What did you feed your babies instead of meat when they got to be 8-12 months old when non-veg babies are starting to eat meat? I have my helpful little feeding guide that I got from our pediatrician and it says that you can use cooked, dried beans or egg yolks (we're lacto-ovo, not vegan). What kinds of beans have you tried? If you used egg yolks, how did you prepare them? Any help would be appreciated! I figured I'd start doing my research several months in advance. Also, are there any books that you found helpful?
My little guy really likes beans and lentils. We smash the lentils and break the beans in half so they don't come out the other end whole. He'll also eat tofu and eggs (we give him scrambled eggs and he hasn't had any problem). He also loves rice. I try to stick to as many whole foods as possible so he doesn't get a taste for processed food.
Good Luck
Lentils are a great first bean for kids. Most kids really like them and they are very easy to chew. Beans of any sort and rice is also a great option for a complete protein and you can mush it up pretty well if your child is too young to really chew yet. Egg yolks are good too - just hard boil the egg and mash up or slice up the yolk. Dairy is a great source of protein and most kids can have yogurt before they start drinking milk (yogurt is very easy to digest). Also tofu - bake it and give your child chunks as she gets older or try mashing it into other foods she likes for added protein. Check your local library for more veggie cookbooks for kids - there are quite a few out there with more ideas.
Good luck!
B.
Momma to a bundle of energy toddler
I used the Baby Superfood Book by Ruth Yaron quite a bit. We kept my son vegetarian until he was 3, partly because my husband was a vegetarian up until that point (17 years) and I ate little meat and didn't prepare it at home.
When I started doing eggs, after a year, I think I just made scrambled eggs or hardboiled eggs. DIdn't do eggs before a year. Beans--did all kinds: red beans, black beans, etc. Also did lentils. The Superfood baby book shows you how to make your own cereal for the baby--you know the first food you feed them. You start with one grain (ground up) and then slowly you can start mixing more than one grain. When my son was ready for beans, I think I even ground up lentils and made the "super baby porridge" with them.
The book is a little overwhelming, but well worthwhile checking out. I have a five month old daughter and I plan on starting her in one month on food--I better start thinking about it. Good luck and Hope this helps!!
Hi-
Although we are not vegetarians, a great book for you to check out would be "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron. The book does promote non-meat, and is has a great resource for us on how to prepare foods for your baby, store foods, when to introduce, and healthy alternatives to boxed and processed foods, along with great baby and toddler recipes!
Good Luck,
A.
We are vegetarians, and we feed our 17-month-old son everything we eat now. When he was in the age range that you are inquiring about, we fed him lots of black beans, black-eyed peas, and other beans that we bought in bulk and cooked and froze ahead of time. He just picked them up on his own and ate them. He also loved refried beans. As time went on, he wanted more flavor and so we started just giving him our food and stopped feeding him plain beans.
He has only had eggs a few times because he didn't care for them, and we don't purchase them, but I'm thinking scrambled or in an omelet would be good. It would definitely be easy to eat without causing a choking hazard.
A great book is Vive le Vegan (even for lacto-ova vegetarians). She has a lot of recipies and a feeding chart that teaches what foods to introduce at what ages. The rest of the book is a cookbook, but I found her section on babies and children so helpful.
I applaud you for raising your daughter vegetarian!
Oh- I just thought of something - tofu. Our son loves that. It's a perfect food for infants because it's so easy to chew.
We are vegetarian and I agree with everything that Bridget wrote. My daughter has a sensitivity to dairy (breaks out in a rash around her mouth after coming in contact/eating dairy) so we don't do yogurt or anything like that - but if your daughter is ok with dairy, cottage cheese is another high protein dairy.
My daughter is 15 months old now, and she eats many different kinds of beans with rice (pinto, black, lentil, garbanzo beans, etc with white and brown rice and veggies, of course). Also, she loves tofu, she's tried and liked tempeh, falafel, hummus - quinoa is a high protein grain you can incorporate into her diet. This is all supplemented by breastmilk, of course, but she's gaining more independence in terms of eating.
Good luck! I still haven't bought a specific "raising a child vegetarian" book - but as long as you eat healthy vegetarian most foods you eat can eventually be given to her!
I'm so glad you asked this question - I'm working on switching my family over to vegetarian, and am having trouble finding things for my kids, too.
There are two things that worked well for me so far: hummus and smoothies with soy milk and/or tofu. I usually make the hummus myself because a lot of the store brands are too garlicy for my kids - but they really liked dipping pita bread or crackers in it.
I have a whole spreadsheet of smoothie recipes (email me if you want it) but mostly anymore I just wing it. My basic formula is enough fruit and tofu to fill in about 1/2 the blender, plus a handful of carrots, then juice, lemonade, milk, or soy milk (or a combination) to fill about 3/4 full. I tend to toss in a small pinch of brewer's yeast and about a teaspoon of wheat germ for a little extra vitamins and protein.
Baby spinach, cucumber, a few leaves of almost any salad-type green can all go in too.
My daughter is two and 1/2 now but she loved guacomole and black beans which you can smash or just buy the refried version. I didn't really worry about having a meat alternative - but we do eat some veggie burgers, veggie chicken, etc. My daughter loves cheese too. Hope that helps a little.
I just wanted to quickly say that another forum to ask questions about eating vegetarian would be on mothering.com. They have a lot of "natural" mothering info on there and you could probably get a few more answers there although it looks like already you have quite a bit of info. I just wanted to put that out there for you if you are interested in checking them out.
K. H
