Teaching Kids Good Vegetarian Eating Habits: What Are the Benefits?

Today, we understand the way to prevent a number of our current health issues is to eat a vegetarian diet daily. For this reason, it is important to teach children good vegetarian eating habits. They should understand the basics of changing to this type of diet along with other important information.

Different Types of Vegetarian Diets

Since people differ in their preferences, there are different types of vegetarian diets today. It depends on how much a person desires to eliminate all animal products from their diets as to which version they select to follow each day. Schools should teach information on all the forms to kids to ensure that they understand the difference between them. Below, you will discover information about each one.

Different Types of Vegetarian Diets

Semi Vegetarian – With this diet, children eat mainly a plant-based diet with the occasional inclusion of meat products.

Lacto Vegetarian – In this version of vegetarianism, kids will consume no poultry, meat, eggs or fish, but they will eat milk, cheese and other dairy products.

Lacto Ovo Vegetarian – Children who follow this diet will eliminate fish, poultry, meat and dairy products from their diet, but will consume eggs.

Vegan – Of all the vegetarian diets, vegan is the strictest since it only includes foods from plants.

Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet

When children eat a vegetarian diet from an early age, they decrease their risk of hypertension, as they grow older. They also maintain low cholesterol levels easier throughout their lives. In addition, these vegetarian kids will develop less cancer. The vegetarian lifestyle reduces the risk of obesity on top of all these other benefits. In other words, children who eat one of the types of vegetarian diets will realise better overall health.

Children Must Receive All Necessary Nutrients

We must point out that children have special nutritional needs for their young bodies to develop properly. Their needs require close attention with a vegetarian diet since the nutrients from meat and poultry sources will not be present. The following are the some of the nutrients that require such close attention:

• Calcium is in certain leafy green vegetables such as turnip greens along with certain fortified food products that qualify as vegetarian fare
• Iron for vegetarians is in foods such as peas, beans, cereals and spinach
• Protein sources for vegetarians include nuts, beans and soy products
• Vitamin B12 is vital to neurological development and is in foods such as soy milk, nutritional yeast and cereals for those who wish to depend on vegetables for their nutrition

Teaching children beneficial vegetarian eating habits will lead them to a life of better health compared to traditional diets that depend heavily on animal products. Parents and schools should teach the children the right foods to eat to adhere to this type of lifestyle.