At a certain age, children start to make connections between the farmed animals they love in cartoons and picture books (cows, pigs, sheep and so forth) and the foods on their plate. While they don’t often know how these animals are raised or killed, many children, even as young as 5, know that this is something they do not want to support.

Other children simply don’t like the taste or texture of meat, while older children might gain an understanding of the climate crisis and will have learnt that the best action they can take for our planet is to give up eating meat and animal products and opt for a more (or wholly) plant-based diet instead.

Whatever your child’s reason for going vegan, it is important to listen to their own reasoning. For more information, see our ‘Why Vegan?‘ page above!

No, not at all – in fact, research suggests that vegan children develop at the same rate as non-vegan children yet are healthier as a result of their plant-based diet.

Did you know that children as young as three start forming fatty patches in their blood vessels? By their early twenties and certainly by middle age, these can develop into artherosclerosis and cause heart disease.

A plant-based diet is much lower in saturated fat and virtually devoid of cholesterol. Children raised on a plant-based diet therefore have much better cardiovascular health than their counterparts – not just in childhood, but throughout the rest of their life as well.

But it isn’t just the heart that is affected: vegan children are more likely to be in a healthy weight range for their age than non-vegan children and are less likely to develop diabetes and, later in life, cancer. A plant-based diet is simply best for children of all ages.

If an analysis of 400 scientific studies tells you that a well-planned vegan diet is perfectly healthy for children, and if the British Dietetic Association of over 9,000 health and nutrition professionals confirm that the vegan diet is appropriate for all stages of life, then there is no reason to think otherwise!

Of course, you can have an unhealthy vegan diet by living on biscuits and crisps. However, a wholefood, plant-based diet full of a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds and other healthful foods is known to be fantastic for children of all ages.

A vegan or plant-based diet is actually significantly cheaper on average than an animal-based diet. An Oxford University study recently found that eating vegan cut down food costs by up to one-third. Sustainable, ethical eating does not have to cost the Earth!

If you’re a non-vegan parent with a vegan child, or else if your family is a mix of vegans and non-vegans, you may find that the food shop is starting to add up – but this is just because buying multiple separate items for different dietary groups within the family is always going to be more costly!

It is worth remembering that your vegan child won’t be swayed by meat and animal products, but that non-vegan members of your family will still eat vegan food – most of the average omnivore’s diet consists of plant-based foods simply by accident! Fruits, vegetables, bread, pasta, rice, nuts, beans, lentils and so on are all vegan – plus, there are a whole host of fantastic reasons to incorporate more plant-based foods into the weekly shop.

Shifting towards a plant-based diet as a family will not only save you money and make your child happy, but it will also show you the joy of plant-based living and will reduce your ethical and environmental footprint at the same time!

As their parent, you are bound to know their old favourite meals. Start with veganising these one by one! Remember, they didn’t go vegan because they don’t like the food, but rather because they disagree with where animal products come from.

Take your child to the supermarket with you to do the weekly food shop and let them make suggestions about what to buy from the plant-based food sections (look for the ‘Plant-based & Vegetarian’ or ‘Free From’ signs!).

Finally, head over to our Vegan Recipe Club website for hundreds of free vegan recipes!

You might even like to try our 30 Day Vegan Challenge or a more bitesize V7 Challenge as a family. We provide you with recipes, meal plans and shopping lists – you just have to put everything together!