So let’s make it very clear that the raw food diet is an experiment. It is not a diet that has been proven to have sustained human populations throughout the ages.
On the other hands, millions of people throughout the world have lived on vegetarian diets, so we know that meat is not necessary in the human diet. In many cases, these vegetarians were pretty close to be vegans, and for the past 100 years there have been many vegan families that have successfully raised children on a 100% vegan diet.
Here are the main problems with raising children on a 100% raw vegan diet:
1) Fruits and vegetables are not calorie-dense enough.
People tend to think that what a raw vegan diet is missing is certain minerals and vitamins. So they obsessed over getting a ton of greens in their kid’s diet, or truckloads of slimy seaweed.
But what really matters are the macro-nutrients — the calories! Calories only come from fat, protein and carbohydrates. This turns out to be perfect for adults who need to lose a few pounds, but not so great for children who are growing and need a lot of calories.
Fruits and vegetables are just too low in macro-nutrients (calories) to form the basis of the diet of growing children, who have tiny bodies and great caloric needs for growth. The reason raw food children eat all the time is that they just can’t fit enough raw produce in their tiny stomachs at any one time to get the calories they need.
Some raw foodists who follow a low-fat diet say that the solution to this is to give these children large amounts of fatty foods like avocados, nuts and seeds. Even though these experts ban or severely restrict these items for adults, they claim that in nature, children would be breast-fed up to the age of seven, therefore it would be natural for humans to eat a high-fat diet up to that age, as the fat content of breast milk is around 50% by calories.
While it is true that in many cultures, children are breast-fed up to an age that would be considered improper in Western societies, these children do not only drink breast-milk up to the age of 5 or sometimes 7. Breast milk is critically important for the first 2 years of life, but after that, even in primitive societies, children eat other foods than just breast milk.
What children really need are enough calories to grow. That means enough carbohydrates for energy, and enough protein to grow and build their bodies. Fat also plays an important part because of its concentrated energy, but there is no evidence that children must eat a very high-fat diet in order to grow properly. It’s just easier to get enough calories and proper nutrition if you include high fat items such as nuts, seeds and avocados.
However, nuts and seeds are not as rich in nutrients as we think, if we analyze their nutrients per calorie, compared to cooked potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans and even some whole grains.
Children would be better off having access to a variety of foods — raw and cooked — as they are growing up, instead of relying solely on low-calorie fruits and vegetables and high fat raw foods.
2) The unsupplemented raw vegan diet doesn’t provide critical vitamin B12
I won’t expand too much on that point, but it goes without saying that a B12 supplement is mandatory for both children and pregnant or nursing mother. Every single doctor who promotes a plant-based diet recommends a B12 supplement, especially for young children.
3) Grazing on fruit and nuts all day long can create dental problems.
The issue that I’ve seen with 100% raw children has usually been the same: they eat constantly, all day long, and they are never satisfied.
Children have a tiny stomach, yet need a ton of calories and nutrients to grow. It’s normal that they may need to eat more often than adults, so food in general should not be restricted.
The problem is that in a purely raw food diet, many children are not fundamentally satisfied and are not getting the necessary nutrients they need. Their carbohydrate intake may be too low, as they are instinctively looking for more concentrated foods to give them the calories they need, but are restricted to fatty foods like avocados and nuts.
One unfortunate side effect of this constant grazing is an increased occurrence of dental decay, which I’ve seen quite often in raw vegan children. Every dentist knows that the more often you eat in the day — especially sugary foods — the more likely it is you’re going to suffer from dental decay. Eating constantly never brings the oral environment to an alkaline state, and the constant supply of sugar is feeding the bacteria that cause dental decay.
Can a raw vegan diet provide enough protein for growing children?
Human breast milk is composed (by calories) of 52% fat, 6% protein and 42% carbohydrates.
Cow’s milk, on the other hand, is 19% protein, 52% fat, 29% carbohydrates.
The main difference between the milk of these two species is not the fat content, but the carbohydrate and protein content. Human milk is significantly sweeter and less concentrated in protein.
The reason behind this difference is that humans are supposed to grow over a slow period of time, gradually, while cows must grow quickly. But human milk is still concentrated in fat, as babies need those extra calories.
So can a raw vegan diet provide enough protein for growing children? Quite possibly, as human beings grow over a long period of time and do not need that much protein, unlike cows and other animals that grow very quickly.
But remember that babies who drink breast milk also start eating other foods after just 1 or 2 years of age, and that over time, in all cultures, breast milk becomes more a supplement than the main staple of the diet.
So it would be safe to assume that protein needs of growing children should be a little higher than the 6% content of mother’s milk. To be safe, a few percentage points should be added.
The big problem is when children are not getting the calories they need, they are also not getting the protein they need for proper growth. A diet deficient in total energy will also be deficient in protein, which is not so much a problem for adults who don’t need that much protein, but may be a huge issue for growing children.
A fruit-based diet may also be inadequate in protein as many fruits are lower in protein than even breast milk. For example:
Bananas — 4% protein
Apples — 2% protein
Grapes — 4% protein
Honeydew Melon — 5% protein
Dates — 2% protein
On average, fruits are only 4-5% protein, with some fruits being as low as only 2%. I suspect that a big percentage of the protein content of fruits is actually found in the seeds and hard peels of fruits, that are then analyzed in the process but not usually digested when we eat those foods.
Fruits are also low in minerals, compared to vegetables or even cooked starchy plants. Analyzing the data, I can only come to the conclusion that a fruitarian diet is far from adequate for growing children.
Other Nutrients
I won’t expand on specific nutrients, which rely on common sense more than anything. Green vegetables are extremely important for their calcium content, but most raw foodists are aware of that.
Vitamin D can be an issue if sun exposure is not adequate, so sometimes a supplement may be advised if children are not consuming any fortified foods like soy milk.
“Pregnancies From Hell”
Food aversions are very common in pregnant women, including those following a raw food diet.
The vast majority of women that I’ve met who were raw foodists when they got pregnant were not able to maintain that diet 100% during pregnancy, simply because they suddenly couldn’t eat most greens and sometimes most fruits.
Why would healthy women suddenly be unable to eat fruits and vegetables when they get pregnant, when they have been living on essentially fruits and vegetables for years prior to pregnancy?
A recent article published in Science Daily sheds light on this mysterious process. According to two Cornell university researchers, “the nausea and vomiting of “morning sickness” experienced by two-thirds of pregnant women is Mother Nature’s way of protecting mothers and fetuses from food-borne illness and also shielding the fetus from chemicals that can deform fetal organs at the most critical time in development.”
Quoting from the article:
“By creating food aversion, NVP (nausea + vomiting during pregnancy — Frederic) also protects against toxins from microorganisms and other teratogenic (fetal organ-deforming) chemicals, Sherman says. “At that same time, in the first trimester of pregnancy, the cells of the tiny embryo are differentiating and starting to form structures. Those developing structures and organ systems — such as arms and legs, eyes and the central nervous system — at this critical stage of a new life could be adversely affected by the teratogenic phytochemicals in some food plants,” Sherman says. These chemicals are secondary compounds that plants make to defend themselves against disease and insects.
Although phytochemicals have no known nutritive function for humans, most people tolerate their presence in food. (Small amounts of these chemicals might even be beneficial because of their antioxidant properties and trace elements.) But during pregnancy, according to the Cornell biologists, women with morning sickness are shielding the developing unborn from the harsh chemicals by vomiting and by learning to avoid certain foods altogether until the fetus develops beyond the most susceptible stage.”
You can read the full article here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/06/000602075407.htm
Many raw vegan women that I’ve met could not stand the sight of raw green vegetables, but were able to eat some cooked vegetables during pregnancy. Eating cooked vegetables was undoubtedly better than eating no vegetables at all, which is what they would have to do if they had stayed 100% raw.
Many also could not eat many fruits and even found themselves completely repulsed by them. Yet they craved simple “comfort” foods like potatoes, in addition to unhealthy foods like fried chicken and ice cream.
Most women were wise enough to listen to their bodies and make some serious modifications in their diet during pregnancy.
Others stoically stuck to the raw vegan diet, often with disastrous results. I’ve heard of women who ended up completely depleted after a difficult pregnancy when she could only eat a few types of fruit, because she tried to stay 100% raw no matter what. In the end, she was harming her body by starving and more importantly, her unborn child.
Animal Foods and Raw Vegan Children
Many raw vegan families have recognized the nutritional issues that I brought up, yet remained committed to the idea of eating raw. So they instead choose to introduce some animal products to their family’s diet, the most common ones being eggs and some form of raw dairy products.
Although these animal foods can certainly improve on a deficient raw vegan program for children, a body of scientific evidence shows that they are not necessary for the needs of growing children, on a well balanced, low-fat (or lower-fat, in the case of children) vegan diet with B12 supplementation.
There are very serious issues related to drinking cow’s milk, whether it’s raw or not, and a lot of evidence points to dairy products as a culprit in the incidence of diabetes and certain auto-immune disease, and to the prevalence of these foods in children’s diet. (For more information, read: http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougall/020700puthepancreas.htm)
I personally wouldn’t include dairy products in my children’s diet as I see no reason to do so, although I realize that occasional treats will be hard to avoid in today’s world. But, as long as the rest of the diet is clean and optimized for human nutrition, children will grow healthy and without long-term health problems, many of which can be caused by dairy products in the human diet.
