
Forcing vegan diet upon kids can lead to jail time in Belgium - elorant
https://qz.com/1622642/making-your-kids-go-vegan-can-mean-jail-time-in-belgium/
======
throwaway5752
This headline must be some sort of basic intelligence test, that sadly a
number of poster are not passing.

Why do I say that?

 _The animal-product-free diet isn’t technically prohibited, and the ruling
doesn’t necessarily equate veganism with child neglect. However, it will make
it easier to prosecute parents who impose the strict diet and whose children
have health problems._

and

 _However, opinions on this matter vary worldwide. The American Academy of
Pediatrics, for example, is not opposed to vegan diets. "Although there have
been case reports of children failing to thrive or developing cobalamin
deficiency on vegan diets, these are rare exceptions," the academy notes on
its website. "Multiple experts have concluded independently that vegan diets
can be followed safely by infants and children without compromise of nutrition
or growth and with some notable health benefits."_

So if a kid in Belgium is visibly malnourished - ie, abused - and the
mechanism of abuse is a restrictive diet that is not being applied correct,
then the parents can go to jail. In general, the diet is not illegal in
Belgium and one of the largest associations of childrens' doctors in the world
(AAP) is not opposed to that restrictive diet (and comes close to endorsing
it).

This is a non-story.

~~~
poelzi
Cobalamin deficiency is a result of our prewashed food in wester society.
Vitamin B12 is only created by bacteria on the surface of plants and excessive
washing removes it.

Eat more dirt ;)

(I sometimes inject B12 IM due quite low blood levels detected last year.
Regular intake of supplements should also do the trick).

------
ACS_Solver
The headline is somewhat misleading, unsurprisingly. Child neglect can lead to
jail time. The ruling in question will make it easier to prosecute for child
neglect in cases where children develop health problems due to a forced vegan
diet without appropriate dietary supplements or medical follow-ups. The ruling
itself is essentially a health authority stating that a vegan diet is not
suitable for children unless properly supplemented - as far as I'm aware, it's
generally accepted that vegans are at a high risk of certain deficiencies and
need to pay particular attention to those.

Here in Sweden, there have been some relevant cases lately. In one case, a
couple was convicted after keeping their baby on a strict vegan diet, and
ignoring several warnings from doctors that the baby was malnourished and
needed milk. In another case, which was national news earlier this year, a
17-month old infant was brought to the hospital, underdeveloped and so
malnourished that, according to the trial, she would have died within hours
and was only saved by intensive care. The parents, as it turned out, had only
given the baby vegan food, and had never taken the baby for any checkups.

~~~
bjoli
> The parents, as it turned out, had only given the baby vegan food, and had
> never taken the baby for any checkups.

Iirc they had used almond milk instead of breast feeding. Whoever thinks
almond milk is a valid substitute for breast milk is unfit as a parent.

I have hung on quite a lot of vegan forums, and these kinds of parents are
rare and are quickly told right by others.

------
Jamwinner
A step forward. Note this is the case in the USA also. If your child is
malnurished for any reason, you are responsible. How people spin the
protection of children as bad, because of their own bias, boggles the mind.

Nothing is wrong with feeding your kid veggies, but something IS wrong with
denying your child nutrition based on your own philosophical hangups.

~~~
chunkyslink
> philosophical hangups

This is a strong statement, when there is more than enough evidence to support
that everything is available in a plant based diet.

Modern scientific thinking will tell you that eating a plant based diet is

1\. The best way to fight climate change and ecological destruction and
species extinction.

2\. The health benefits to athletes of a meat free diet are now known and
logged.

The only slightly philisophical hangup would be against animal cruelty and
global agribusiness.

The rest is science and in the public domain.

~~~
dalore
There is no evidence (and actually evidence to the contrary) that a plant
based diet can provide all essential nutrients.

Sounds like you watched Game Changers on Netflix and now that's your
knowledge. None of that was scientific at all and full of inaccuracies.

All the athletes mentioned saw their performance go down after adopting a
plant based diet.

There are virtual no athletes at the top of their sport who got there on a
plant based diet (plenty who started on animal and then moved to plant, but
you will see their performance drop).

Animals are needed to fight climate change. Without them the soils would have
no nutrients. It's a symbiotic relationship. They eat plant matter we can't.
Grown on areas that we couldn't grow stuff. So they are vital to supplement
our food. Going plant based would be a huge ecological disaster.

~~~
chunkyslink
> All the athletes mentioned saw their performance go down after adopting a
> plant based diet.

I'm sorry I must have watched a different film. The complete opposite of what
you claim is portrayed in the film. Also my personal experience of regularly
running and recovering from Ultramarathons suggests that you are wrong. My
times and recovery rates are much much better on plant based diets.

Also the Amazon is being cleared for Beef and agribusiness to food humans. We
don't need to do this and we don't need to eat meat. Please read some decent
news and science and try and think things through.

~~~
dalore
Perhaps you did. The documentary does sound quite compelling. There is no
doubt that switching to a vegan diet from a standard processed food diet will
see improvements. But those athletes built themselves up as omnivores.

Some examples from athletes in the film:

-Griff Whalen: went vegan 2014 out of the league 2016

-Bryant Jennings: went vegan end of 2013 (17-0 before vegan, 5-2 after vegan)

-Mischa Janiec: went vegan fall of 2015 - no wins 2 years after

-Kendrick Farris: went vegan 2014 -performed poorly in the 2016 Olympics

-Patrik Baboumian went vegan 2011 - 5'-7" and never ever part of the World Strong Men competition.

-Morgan Mitchell went vegan 2014... in 2017 finished 26th place world championships

-James Brett Wilks went vegan 2011, retired from MMA in 2012

\- Lewis Hamiliton suffered depressive breakdown on twitter

Typically within 2 years after going vegan, performance goes down. So veganism
based on many of the athletes in the film is a sub-optimal diet for athletic
performance.

As to your comment about the Amazon, we aren't eating Amazon beef. You're
right it's being cleared, to make way for soy and other processed food. When
you buy a steak from the butcher it's not coming from the Amazon, it comes
from your local butcher, from a grass fed field, using less carbon then your
bananas from Panama.

Tim Rees (amongst other) have written several writeups about the "evidence" in
the movie. [https://medium.com/@timrees/watched-the-game-changers-now-
yo...](https://medium.com/@timrees/watched-the-game-changers-now-you-must-
watch-this-fcc877b0104)

Greenhouse gas emissions of meat is also very questionable. Here is a PhD GHG
expert, who has looked a bit closer: [https://www.sciencealert.com/sorry-but-
giving-up-on-meat-is-...](https://www.sciencealert.com/sorry-but-giving-up-on-
meat-is-not-going-to-save-the-planet)

As always it's not as so simple. I believe the place to start is with science-
based facts.

------
RenRav
> _Children can follow a vegan diet if it’s accompanied by medical
> supervision, regular blood tests, and vitamin supplements_

This really should be the case for any diet for children. It makes sense to
invest a little into society's future.

~~~
groovebits
A child does not need vitamin supplements in a omnivore diet though

~~~
mumblemumble
In many countries, it's darn near impossible to achieve an omnivore diet that
_isn 't_ supplemented. There's direct supplementation in things like vitamin D
milk, folate fortified wheat, and iodized salt, but, also, supplements added
to animal feed serve to increase the levels of some nutrients in their meat.
Notably, B12.

What's interesting to me is the level of overlap between the list of things
that vegetarians are advised to take pills for, and the list of nutrients for
which fortification is typically applied to animal products. The big gap is
calcium, which people are often advised to get from milk, but that also seems
like a kind of crap piece of public health advice given that ~75% of the world
population is lactose intolerant.

My sense is that vegetarians and vegans do have a higher need to voluntarily
supplement their diets, but this is as much about public policy around
fortification assuming that everyone eats an omnivorous diet as it is about
the vegetarian or vegan diet itself.

~~~
iudqnolq
You're stat is technically close to correct, but the implication is wrong for
many HN readers.

Around 68% of the global pollution have lactose malabsorbtion, but only 36% of
people in the US have lactose malabsorbtion. Not everyone with lactose
malabsorbtion is lactose intolerant.

> You are more likely to have lactose intolerance if you are from, or your
> family is from, a part of the world where lactose malabsorption is more
> common. In the United States, the following ethnic and racial groups are
> more likely to have lactose malabsorption:

> African Americans

> American Indians

> Asian Americans

> Hispanics/Latinos

[https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-
disea...](https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-
diseases/lactose-intolerance/definition-facts#common)

~~~
iudqnolq
Weak evidence for my presumption many HN readers come from the US

[https://www.similarweb.com/website/news.ycombinator.com#over...](https://www.similarweb.com/website/news.ycombinator.com#overview)

------
ashelmire
> This implies higher requirements for protein and essential fatty acids. The
> body does not produce them, it must be brought in via animal proteins.

This is not true. Proteins and fatty acids are found in many common vegetables
and it's not difficult to get a healthy balance of the above. Harvard's school
of public health, recommends, "Get your protein from plants when possible"
[1], and it's not hard to find many other sources suggesting the same.

1\. [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-
you...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-
eat/protein/)

~~~
dalore
It's well known that plants can't/don't provide all essential nutrients
without supplementing. B12 is a major one amongst others.

Yet the reverse is true.

Sidenote: I wouldn't put much stock in Harvard school of "nutrition". They
have massive conflicts of interest with companies like Monsanto and also
numerous problems with their methodology like oversimplification of the
issues.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2013/05/27/to...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorbutterworth/2013/05/27/top-
science-journal-rebukes-harvards-top-nutritionist/)

~~~
jdmichal
Wikipedia has plenty of other citations, if you have issues with Harvard:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_combining#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_combining#Criticism)

Summary: Yes, eating _solely_ one food _may_ eventually cause an issue. For
instance, eating _only_ rice would eventually cause a lysine deficiency -- on
the order of ~88% of required amounts. Eating pretty much _any_ other food
that is not lysine-limited would likely be enough to make up the ~12% gap.

~~~
dalore
Where does it say you can get B12?

------
antris
Do they also make sure the parents aren't giving them junk food? Because I'm
pretty sure obesity is a bigger problem than this.

~~~
jbob2000
Vegan diets are much more destructive to children than candy and pop. If a
child was _only_ eating candy and pop, then yes, it would be harmful. But
usually, kids eat junk as a supplement to otherwise stable meals.

You need protein and iron to grow, you just can’t get a kid to eat the vegan
versions of foods that provide this.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Are you seriously saying there's just no way for a parent to get their child
to eat vegetables and legumes?

~~~
jbob2000
Didn’t say that, I said that it’s hard to get kids to eat vegetables that
provide protein and iron at the same levels that chicken fingers do. Good luck
getting a kid to eat a plate of spinach.

~~~
hombre_fatal
All depends how you're raised. My sisters and I devoured vegetables. My mother
would have a plate of cut-up turnips waiting for us when we got home from
middle school. Yum. I still eat raw cabbage and turnips as snacks into my 30s
because of that while everyone around me asks me how I could eat that.

You're thinking of a kid who has been raised on ketchup and chicken fingers
suddenly encountering a plate of spinach leaves for dinner. Sure, I'd expect
problems in the short term. But let's take a little bit of responsibility as
parents.

I had a neighbor who was fed so much candy at her house that when she slept
over at my house (slumber party) she would throw tantrums because my parents
didn't pair candy with dinner. I'm sure her parents thought the same as you:
heh, good luck getting children to eat chicken fingers without their side of
candy, it's the only thing that works for us!

------
HorizonXP
Veganism _can_ work, if you are knowledgable about your body's requirements.
Realistically, most people are pretty crappy about what they put into their
bodies. My opinion is that most people throwing stones against veganism aren't
exactly paragons of health themselves. I know that I'm not, and I'm not vegan.

The bigger issue with veganism is that the rest of us non-vegans can eat
whatever we want and still be somewhat healthy, purely by accident. In
veganism, you do need to be aware of the balance of amino acids your body
requires, and the various vitamins and minerals too. You can't haphazardly
just eat whatever plant-based foods you want; you have to plan a bit more. I
would hazard a guess that most new vegans are just jumping onto what's trendy,
without doing adequate research. Just look at the swathes of vegan YouTubers
that recently had to start eating meat again due to health problems.

With new products targeting vegans becoming available, this is getting to be a
bit easier. I have an infant son that is currently intolerant to dairy and
eggs, even when his mom ingests it and he gets it via nursing. We've had our
share of frustrations with trying to find products that they both can eat that
don't have milk, eggs, or milk-based ingredients. So I'm a fan of the new
options available. My fear is that these products start to go down the path of
gluten-free foods; that it becomes a marketing buzzword and makes it
impossible for the actual target market (i.e. celiacs) to actually eat the
foods.

Personally, if I ever decide to give up meat, I'd probably ease into it with
pescatarianism (eating farmed instead of wild), or eventually, bivalve
veganism [0].

[0] ([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvxznq/are-scallops-
vegan](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvxznq/are-scallops-vegan))

~~~
ryanmercer
>Veganism can work, if you are knowledgable about your body's requirements.

It can with minimal effort if you try to follow the daily dozen [1] which (for
an adult) you can easily check off a significant portion of those in a single
meal. In my breakfast smoothie alone I handle all of the fruit (and then
some), 2-3x the berries, all of the cruciferous and greens the flax (and
chia), the spice, most of the grain (I blend oats in because I'm not a fan of
oatmeal), the spices (which I exceed just via turmeric and also add cloves and
cinnamon most days).

A child will need lesser quantities, and should be comparably easy, but I'm
wholly unfamiliar with RDAs for children given I haven't been one in a long
time and have no offspring.

[1] [https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-
challenge/](https://nutritionfacts.org/daily-dozen-challenge/)

------
sam36
This is apparently a real issue even in the USA, not sure where the ideas came
from but I have a direct experience.

While at a funeral for an older man at a church I attended, my wife and I met
a younger lady that was our age and she was very talkative and wanted to go
out and have lunch with us. She stated that her husband (who worked at a large
tech hosting company) had a "computer job" (in reference to me) as well. We
went out eat, I met her husband, all seemed normal. We were both newly
married, and my wife and her both ended up pregnant just months apart. So it
was feeling like this was going to be one of those "life long" friendships
since we seemed to have so much in common... and then...

My wife and her both gave birth to healthy children though things quickly
started to change in our friendships. I consider myself a christian
fundamentalist and my wife and I started to think it was strange that our new
friend seemed to be way more opinionated and strict with how she was going to
raise her daughter. This was realized when we offered to help babysit since
she was going to try to go back to her teacher's aid job.

It was the scheduling... she had everything scheduled for this 5 month old
baby. We were to every 2 hours feed her x number of ounces of freshly pumped
breast milk. Problem is, the kid sucked down the entire day's worth in just
two feedings. On top of that, we were to write down how long the naps were
(which also were "required" to happen every 2 hours or so) and when bowel
movements happened and what they looked like. Then there was the smell. The
kid was just plain filthy, the mom had already bragged about how they don't
really do baths any more since its "bad" for the skin. The extra clothes she
brought were nasty too. So baby got a bath and we washed the extra clothes.
The mom returns 8 or so hour later. We informed her of how the kid sucked down
the milk and acted like she was staving, but mom was disappointed in that we
didn't follow the schedule. After all, if we followed the schedule, we would
not have ran out of milk...

Something didn't seem right, but we were naive.

Then a few months later, while over at their house for dinner, they informed
us that they had all gone vegan. So there was no meat or cheese to eat and
they had taken their (now 8 month old) daughter off of milk as well. To eat,
we were given some thin vegetable soup with some mashed cauliflower on the
side. The daughter got a small handful of raw diced squash and some beans
which she gulped down practically whole in a matter of minutes.

The irony is both parents were quite over weight (nearing 300lbs). The
daughter was strictly forced vegan but they were not. Mom still got her
Dr.Pepper while baby got water and squash. They at one time asked us to baby
sit at 9pm so they could have a "parent's night out" which was explained as
they were going to go get doughnuts followed by margaritas at a mexican
restaurant. Not sure how you can even mix those two... Being christian
fundamentalists, we declined since we weren't going to help someone get drunk
and drive themselves home.

One of the last times we met, they had informed us CPS had been visiting them.
Apparently their daughter was running a fever at night so they took her to the
ER. The nurse of course noticed the under-height and underweight child and
told the parents they should try upping the amount of milk she gets every day.
The mom of course squawked back that they're "vegan". And I guess the rest is
history.

I've never quite figured out where she got her weird ideas from. She had other
friends and they all seemed to support each other's ideas. She was not anti-
vax either (though I am). She went on to have a son (which she circumcised),
and as far as I know, raised the same. Even though she is "vegan" she still
pushes 300lbs. After her CPS story, we stopped hanging out and blocked her on
facebook.

------
thrower123
Good, this should be seen as a case of child abuse. It's not healthy for
children. If adults want to take up that diet, then fine for them, they can
make their own choices, but children have no choice but eat what is put on the
table.

The other issue is that your kid is going to be "the vegan kid". In general,
one should not try to paint a target on one's children if one can avoid it.

~~~
h0h0h0h0111
>The other issue is that your kid is going to be "the vegan kid". In general,
one should not try to paint a target on one's children if one can avoid it.

There were plenty of vegetarian kids in my school with me (vegans were a
rarity then), and they didn't get any particular stick for it. Besides, even
if they aren't vegan they'll still get short/tall/pimply/ginger/nerd/.* of the
same intensity, so I think this is a pretty weak argument.

~~~
thrower123
Being ginger isn't such a pain in the neck for other people to make
accomodations for if they want to include you. All of these competing quasi-
religious food restrictions introduce unnecessary overhead. And people are
often not reasonable about bowing to the demands of politeness or necessity,
and insist on absolutism in their diets.

Frig trying to plan a birthday party when little Timmy's parents think he
should be vegan, and little Billy's parents think he is gluten-intolerant,
while Frankie's parents are enforcing paleo raw foods, and your kid just wants
a regular Funfetti cake and real ice cream.

