I recently returned from a relaxing vacation to Italy. Visiting with family that I hadn’t seen in over 25 years consisted of catching up over lots of food. Prior to my arrival my mom warned all family members that I was vegetarian. Every family was up to the challenge and offered me every dish in their repertoire that didn’t contain animal protein (except for the tuna incident that I’ll maybe write about at a later date). This meant eating various dishes in one sitting.

One of the things that surprised me about Italy is that the majority of young children I saw that were either overweight or obese. Many adults were as well, including family members with health problems. One of my older aunts who has a list of health problems that are mostly diet related asked why I was vegetarian and if I was raising my kids vegetarian. She shook her head when I answered – obviously not getting the connection between health and what we eat.

The benefits of not eating animal protein include: ward off disease such as heart disease: help maintain a healthy weight; increase your chances of living a long and healthy life; and decrease incidents of food-born illnesses. And there are many more reasons which include humane and environmental ones. I talked about my reasons for becoming a vegetarian in this post. I’m still a committed vegetarian and now that I have two young children my goal is to do whatever it takes to ensure good health for my children.

I had an interesting conversation with the owner of a local Lebanese restaurant on Saturday. The girls had just finished munching on hummus and pita bread. Hubby told the owner that the girls love hummus and have been eating it since they were babies. He also mentioned that I was vegetarian and so were the girls. The restaurant owner asked the usual questions: why and what do we eat? He pointed out that a bit of fish would be good since Jesus ate fish. I’ve never heard that comment before and replied that Jesus also drank lots of wine. Should I give the kids wine too? His response: Not yet. It was a friendly banter and I don’t mind friendly conversation regarding nutrition. Anybody who knows me knows that I shy away from confrontation especially regarding food. This conversation got me thinking…why not fish and a little bit of meat once in a while?

Food messages are thrown at us every single day — what to eat, what’s good, what’s bad, buy this, buy that. Kids are an easy target market. I have no problems with treats once-in-a-while. Unfortunately, treats are now a norm and are expected each day. Each day at school one of my daughter’s teachers would give out candy for good performance. The Pea would decline and choose a sticker instead since many of the treats contained gelatin (an animal product). She would come back from various activities or birthday parties full of assorted cookies, cakes, candies, etc. So if a child is being offered junk food each day from various sources can I say ‘no’ to each one? Probably not. So early on we made a decision to minimize their risk of health-related problems. Choosing candy over animal protein is the lesser of two evils. There are plenty of plant-based foods that replace animal protein that are full of nutrients that will ensure our children grow properly (their pediatrician says to continue doing what we’re doing because we’re doing something right).

Now we didn’t choose not to give our kids animal protein so they could have candy. Our decision was based on health benefits. There are so many anti-nutrient “foods” out there that if we can replace one item with a healthy alternative then we’re doing something right. There are always going to be treats of some kind. We often try to replace these treats with healthier alternatives so the girls can still have fun in a social setting. Sometimes we lose the battle to win the war. When it comes to animal protein we’ve replaced a category of food with a healthier alternative, which includes various fruits and vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. My children are thriving so next time someone asks why I can just point to my happy and healthy girls and respond with “that’s why”.