As most of you could probably guess, I have a family that includes children. But Well Vegan does not offer a family meal plan! It’s absolutely true. I have contemplated it for years, but have never been able to wrap my head around all the logistics. It’s hard enough putting together meal plans for two reasonable adults. Add any unreasonable (they’re almost always unreasonable) little people to the mix and you have chaos. If you want to subscribe, and I hope you do, this is what I recommend: Start with the basic meal plan (without the flex day), Pick up some extra kid snacks and lunch stuff — carrots, raisins, fruit, nut butter, whatever. It typically works for our house and we have two kids (ages two and five).
Feeding any kids, vegan or not, can be a challenge. My kids are pretty good eaters and typically I don’t prepare kid specific food for them. What I cook for adult dinner is what they get — take it or leave it. And there are certainly nights they opt to leave it and beg for peanut butter toast before bed. Fine. My rule is, taste it and if you don’t like it you can have toast. Just toast. I don’t make plan B dinners. Who has time for that? Kids get fun food for lunch, and on leftover nights I always give them first dibs. I also let my five year old pick what we have for dinner one night a week. She’s so predicable. It’s almost always spaghetti and meatballs. Oh there’s also an exception for nights I make spicy food — that just isn’t fair. Their little mouths can’t always take the heat. Whenever we’re having a particularly picky week that’s been slim on actual nutrients, I head straight for the smoothies. No better way to get some good stuff into them.
If you’re looking for a resource for feeding babies and young toddlers, I highly recommend Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. It has a lot of great information about nutrition and offers vegetarian options that are easily made vegan. Both of my kids came up on her Super Porridge.
Here are a few of our kid favorites:
Breakfast
Lunch
- PB & J
- BLTA Sandwich
- Carrot Salad
- Green Bean and Fingerling Potato Salad with Miso Dressing
- Red Quinoa Salad with Corn, Avocado and Black Beans
- Mini Pizzas
Dinner
- Asian Baked Tofu with brown rice
- Black Bean Burgers
- Broccoli Pesto Pasta with Bowtie Pasta
- Burrito Bowls
- Homemade Meatballs
- Tomato Bisque
- Loaded Baked Potatoes
- Snobby Joes
I am also not a short order cook...kids are served reasonable family meals and our Plan B is plain Joe's O's cereal (or you could call them Cheerios if you don't shop at Trader Joe's). But another great trick that has worked for us is to serve certain things separate. For example, my very picky kid won't touch a burrito bowl...but he will eat all the components of the burrito bowl if served individually with corn chips and we call it "nachos". Go figure. That said, we have a lot of Joe's O's dinners, and invest in a high quality vitamin supplement, as this picky kid won't even go near a smoothie.
Thanks for posting this segment on how / what to feed vegan meals to kids! I don't have any kid, but always curious about what it takes to feed vegan foods to kids. How did you manage to work with your kids about vegan foods? Do you also prepare vegan meal for them to take to school? Have they ever told you they love what the other kids were eating at school and they can't have those? I really want to know how you "talk" your kids into eating vegan foods.
Lovely site and thanks again!
@Adelina - Oh wow. I could devote a whole post to your questions! But in a nutshell, they really don't know any differently. They've always been vegan and just accept it as matter of fact. I do send my oldest to preschool with a vegan lunch. We have had conversations about what other kids are eating, but it's like anything. Even if we weren't vegan, there would still be other kids eating things I wouldn't let my kids eat — junk food! I think it's important that they're confident in their food choices and that you spend time preparing and talking about food with your kids.
@Cara - Here, here! Gone are the days of the short order cook! That's a great idea to reconfigure meals into something more interesting to these picky little people.
Hi! So my husband and I are new to being Vegan and we decided on obviously making our 20 month old toddler a vegan too. I've been trying to incorporate fruits and veggies and rice, beans and cereals all day, but he has started having very loose poop for over 4 days now. At first i didn't think much of it, but now its full diarreah and he's obviously not a happy baby. Am i missing something in his diet? Am i giving him too much fruit or fiber foods? Does he need more fat? What can i give him for fat in a vegan diet? I mentioned it to his doctor and all she told me was not to make him vegan! But that can't be right and I just think im missing something. Please help! Thank you!
Hey Gigi - I'm not an expert on feeding vegan kids, so I would highly recommend finding a vegan dietician in your area to help you navigate this one. Best of luck!
Hi Gigi I don't know if this helps and I'm not a baby obviously lol but when I started going vegan about a month ago and still until now I go to the bathroom allllllll day and sometimes diarrhea I think maybe your baby is getting a lot of fiber now then before also maybe your baby is allergic to one of the fruits or veggies I agree to find a vegan doctor even to have a consult:)