which offers practical help and advice for this age old dilemma!
Article: Talking to children about the Vegan Lifestyle
Gentle advice with lots of sound ideas and some fun along the way.