Growing Up Green
By Tammie Ortlieb
"According to a 2000 poll conducted by the Vegetarian Resource Group, one million school age children consider themselves vegetarian. These children typically choose the plant based lifestyle for either health, environmental, or ethical reasons. But what about nutrition? Can a child who leaves out the entire meat group get the necessary vitamins and minerals for a developing body?"

Nine Fat Facts to Focus On
By Fehmida Zakeer
"Following a NO-fat or LOW-fat diet is the message sent out loud and clear to combat the war against obesity. The strident tone of this message has had people scrambling to cut down on their fat intake. While the global fight against high fat consumption is very much desired, a hidden danger exists. When parents provide foods low in fat to children they can inadvertently deprive kids of essential fats. Fat is a vital nutrient necessary for ensuring proper growth and development of children..."

The Crown Jewel of Nutrition
By Sheila O'Niell
"Broccoli is not only an old vegetable, but one that has the best food value on the planet. Before learning about that, let's take a look at its name and origins. The word broccoli comes from the Italian word brocco meaning arm branch. It's related to cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts. There are two types of broccoli, the sprouting Italian broccoli, which is the most common, and heading broccoli..."

The Study of the Effect of a Live Food Diet on Preadolescent Children
By Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D. (H)
"The Tree of Life is a nonprofit foundation that is currently doing research in healing depression, on healing diabetes naturally for all groups with a particular focus on Native Americans, and the affects of a live food diet on the growth of pre-adolescent children as determined by height and weight..."

Peanut Butter: Why Buy Natural & Organic
By Melanie Wilson
"I avoided peanut butter like the plague for years, yet I would gorge on cheese pizza, eat French fries and never even thought of giving up ice cream! For some reason, I had it in my head that peanut butter was pure fat, and obviously, I didn't care a whole lot about nutrition..."

Pass the hors d'oeuvres, please!
By Margaret Rizutto Smith
"My six year old son Elijah has been a vegetarian since birth. And he is one of the most finicky eaters around - he loves his pasta, though! In our ongoing effort to get Elijah to eat a more varied diet we've had to be very creative. One thing we came up with about a year ago that has been working surprisingly well is to have him make his own 'hors d'oeuvres'..."

Raw Vegetables More Protective Than Cooked?
By Dr. Michael Greger
"Eating lots of vegetables every day is one of the most powerful things anyone can do to prevent a wide variety of diseases, including cancer. Researchers have been puzzled, though, why the protective effect for breast cancer has not been as strong or consistent as for some of the other cancers. Researchers in Germany may have just found a clue to the mystery..."

Are Wheaties (with soymilk) Hazardous to Your Health?
By Robert Cohen
"Of course not, but some people would have you believe otherwise. I get at least one letter per day suggesting that "phytates" in soybeans are extremely hazardous. Wheaties cereal also contains phytates..."

Great Reasons to Go Vegetarian
By Nava Atlas
"Many people who are vegetarians think of their diet as a way of life rather than merely as a way of eating. It's not necessary to be a strict vegetarian to be a natural foods enthusiast, but generally, vegetarians almost by definition are more conscientious about the foods they eat..."

Essential Fatty Acids: What they are, how they work, and where to find them
By Anna Hays
"Essential fatty acids are one component of a healthy, well balanced diet. Healthy fats seem to be getting more press lately, especially in the vegan/vegetarian world, as many people find that they don’t feel their best eating a low fat, high carbohydrate diet. This may be because many people, even vegetarians, are healthy-fat deficient..."

Dealing With Dairy Allergies in Your Nursling
By Lucy Watkins
"Giving up anything can be difficult at first, especially if it's an old time favorite. That's one of the reasons dieting can be such a challenge. Add a nursing child and dairy allergies to the list and, although it may change the spirit of the deprivation, it can still be a struggle for mom..."

A simple nutrient guide including herbs as the nutrient source. By Demetria Clark
This list from our new herbal columnist makes it easy to include herbs in your child's diet and increase nutrients.

Nuts Will NOT Make You Fat
By Dr. Michael Greger
"Yeah, but aren't nuts fatty, though? Yes, but they're packed with good fats (especially almonds, hazelnuts, macadamias and pecans)..."

Come My Children and Eat From My Gardens
By Vicki Johnston
"Three year old Luke had ear chronic ear infections. Fortunately his mother was willing to take him off of processed dairy. Of course, the infections totally disappeared... When he was older he wanted to try eating more of the processed fare of his friends and lunches from the school cafeteria. His mother and I both noticed how much more susceptible to illness he became when these impurities crept back into his diet..."

Affording Organic: Can You Afford Not to?
By Carol Laliberte
"Organic food, or food grown without the use of chemicals such as pesticides, is in most cases more expensive than food grown with pesticides and chemicals, or conventional food, as it is commonly referred to. So do you buy less food and go organic? Pick and choose which organic foods you buy?"

Vitamins for Veggie Kids
By Amy O'Neill Houck
"As your children grow from infancy into childhood, you want to make sure they have the healthiest diet possible. But as we all know, babies and toddlers are notoriously choosy eaters. Do you add nutritional supplements and multivitamins to your child's diet? If not, how do you know your child is getting the right amounts of various supplements?"

The Almighty Vegetable
By Melanie Wilson
"Vegetables - what an emotion-laden food! We love to push them, and our kids love to push them away. Some days my daughter makes me feel like the best mom in the world when she'll eat everything from broccoli to carrots to spinach. Then she'll go days turning her nose up at anything green. She won't even look at a pea..."

Survey: Alternative Milks
By Michelle Smith
"White Wave Chocolate Silk*....Oh man, I love that stuff. It's smooth, it's creamy, it's chocolaty, and it's good for me. Wow, you can't beat that. As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I was looking for ways to add more soy to my diet. I still drink cow's milk and I doubt that I will ever give up my cheese, but I decided to give soymilk a try..."

Calcium: Getting Enough Without Milk
By Melanie Wilson
"The U.S. R.D.A. for calcium for young people is 1200 mg. They go on to tell us that the World Health organization’s recommendations is only 500 mg. Per day. Other sources quote a number somewhere in between. Why the discrepancy and which figure do we believe to be most accurate?"

A Commonsense Approach to Eating Soy
By Dawn Friedman
"You've probably seen the headlines touting soy as the newly discovered miracle food. In 1998, the Federal Drug Administration released a statement that said, '25 grams of soy protein a day, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease'..."

Food Allergies: Should Parents Avoid Certain Foods?
By Melanie Wilson
"You don't eat meat. You don't drink milk. Your daughter hates tofu, and you couldn't get her to eat a bean to save her life. What's left to eat? Where will she get her protein?"

Give Tofu a Try
By Kristine Roberson
"When your baby has reached 7 to 8 months of age, he is ready to give tofu a try. Tofu is a great food for babies because it can be creamed with other foods or cut into chunks and served as a finger food and offers a great nutritional boost..."

Iron & the Vegetarian Child
By Melanie Wilson
"Who hasn't heard the old refrain that vegetarian children are pale, thin and unhealthy-looking? You and I know that doesn't have to be true, so why is it such a widely held belief? It's probably connected to anemia, or iron deficiency..."

Don't You Have to Know a Lot About Nutrition?
By Tiffany K. Wayne
"Probably one of the most common questions I get from other parents once they find out that my 3-1/2 year old is a vegetarian is regarding the effort involved on my part. Parents today, already daunted by the wealth of information and conflicting advice available on childrearing, seem to fear that vegetarianism requires some extra effort or expertise for which they are either not qualified or don't have the time or resources to research..."

Meat Analogs in the Toddler Diet
By Tiffany K. Wayne
"Before I had my son I was not interested in meat analogs at all - that is, vegetarian products packaged, shaped, and marketed as meat "replacements." Sure I had the occasional veggie burger offered up at a friend's barbecue. But I was firm in my reasons for being a vegetarian and, in fact, was somewhat repulsed by the idea of wanting to eat anything that looked or tasted like meat..."

Childhood Obesity
By Carol Laliberte
"People traditionally love a fat baby; the chubby cheeks, the rolls of tummy, the stocky thighs hanging nearly over the knees. But when what we commonly call "baby fat" continues on into the preschool years, it should be cause for concern..."

You Can Raise Healthy Vegetarian Children
By Melanie Wilson
"One of the most difficult things about raising vegetarian children is not providing nutritious meals, but dealing with the lack of support and the questions, comments, and criticism from ill-informed friends, families, caregivers, and doctors..."

American Heart Association Calls for Eating Fish Twice Per Week - What’s a Vegetarian To Do?
From the Vegetarian Resource Group website
"As a vegetarian, my diet is usually in line with all the nutrition recommendations and guidelines - eat less fat, saturated fat and cholesterol; consume more fruits, vegetables and grains; maintain a healthy weight. Eating a healthy vegetarian diet usually helps ensure that these guidelines are met. Not in this case, however! Appearing in the new AHA guidelines is the recommendation to consume fish twice per week..."

What every vegan should know about vitamin B12
From the Vegnutrition.com website
"Very low B12 intakes can cause anaemia and nervous system damage. The only reliable vegan sources of B12 are foods fortified with B12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals) and B12 supplements. .."