People absolutely love to debate the way parents choose to feed their children. But that was never more apparent than when one mom posted a lighthearted TikTok video about choosing to feed her baby a vegan diet.
The mom, Natasha Callahan, often posts silly videos on the social media outlet and didn't expect the backlash, but it came quickly and fiercely.
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"There was people telling us I was being selfish and abusing my child because I'm not giving her meat," she told Good Morning America. Some comments on her post even said things like "child services please."
Of course, not everyone disagreed. There were a fair amount of people who told the mom it's great and not to worry about the criticism. Still, the backlash goes to show just how riled up people get when you talk about personal choices you make for your kids.
Of course, some people may be coming from a good place with their comments. There have been cases where babies died or became sick from well-meaning parents who didn't realize they weren't providing their babies with proper nourishment. However, experts say that vegan diets can be safe for just about anyone.
Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician, weighed in on the issue when talking to GMA. She said, "It can be safe to raise an infant, toddler or child in a vegan diet." Still, she emphasized that caution is important. "I think with careful planning, with thoughtful additions to a vegan diet or plant based diet, it might be that you modify a vegan diet in early life and then move to a full vegan diet as a child ages out of those critical periods of development."
While the mom believes in the benefits of a vegan diet and is choosing to feed her daughter that way, she says that she won't try to control her choices about food later in life. She says that ultimately it will be up to her daughter when she's old enough to decide whether or not she wants to consume animal products or not. As for now, she's breastfeeding her baby and feeding her solid foods that are vegan.
With a lot more interest in plant-based diets circulating, the discussion is not surprising. It's an important one, though, as people begin venturing into feeding young children and babies diets that don't contain meat, dairy, or anything that comes from an animal. While it may seem strange or even scary to some, like with most diets, there is a safe way to go about it. So it's important that people have all of the information.
While there is always room for healthy debate, the judgment about how people feed their children really gets old. Whether the conversation is about bottle versus breast or plants versus meat, we're all just doing the best we can.
Either way, Natasha seems like an awesome mom who is totally on top of her daughter's nutrition. More power to her. Plant power, that is.
