BALTIMORE, Md. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Are you feeding your family a hot or cold dinner tonight? I’m not talking about the temperature of what’s on their plate, but rather, the impact the food they’re eating has on the environment. The hotter the foods, the more greenhouse gases are created in the making of it. The food choices you make impacts the health of your child, as well as the health of our environment.
Twelve-year-old Pia Brown was vegan before she was born.
“It wasn’t a thought to raise her vegan. It was just, this is how we live,” said her dad, Greg Brown.
Her mom and dad own the number one vegan restaurant in Baltimore.
Greg went plant-based in college and gradually won her mom, Naijha Wright-Brown, over too.
“He was stalking me, and trying to get to me through his food,” she told Ivanhoe.
Registered dietitian Lindsay Moyer, MS, RDN, senior nutritionist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says what we eat matters.
“Foods that are animal-based, especially beef, also chicken, turkey, seafood, dairy, they all release far more greenhouse gases in the production of them,” she explained.
Because greenhouse gases increase the planet’s warming, Moyer says the number one thing families can do to reduce their food’s carbon footprint is to eat less beef.
“If someone eats beef and they swap turkey or chicken in its place, you could reduce the carbon footprint of your diet by about 50 percent,” she stated.
When it comes to replacing animal protein, beans, lentils, chickpeas, and edamame can be mixed with rice and pasta and are lower in saturated fats than beef.
“There’s tofu and tempeh, which are both made from soybeans,” said Moyer.
As for milk:
“When it comes to dairy milks and big ones are vitamin d, calcium, and protein, so you might look for something like a fortified soy milk,” explained Moyer.
Another tip — start small, try one new plant-based meal per week.
“It took me three years, but I transitioned one meal at a time,” said Naijha.
Keep in mind that some plant-based foods are not healthy. Cookies, soda, cakes, and candy can all be made from plant-based ingredients but can be high in fats, sugar, and sodium. And be careful of high levels of sodium in some meat substitutes. If you’re wondering if raising your child vegetarian is safe for them, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says if appropriately planned, a vegetarian diet is healthy for all stages of life, including pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and adulthood.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Executive Producer; Matt Goldschmidt, Videographer; and Bob Walko, Editor.
Produced by Child Trends News Service in partnership with Ivanhoe Broadcast News and funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
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Source:
https://bostonveg.org/going-veg/veg-resources/raising-veg-kids/
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at [email protected]