[dabbledash]

I don’t know about the meat issue, but I’ve seen women in mother’s groups ask “what kind of milk” people were going to be giving their babies after they were done giving breast milk or formula. Some people seemed to genuinely think that something called almond milk is actually a type of milk in some meaningful sense just because of the name.

[tedunangst]

Wait until they find out peanut butter isn't a type of butter.

[ben_w]

Nor made of nuts ;)

[FalconSensei]

My peanut butter ingredients list: peanuts.

Seems that it is made of peanuts.

[tomrod]

Which aren't peas or nuts.

[Falling3]

Are you implying that children that are weaned shouldn't have non-dairy milk substitutes?

[dabbledash]

I’m fine with them having non-dairy beverages, but they aren’t “substitutes” nutritionally just because they have milk in the name. If your 1 year old is drinking almond milk (30cal and 1g protein per 8oz) instead of whole milk (150 cal and 8 gr protein per 8 oz), you need to adjust what you’re feeding, just like you would if you were giving any other drink.

The issue is some people seem to assume liquids that are labeled milks are actually like each other in some way that goes beyond flavor and texture.

[Dylan16807]

And skim milk is 85 and 8, while soy milk is 130 and 8.

So I agree that different kinds of 'milk' have wildly different nutrition, but it's not really about dairy vs. non-dairy.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Yes, the problem is not dairy vs. non-dairy, it is with feeding kids who have been weaned a vegetarian or vegan diet in general. For instance, the following is a recent study (July 2020):

Vegetarian and Vegan Weaning of the Infant: How Common and How Evidence-Based? A Population-Based Survey and Narrative Review

Background: Vegetarian and vegan weaning have increasing popularity among parents and families. However, if not correctly managed, they may lead to wrong feeding regimens, causing severe nutritional deficiencies requiring specific nutritional support or even the need for hospitalization. Aim: To assess the prevalence of vegetarian and vegan weaning among Italian families and to provide an up-to-date narrative review of supporting evidence. Materials and methods: We investigated 360 Italian families using a 40-item questionnaire. The narrative review was conducted searching scientific databases for articles reporting on vegetarian and vegan weaning. Results: 8.6% of mothers follow an alternative feeding regimen and 9.2% of infants were weaned according to a vegetarian or vegan diet. The breastfeeding duration was longer in vegetarian/vegan infants (15.8 vs. 9.7 months; p < 0.0001). Almost half of parents (45.2%) claim that their pediatrician was unable to provide sufficient information and adequate indications regarding unconventional weaning and 77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician’s resistance towards alternative weaning methods. Nine studies were suitable for the review process. The vast majority of authors agree on the fact that vegetarian and vegan weaning may cause severe nutritional deficiencies, whose detrimental effects are particularly significant in the early stages of life. Discussion and conclusion: Our results show that alternative weaning methods are followed by a significant number of families; in half of the cases, the family pediatrician was not perceived as an appropriate guide in this delicate process. To date, consistent findings to support both the safety and feasibility of alternative weaning methods are still lacking. Since the risk of nutritional deficiencies in the early stages of life is high, pediatricians have a pivotal role in guiding parents and advising them on the most appropriate and complete diet regimen during childhood. Efforts should be made to enhance nutritional understanding among pediatricians as an unsupervised vegetarian or vegan diet can cause severe nutritional deficiencies with possible detrimental long-term effects.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7370013/

[danShumway]

That's certainly an interpretation of that study. Here's another one.

> Almost half of parents (45.2%) claim that their pediatrician was unable to provide sufficient information and adequate indications regarding unconventional weaning and 77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician’s resistance towards alternative weaning methods.

> Our results show that alternative weaning methods are followed by a significant number of families; in half of the cases, the family pediatrician was not perceived as an appropriate guide in this delicate process.

In other words, nearly half of parents who try vegetarian weaning report that their pediatricians stop helping them or are unable to give them adequate/informed nutritional advice, and unsurprisingly, parents who no longer have adequate access to health resources and information struggle to raise healthy kids.

This isn't an argument against vegetarian weaning, it's an argument for educating pediatricians so they're not shrugging their shoulders when people ask them how to keep their kids healthy.

----

It's also really important here to distinguish between vegan and vegetarian weaning. You're lumping them together when the paper doesn't. Its take is:

> Vegetarian weaning with appropriate guidance from family pediatricians or nutritional experts is possible and it should not be opposed.

> Vegan weaning should be discouraged because serious damages (slow growth, rickets, irreversible cognitive deficits, cerebral atrophy, and also death) have been demonstrated.

This is something that kind of annoys me when it comes up in these conversations. The health risks of veganism and vegetarianism are very different. Being vegan requires paying attention to your food intake, it requires doing some research, because the United States food system is not built around that concept. The risks aren't common knowledge and fewer foods are fortified to deal with problems that vegans face. But being vegetarian is comparatively much, much easier to do, and you're much less likely to make a mistake and end up with a deficiency if you go down that route. They really shouldn't be talked about as if they have the same levels of risk.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> In other words, nearly half of parents who try vegetarian weaning report that their pediatricians stop helping them or are unable to give them adequate/informed nutritional advice, and unsurprisingly, parents who no longer have adequate access to health resources and information struggle to raise healthy kids.

I think your "other words" are deviating very significantly from the letter of the article and you're adding your own interpretation to what's actually written. As actually written, the article says that "the family pediatrician was not perceived as an appropriate guide" by the families Note the "perceived". This may be because the families have different ideas about a healthy diet than the pediatrician, for example "77.4% of parents reported the pediatrician's resistance towards alterantive weaning methods". Since those "alternative weaning methods" may include anything from a vegan weaning to feeding one's child beneficial moon rays (while simultaneously protecting her from the evil dark rays of death), I am inclined to believe that the problem is not that pediatricians are not adequately informed, but that parents are adhering to information from inadequate sources.

There are plenty of articles in the mainstream press by doctors who lament the fact that their patients will trust charlatans who sell them energy therapies and other such snake oil treatments, instead of the doctors themselves. Those doctors are usually specialists (for example, oncologists) but their patients still think the charlatans know best.

[bearbawl]

> This isn't an argument against vegetarian weaning, it's an argument for educating pediatricians so they're not shrugging their shoulders when people ask them how to keep their kids healthy.

No, it’s an argument that people should probably listen more to their pediatrician.

[therealdrag0]

It’s hard for me to care about misconceptions held by people unwilling to read the nutrition label clearly displayed on all of these products.