Not everyone has a job where this can happen...

This week’s question comes from Stacey, who’s planning on returning to work at around the 12 month mark. She’s not sure about excessive use of soy, but everything she’s read about vegan parenting seems to suggest that going back to work means heavy use of soy formula.

This seemed a little off to me, and it’s alarming a the very least – after all, we’ve already discovered that there’s no such thing as fully vegan baby formula, solid foods are going to be mixed in at that point, and with all the Council members who were feeding into the third year, I figured some of them had to be working. I passed the question on to the Council of Vegan Parents to see what their experiences had taught them. Here’s what they had to say:

Pump it

Kristie gave this (ahem) formula for formula-free success: “Before Stacey goes back, for maybe a month or so, she should pump after the baby’s nursed and around 11pm (something about milk production increasing around that time) so that when she returns to work, she will have a store of breastmilk in the freezer. The baby can have then have bottles or cups of thawed (in the fridge) and warmed (with a water bath) breastmilk during the day while she’s at work.”

If you’re still exclusively breastfeeding, pumping can seem like a huge effort, but remember, as solids start to get introduced, you’ll have a bit more supply available to put in the “bank.”

Monica advised to take “pump breaks” at work if possible to keep the supply going. This might not work for all job scenarios, but most companies will allow them, just like they do smoke breaks. Talk with your boss if you think there’d be an issue.

Get in league with the League

The La Leche League, that is. Their primary mission is to encourage and support breastfeeding, and there are chapters all over the place. I’ve never attended a meeting, but Angela’s had nothing but good things to say about them. We’ve got a few leaders in the Council that have happily shared advice in the past, but you’re much better off meeting in person so you can dig deep and get the answers you’re looking for.

Meetings are held regularly all over the place – click here to search for one in your area.

You’re still home some of the time

It’s important to remember that even if you’re away for a good chunk of the day, you’re probably still going to be around for feedings at night and in the morning. If you’re shooting for 3 servings of milk per day, that’s 2 of them right there.

Monica passed on an extra tip for night feeds: “many babies whose moms have gone back to work, often make up for missed nursing time with night time nursing sessions, so they find it easier to take their babies in bed with them to avoid waking up many times during the night and then having to go to work half asleep.”

People are doing it

One of my favourite things about Spawn Better and the Council is the first-hand advice that might not always apply to each individual situation, but definitely feels more comforting than some theory from a book that might not even be written by a parent.

Kristie gave some reassuring history: “With my older daughter, I went back to work after 8 weeks and nursed her (almost exclusively for 12 months because she wasn’t interested in other foods) for more than two years without any need for formula. With my younger daughter, I returned to work when she was four months old, and we’re still nursing (she’s now 20 months old.) We did have some issues initially getting her to take a bottle, but that only lasted two weeks. She stopped wanting breastmilk from a bottle or cup around 14 or 15 months. She nurses at night and in the mornings, and all weekend. No formula ever.”

What if you’re not breastfeeding?

If you’ve already stopped breastfeeding, odds are this is less of an issue overall for you – just continue doing what you’re doing. Elaine reminded us to prefer vegan dietary advice from mainstream sources (it’s going to be a bit more conservative, in general, and hopefully safer) such as the American Dietetic Association.

Stacey also managed to answer part of her own question during some follow-up research: as a fan of Vega, the vegan meal replacement shake mix, she asked Sequel Naturals if it was safe for young children. They replied “all of the Vega products, except for the Sport line are safe for your children. We recommend a much smaller serving size for children under one and we always encourage you to take a list of the ingredients to your health care professional for final review.”

More info

As Monica pointed out, working doesn’t have to mean weaning. In addition to the La Leche League, she recommended the book Nursing Mother, Working Mother: The Essential Guide for Breastfeeding and Staying Close to Your Baby After You Return to Work by Gale Pryor.

And of course if you’ve got any follow up questions, you can leave them in the comments or pass them on directly, and we’ll try to get some followup from the Council.

If you’ve figured out how to make the return to work a little easier than you first thought it’d be, please share your ideas in the comments!

Thanks to Kristie, Monica and Elaine for their help on this one!

Yep, start 'em young, and kale's not a problem!

For this week’s question, we’re going into the world of the picky eater. If veganism is constrained by a smaller overall selection of foods, what happens if your child doesn’t want to eat any of them? In other words, how do you get your child to eat their fruits and vegetables if he or she is a picky eater?

I asked the Council of Vegan Parents what they had to say on the subject, and wow, they said a lot!

Once again, not a vegan problem

One of the themes that keeps coming up here is that a lot of parenting problems aren’t really vegan problems, but they can be perceived as barriers to veganism for some until you call them out. Picky eating probably falls into that category, but based on the feedback from the Council, we’ve got it pretty good!

As Erin put it, “it’s funny because I find that our vegan diet is far more varied than our omnivorous diet was, and so our daughter has so much variety she doesn’t seem to have any picky tendencies.”

In other words, vegans may have fewer overall choices, but we tend to take advantage of a lot more options than the “here’s your meat, here’s your starch, here’s your green” plating that can happen in the omnivore world, so your picky eaters might actually have more choices available than if you weren’t a vegan family.

Work with, not on

Nobody recommended staging an epic battle with your picky eater over broccoli, and it seems that the winning approach is to explain and negotiate.

Linda says “we also want them to eat a variety of healthy foods! What works well with my 5 and 3 year olds is simply explaining this… I ask them to try it and tell them they can spit it right back out if they don’t like it… If they refuse, I tell them I will just leave it on their plate, ‘just in case’ and I walk away. Usually, they will try it.”

Valerie formalized the process a little more: “we have a rule that he needs to try at least one or two bites of whatever is served for dinner.”

Lead by example

As everyone who’s heard one of their children’s early words have four letters in it knows, kids learn a lot from what you’re doing. If you make fruits and vegetables a key part of your meals, they’re going to be much more likely to follow your lead, as opposed to a “do as I say not as I do” scenario.

Like Erin says, “when I was a kid, vegetables were loved in my household, even though there was meat too. I never knew that kids didn’t usually like veggies because no one saw any reason to share that bit of information with me. We don’t realize how much we shape others’ feelings.”

Repetition, repetition

It’s important to realize that most new flavours aren’t going to be a hit the first time around, regardless of whether you’ve got a picky eater or not. Linda says, “With kids you often have to present a food many many times before they learn to like it. It takes a long time for some foods to feel familiar to them. Forcing it will backfire.”

Always have a plan B

So what if your picky eater refuses everything on the plate? Is it time to drop everything and make a new dish? Not so fast, says Erin: “I think a lot of parents offer more and more choices over and over when the kid throws stuff on the floor. This just teaches them to be picky and wait until their favorite thing is given.”

But again, what if they’re not eating? Here’s Linda’s solution: “another thing I do, is if they completely refuse to eat the meal I make, I will not make another, but tell them they can either eat what I made, or choose ONLY raw fruits or vegetables out of the refrigerator. This way, they choose their favorite healthy option and I don’t need to make another meal!”

Finally, it’s handy to remember that just like this isn’t the last meal they’ll ever refuse, it’s not the last one they’ll ever eat, either. As Valerie explains, “kids will eventually eat when they’re hungry. If the only options available in the home are the healthy ones, they won’t starve. ”

Try lots of things

As we said above, it can take a lot of attempts for a food to “click” with your child, and one way to keep things fresh while increasing the chances of a hit is to vary things, and there are a lot of ways to do that!

Steph had a wide range of options, including changing the temperature (for things like marinated tofu pieces,) spices used (bland isn’t always preferred,) the size of the pieces (both to fit in their hands and to change the texture in sauces,) and you can also let food get eaten off your plate, because things always look more interesting that way.

Valerie found it helpful to vary the colour of the foods, at least in smoothies, specifically ones with leafy greens added in – you can change the green/purple mix by simply adjusting the berry to greens ratio.

What about hiding foods?

While most of the feedback this week was pretty unanimous, one area where there was some debate involved whether or not to “hide” food from your picky eaters by blending it into sauces or pureés. This might have more to do with the ages of the children involved, so here are both viewpoints!

Valerie had great luck via the book Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld [affiliate link]: “Basically, she teaches parents how to hide tons of pureed fruits and/or veggies into foods that many kids already like. It’s not a vegan book by any means, but has great ideas and most recipes are easily veganizable.”

Steph and Erin had other thoughts on the matter, which centered on teaching their children what foods are supposed to look like, and keeping the same menu for everyone at the table.

Like I said, this might be an age thing, and pickiness probably varies from child to child, so I’d love to hear more experiences in the comments!

Enjoy yourself

Let’s close this one off with a reminder from Steph to have some fun along the way: “looking at anything through the eyes of a child makes it new again. He likes to play with his food, which is awesome, so we like to take it outside sometimes to let him learn without worrying about the mess.”

Of course, this isn’t the end of the topic, because we haven’t heard from you yet! Is your child a picky eater? Did you figure out any ninja tricks to get some foods on the favourites list? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to Linda, Steph, Valerie and Erin for their help on this one!

Yes, it's probably horribly inappropriate, but it's the best demonstration on confusion I could find on my hard drive. Cheers!

Besides the obvious perks like fame, glory, and preferred parking places at theme parks (we kid, we kid) members of the Council of Vegan Parents get to have their questions answered before anyone else, and that’s what happened this week when we fielded a query from Erin, who asked:

“What do you call things? I always say ‘milk,’ ‘cheese,’ ‘burgers,’ ‘mac n’ cheese,’ ‘jerky,’ ‘ice cream,’ ‘yogurt,’ ‘rice crispy treat,’ when what I mean are things like soy milk, Daiya or Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, Boca or other homemade veggie burgers, quinoa macaroni with almond and nooch sauce, spicy seitan Primal Strips, Rice Cream or Coconut ice cream, soy yogurt, or puffed millet and ricemallow treats. It’s odd for me because I have veganized many of my favorite foods from my omni days, and I still use the omni language. But my daughter has always been vegan, and as she goes out into a nonvegan world I don’t want her to get confused (especially when she’s still so young it’s hard to understand) that OUR cheese is not the same as Jimmy’s cheese, so you can’t eat that, or when there’s a pizza party and she thinks, ‘We eat pizza, I love that!’ My husband will say to her, ‘Do you want some soy milk in your cup?’ whereas I just ask if she wants some milk. I’m wondering how other vegan parents have handled this and how the transition went for them either way that they handled it.”

It’s a great question, and I thought it’d be a quick survey, but the Council had other ideas…

It’s a mix

It turns out that while some people are strict over what gets called what, many vegan parents use a mix of terms for foods, just like vegan non-parents do, but frankly, just like all people tend to do. As Meredith pointed out, some people call margarine “butter,” and I’ve heard that “Coke” can mean a lot of different beverages. Some parents use different words in the house and outside as well.

Confusion is confusing!

The real issue is why some words are getting picked over others, and that’s the confusion issue. It’s fine in the home, where you have (most of the) control over what gets eaten, but in social situations, particularly ones where the parents aren’t around, there’s some concern over whether or not kids will get confused, possibly make “mistakes,” or feel left out. As Matthew put it, he calls burgers veggie burgers specifically because he “…would be too grossed out if [his daughter] ate a real one of these by accident.”

Despite the obvious concerns, some families never have much of a problem, despite mixed languages around foods. Julie threw some science at the issue: “I seem to remember reading… that kids naturally accept that words can have multiple meanings. I think I read about it in the context of small children not making the connection between the ‘chicken’ on their plate and the ‘chicken’ animal that they were crazy about, and about how it was easy for them to accept that the same word could be used for two completely different things and didn’t in any way suggest that the two might be related.”

Age matters

Age-appropriateness seems to be key for just about every Council member who addressed the confusion theme. As Al put it, “between the ages of 2 and 4, it’s something you probably have to worry about… once they get older, it won’t matter what you call the food in your house. Though when they’re younger, it’s a good idea to put those modifiers in there.” This was seconded by several parents with older children, who report it being less of an issue than it used to be.

As for what age it starts to get easier, that varies with every family, and has a lot to do with the environments they’re in. From what I was able to gather, you’ll be able to figure that one out for your own situation pretty easily.

In the meantime, it’s a good idea to talk things through with your children. Kristie’s had discussions with her (almost 4 year old) daughter about the differences between soy, rice, hemp and other milks and cow’s milk, and had a handy tip for those of you with more than one child: “It helps that I’m still nursing her younger sister (19 months), so she understands that milk from animals (including me!) is for babies. ”

Children trust their parents

Several Council members noted that their children know that food from parents is “safer” than food from the outside world. As Denise notes, her daughter “…knows that anything I give her, she can eat. If someone else gives her something to eat, she always asks to make sure that she can eat it before starting.”

You know, I think some meat-eating parents might be a bit jealous of families where the children always ask before they eat things…

Of course, there’s another option…

All this confusion about mock meats and milks could be avoided by simply not eating any of these products, and that’s the route taken in various degrees by several Council members. A lot of these products, mock meats in particular, have been (perhaps rightly) called “vegan junk food” by some, and there’s a case to be made for reducing them from all our diets, but at the same time they’re incredibly convenient and time is at a premium for parents, so it’s a bit of a trade-off.

That said, fortified soy (or hemp, or rice, or almond, or whatever comes next) milk can be a great way to get a lot of nutrients quickly, so it’s probably the least likely item to disappear from the fridge and remains a source of possible confusion.

Further reading

Here’s a blogger pro-tip: if you write an article once, it might seem like a lot of work but then you can just point people to it when questions come up, and that’s Celeste did! Here’s a great recap of her adventures in naming milk, and some lessons learned along the way. Be sure to check out the rest of her site too, because I’ve already seen her answer to next week’s question

What words do you use?

What about you? Do you mix and match, choose carefully, or just pick names for foods at random?  Has it caused any issues or solved any problems in your home?  Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to Denise, Kristie, Kim, Meredith, Matthew, Al, Trin, Celeste and Julie for their help with this one!

We’ve covered how our Council of Vegan Parents handles vegan Hallowe’en candy from a child’s perspective, but what do you do when you’re the one stuck at home giving out treats to everyone who comes to your door?

Vegan-friendly candy

Several members of the Council have sought out some “top shelf” goodies, either online or at their health food store. Kari found vegan gummy bears at Whole Foods, and I apologize in advance for the 10 pounds you might gain from this link, but Rebecca pointed out the Natural Candy Store which apparently is open year round, but they’ve got a vegan category and everything.

Packaged baked goods are also an option – it’s too late this year and it’s local to Toronto, but by way of example Sweets From the Earth had a deal this year where you could get 100 individually wrapped chocolate chip cookies for $18. If you have a bakery in your area, check to see if they have specials, or depending on the volume of visitors in your neighbourhood, it might be affordable to break open some boxes of single serving vegan desserts.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the brand names being different on the candy you hand out – thinking back to my childhood session of trying desperately to fill an entire pillowcase with goodies, there was always some stuff in there that I’d never seen before, or since, but as long as it was candy, I wasn’t too discerning. If the package says organic or other healthy-sounding things, the other parents will appreciate it at the very least.

It doesn’t have to be candy

A quick trip to the dollar store can yield a ton of options that don’t have any food issues associated with them: think about stickers, temporary tattoos, noisemakers, or just about anything in the party favour aisle.

I’m sure there’s debate over this, but this is probably a good day to stay vegan but leave the activism costume locked away – stickers with animals on them are cool, but animal rights messaging is probably going to get lost or misdirected on the 31st, so save your veg-themed stickers for the rest of the year – kids still love them, but they’ll have more impact when they’re not competing with 20 pounds of sugar.

Remember to register!

It’s still early, but this might turn out to be a great resource for vegan parents over time: NoTrickTreats.com is an online registry where you can tell the world that you’re giving out vegan-friendly treats at Hallowe’en. Of course, it’ll be great for parents who are going out with their kids too, but until a lot more listings show up your entry will give ideas to other parents who haven’t seen this post yet.

What else?

Just like with regular groceries, there are tons of options for candy that are either accidentally or specifically vegan. If you’re giving something vegan (or non-food) out this Hallowe’en, share it in the comments!

Once again, thanks to Denise, Kimberly, Kari, Sarah, Rebecca, Doh and Julie for their help on this one!

(Photo from Boardwalk Chocolates, and yes, those eyeballs are vegan! Ewwwww!)

We've got a lot of carving to do!

This week on Spawn Better we’re taking a look at Hallowe’en and veganism. Today we’ll discuss dealing with the treats your child might receive, and Wednesday we’ll cover some ideas on how what to give out if you’ve got neighbourhood kids knocking on your door.

As always, my thanks to the Council of Vegan Parents for their input on this!

Vegan parents are big fans of Hallowe’en

Let’s get this out of the way first: every single member of the Council who responded had a system in place from previous years, and none of them involved keeping their children away from trick or treating. Yes, there’s a lot of junk food involved, and some had ways of mitigating that which we’ll cover below, but nobody was trying to deny their children the Hallowe’en experience.

Kimberly phrased it well: “I want for them to still participate in fun activities so that they don’t feel like outsiders amongst their peers but there’s no way I want them eating most of the junk that they receive.”

So what do you do with all that “junk?”

Tradesies!

Most Council members had some kind of trading system in place, either for the entire haul or just the non-vegan stuff. For younger kids, you can often get away with this without them even knowing, because they’re not going to know the difference between different candies, but many parents reported great success involving their children actively in the process.

Trades can be for other vegan-friendly candy, or a special toy or book or puzzle, or even money. Julie’s family invented the “Hallowe’en Fairy” who conducted the exchange in the dead of night, but the following year they opted for a more open trade as their son got older.

If your child is trick or treating with other non-vegan children, Doh points out that trading can be super easy to do right on the spot, but it can get frustrating if the neighbourhood happens to give out more non-vegan than vegan stuff.

Getting rid of the surplus

Rather than throw the extra candy out, most parents in the Council opted to donate it to food banks or leave it at their workplace’s common area for others to enjoy. Depending on the timing, you might even be able to “re-gift” it the same night. If you’re wondering about the ethics of donating non-vegan stuff, even if it’s to other non-vegans, we did a video over on Staying Vegan that talked a bit about that, with some helpful comments as well.

What about sugar and bone char?

As you might already know, refined sugar is often filtered through bone char, and it’s difficult to guess but safe to assume that most if not all of the candy given out (unless it’s from a vegan house who did their homework) is going to involve animal products in some small way. Our Council members chose to either give it a pass or do one of the trade techniques mentioned above.

Have your (Spooooky!) say

What about you? Have you had any (real or imagined) nightmares about Hallowe’en with your child? Did things go sweetly or did they turn sour? Share your stories and experiences (and questions!) in the comments so we can continue to help each other out!

A super-huge thanks to Denise, Kimberly, Kari, Sarah, Rebecca, Doh and Julie for their help on this one!

Updates last week were a little sparse, but trust me, a fair bit happened – it just wasn’t online.

For starters, we managed to bring the vegan population up by one:

I’ve got more info coming up in Monday’s newsletter (along with some stuff that’s actually related to veganism,) but I just wanted to give a heads up since some of you were checking in to make sure we were OK.  And oh yeah, we’re way more than OK…

We’ve got some stuff planned for this week that’s more appropriate to the topic of Staying Vegan, but I figure I’m allowed one post as a proud papa  Sorry for the absence, but I hope you’ll understand, and there’ll be more vegan tips and tricks here very soon – somehow, it seems a lot more important than ever before…

Is it just me, or does that dropper look humungous?

Update: Sue reports that the product’s been discontinued – see the comments for more info and other options.

As followup to our parenting columns on Vitamin D (see Vitamin D for Vegan-Raised Infants and Vegan Infant Formula: Nonexistant?) we finally got around to getting some liquid form vitamin D2 in the house (remember kids, D2 is vegan because R2D2 is cool, and ergocalciferol is the good one because I’m vegan, ergo I know more about weird vitamins than anyone on the street!)

Rather than figure out international shipping (as many of you know, we’re in Canada,) we decided to let the professionals figure it out and headed to the pharmacy to order some of the Drisdol drops that Jodie pointed out in a comment on a previous post.)  We basically just printed out the PDF, brought it to the store (in our case, Shopper’s Drug Mart,) and said “get this for us, mmmK?”

And there were no hassles.  I’ll be honest, I felt a little weird custom ordering something from a pharmacy, but apparently it’s something they do all the time, and no prescription is needed.  We got the drops the next afternoon.

Just in case the PDF goes offline, it’s made by Sanofi-Aventis, and the DIN is 02017598. Ours was made in Canada for an American company, so hopefully it’s widely available.

So what’s it cost?

Jodie said it was $68 for her, but we got it for a little under $50 (Canadian.)  That might seem like a lot, but it’s actually pretty competitive with other forms of D2: the cheapest we’ve been able to find Now brand D2 pills (1000 IU strength) is $8 for 120 vcaps, which is 6.7 cents per 1000 IU.  The Drisdol drops come in a 60 mL bottle and each mL has 8,288 IU (there’s a handy dropper that’ll dose out about 207 IU at a time,) so that’s about 10 cents per 1000.  Sure, it adds up, but maybe there’s a difference between liquids and pills.  Who knows.

The Drisdol is almost a third of the price of the D2 spray we mentioned in a previous post (at the price we were charged,) so at this point it’s the cheapest D2 liquid we’ve been able to find, and liquids are pretty much the only way a newborn’s going to take it in, so we’re calling it a win.

Interestingly, if we were to dose the stuff out at 400 IU a day (that’s Health Canada’s recommendation,) we’d have  about a three and a half year supply from this bottle.  Unfortunately, it expires at the end of next year, so I guess Angela and I will start taking drops too to make sure we use it all up in time.

Speaking of which…

So how does it taste?

With such a small range of options available, there’s not a lot you can do if the drops taste like, say, raw sewage, but that’d kinda suck when you’re trying to convince a small child to take them.  Fortunately, we didn’t feel an urge to scrub our tongues with a steel-bristle brush after our taste test.

Angela and I both tried a drop directly on our tongue (the box says to add it to milk, by which I’m sure they mean soy milk, but we wanted to taste it fully.)  It wasn’t bad, but the closest flavour we could compare it to was burning.  It’s definitely something you’ll want to mix into another liquid; probably a sweet liquid at that.

For us, the D2 problem is fully solved.  If you’ve found another solution, or managed to order Drisdol from another country, let us know in the comments!

(As always, there’s a warning that you should consult with your health care provider before using the product, and we did, so nyah nyah nyah.)

Are vegan parents doomed to a small selection of jars? No way, says our Council!

This week’s parenting column takes a look at baby foods, specifically some of the very first solids your baby might eat, since it’s something that a lot of parents-to-be have written in about, and hey, even though they’re just doing what you tell them to, this is the point where you really start making a new vegan, really.

Do you need to rely on prepared jars of baby food? Are there things to watch out for? Does ingredient scanning for vegans start pretty much from day one?

As it turns out, a vegan-raised baby’s first foods are actually a little easier on a vegan diet, since many of the common allergens like eggs, dairy, and fish are out of the picture. The rest of the tips we got drive home the point that, like so many other things, feeding a baby isn’t a problem for vegans, or more specifically, it isn’t really a vegan problem.

Before we get to what the Council of Vegan Parents had to say, here’s a bit of stuff from Doctor Science and her band of Facts: the World Health Organization has recommended that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and then continue with breastfeeding while mixing in some foods for up to two years or more (we’ve got some stories from the Council here if you’re interested in learning more about breastfeeding.) The American Academy of Pediatrics also has some recommendations for getting started with solids that might be worth a quick glance.

So what solids work well with vegan babies? Here’s what some of the Council had to say:

Don’t stress over it

Stephanie gave this introductory advice which is really worth noting: “don’t stress. Particularly with a first child, it’s too easy to worry that you’re missing something, not giving baby the best they need, not creating enough variety or whatever. Stress is time-consuming and doesn’t serve anyone at all, so trick number one: keep it simple and low maintenance. Don’t assume a baby cares what they’re eating; it’s all new and they’re going to ooze it out their mouth in the first few instances anyway. Feeding an infant is giving them an experience, and a largely tactile-over-taste one at that.”

Rice (cereal) is nice

It seems to be a doctor-type recommendation, and lots of Council members had success with it as a first food, so here you go: baby rice cereal is an easy simple way to get started without any pesky chopping. Quinoa flakes were cited as a good second step. And can I just point out once again that this is one of those things that works for vegans and omnivores alike?

Purée, hooray

Mashed bananas, avocados, applesauce, pears, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, lentils, rice and couscous all made our Council’s list – this is one part of life where overcooking is actually a good thing since it makes things mushy, so steam away (no, don’t cook the avocados or bananas, unless your child is into it I guess…) What else? A few parents mentioned adding silken tofu to some of the purées, soups were also a hit in some households, and hummous time is, apparently, any time

If you’re looking for recipes, Sarah had these suggestions: “the biggest hit was lentil stew (mashed lentils, cauliflower, and spinach tossed in a food processor). We would steam carrots and process them with peeled tomatoes, a granny smith apple and some silken tofu, and flavour it with a little ginger. Peas and spinach in the blender was also a good one.”

By the way, as an extension to our time management for parents article, Sarah also outlined her baby food preparation technique for us:

“We set aside half an hour each Sunday for food making. What we would do is cook up a bunch of lentils, rice, fruits, and vegetables, and then puree/mush them in different combinations. We would then put them in ice cube trays, label them, and freeze them. We would take out a few cubes at a time and put them in the refrigerator to thaw. We got 2 dozen clean, empty baby food jars off of Craigslist for $3 and found that to be more than enough storage for her food.”

Ice cube trays were mentioned by a few parents (both for this and in the time savers article,) so I’m starting to think of them as some kind of secret weapon…

Milk-a-mole

I’ve seen a few references to adding breast milk to some of baby’s first solids (oh yeah, one of them was in this here article,) but Amy had a fun story around the theme:

“We started out with avocados, just smooshed up, and thinned with a little breast milk, we call it milk-a-mole, rhymes with guacamole. My mom did take a taste of the milk-a-mole, then was upset she had some breast milk.”

Weird how breast milk can upset people, but cow milk is “just what’s done” for the majority of society, isn’t it? Man, don’t get me started about eggs…

Jars are cool too

Don’t get the idea from any of this that everyone’s anti-prepared foods! While the above ideas can all be made from scratch, you shouldn’t feel guilty if you keep some (preferably organic) baby food jars in the cupboard – just like convenience foods for yourself, it’s a form of contingency planning and as Stephanie put it, “bottom line is, how much is your time and sanity worth? Having jars in the cupboard is smart and can be the difference between peace and not.”

Baby-led weaning

A few Council members were either practicing or expressed an interest in baby-led weaning, so it’s worth a mention here as well. In this case, rather than smearing purées acros your baby’s face (and the walls, I’ve heard,) you let the child experiment with food using his or her own hands. Everything you’re about to read is based on Council input, which may or may not be interpretive; if you’d like to learn from the source, there’s a site for that.

Here’s a summary from Julie:

“The first thing to realize there is that “weaning” means something different in other parts of the world than it does here. In the U.S., at least, “weaning” refers to removing breast milk/formula from a baby child’s diet. In the U.K., at least, it refers to adding solid foods into the diet. So “baby-led weaning” is about the process of introducing solids, not the process of taking away the milk.

“It’s actually a pretty cool concept. The idea is that the different parts of a baby’s body develop in unison to some extent; by the time their digestive system is ready to handle solid foods, they should also have the manual dexterity to pick food up and move it into their mouth, and the oral development to not push it back out (“tongue thrust”) Practically speaking, it means that starting at 6 months, we just stuck “chip-sized” (British-ese for “steak fry-sized) chunks of whatever we were eating on M’s tray. He mostly played with it at first, but that’s ok – when they’re that little, solid foods are really more about exploring tastes and textures than about actual nutrition, anyway, and most of what he did eat ended up in his diaper more or less unchanged. Creepy, maybe, but when you see solid chunks of carrot in the diaper, you know that not much is being absorbed, nutritionally-speaking.

“Lightly steamed carrot sticks, broccoli, avocado, etc. were big hits. As he got a little bigger and better with his fingers, he liked black beans, bits of cereal, etc. Soups were ok as long as he had some bread or something to dip in them. He made a huge mess, to be sure, but we only fed him solids once a day, at dinner, and dumped him straight in the bath afterward, so it worked out. I think it did a good job of getting us in the habit early on of only making one meal for the family, and it got him exposed to a wide range of tastes and textures, which I thin can only have helped him to be open to trying and enjoying a wide variety of foods now.

“We were fairly careful to keep things like peanuts out of his food for a while, and I saved the salt for our individual plates, but otherwise there weren’t many things that were off-limits to him. Big pieces are better than small pieces because they’re easier for little fists to pick up and gnaw on, and little pieces aren’t likely to get broken off and swallowed until they’re ready. In fact, one of the BLW things I remember reading suggested that spoon-feeding a baby anything remotely chunky was far more likely to lead to choking, since you were putting things into the baby’s mouth for them and they could then inhale things that they didn’t have the developmental ability to get into their own mouths yet.”

Once again: not a vegan problem

This was a real eye-opening topic for me personally, and I almost feel like I’m gloating when I say that from the looks of things, feeding a baby his or her first solid foods might actually be easier for vegans than omnivores, thanks to a reduced number of allergens to watch for and an overall familiarity with the source ingredients from our own cooking.

What about you? Any favourite first foods from your family? We’ve focused on really early foods here, but feel free to share some later-stage recipes (we’ve gotten a number of risotto mentions, for example) in the comments!

Thanks to Amy, Julie, Elaine, Lisa, Sarah, Stephanie and Jo for their help on this one!

Ever feel like your whole life was ruled by one of these? Photo by wwarby.

This week’s parenting topic is actually not a parenting topic. OK, some of it is, but if you don’t have kids, be sure to skim this article before you decide to ignore it, because five minutes right now could save you days over the course of the year!

As many of you know, we don’t have any children at StayingVegan HQ (we rely on the advice from the Council of Vegan Parents, who are amazing,) but we’ve got one on the way really really soon. As part of our preparations, we attended some classes, and at the last one they went over how much time we’d likely be spending each day on baby care between feedings, diaper changes, etc. The number of hours per day was… well, the room had a certain stunned silence to it at the end.

With that in mind (firmly in mind!), I thought it’d be a good topic to ask the Council for their number one time saving tactic, but to tie it back to veganism, I wanted tricks to save time cooking for the family. Even if you’re breastfeeding, how can you and/or your partner make time to make meals that keep you going, and if you’ve got older kids, how are you keeping everyone fed and still sleeping those essential two point six hours per night?

The range of responses we received was astounding, and once again, most of these things are things you can do right now, even if you don’t have kids, so check it out!

1) Freezer 101

This was the one that I specifically said not to submit, not because it was a bad idea, but because it was too obvious and I wanted deeper answers. Plus I wanted to claim that one

Even so, many parents wrote in with variations on the theme that are worth noting, both here and as part of the other tips below. At the simplest, when you make any meal, make it really big, and freeze the rest. I like this better than having leftovers for two or three days, because it staves off boredom, and also because it’ll “bank” meals for the times when you’re really too tired to make anything.

Lisa pointed out that you can take this beyond leftovers and easily freeze anything that’s about to go bad in your fridge, including ends of tofu and herbs, both of which can later be thrown into stews.

Kim also bakes tons of muffins in advance and freezes what she can’t use right away – you can check out one of her recipes here.

2) Plan out your meals

Kimberly and Amy are both big fans of meal planning. You don’t need to write down every breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the month, but just picking out the dinners for the week can make for one less thing to have to worry about each day, and it will save time both in the kitchen (wondering what to do) and in the grocery store, where you’ll know what you need ahead of time.

Sure, planning takes the spontaneity out of things, but think of it this way: it’ll make time for the other spontaneous stuff that pops up through the week!

3) Wear the baby

OK, fair enough, this one’s for parents only, but Julie found baby carriers, wraps, slings, and what have you a lifesaver for food preparation, keeping the baby close by (and thus calm and happy) while leaving you the use of both hands.

Of course, this only works for most, but not all kitchen activities – if you’re frying with hot oil, for instance, it might not be the best time to innovate with efficiency.

4) Make breakfast smooth

Kimberly has no troubles getting breakfast out of the way for her family – they all drink nutrient-rich smoothies! This is a great time saver, and I’ve used it a lot in the past where I had to go to work and would have skipped breakfast otherwise.

5) Co-sleeping

Kristie and Julie both advocate co-sleeping, which is the fancy word for bringing the baby to bed with you. It’s a great way to reconnect after a hectic day and many parents find it makes nursing easier, which means more sleep for you, and spending time on sleep can often save way more time in the long run!

This is something Angela and I are looking forward to trying. Among the many yet-to-be-assembled items here is an Arm’s Reach Clearvue Co-Sleeper, which will (we hope) act as an extension to the bed to give that extra room and reduce anxiety about any issues with tossing and turning.

6) Make meals in steps

Sarah, Amy, and Kristie all follow a variety of staged meal preparation plans, where the final dish won’t be ready for a few days. Those recipes in Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s cookbooks that have sub-recipes for various parts? Make those a day or two before. Amy makes sauces and spice packets on the weekend when there’s a little more time, so everything can be quickly added to the dishes during the week.

This can extend to pre-washing vegetables when you get home from the store, which we talked about in our How To Eat More Raw Fruits and Vegetables tip.

7) Make food a family event

More people on a task means more overall hours spent, but somehow this seems to work: include your family in the food process, from shopping to cooking. Julie says this turns the trips to the farmer’s market into more of a field trip than a chore, and as a bonus, kids tend to be more interested in eating things that they helped make, which can save time during the “eating” part that most time saving guides overlook.

8 ) Embrace one-pot meals

Sure, it’s fewer dishes to wash, but it’s also fewer precisely-timed steps that various interruptions can, well, interrupt. Not that distractions ever take place in a young family’s household, or so I am assured by my friends with kids who never quite forgave me for buying them that drum set… But I digress. To get you started, Meredith sent a link to a pineapple black bean rice dish that has fruit, vegetable, bean and grain in it and only takes 30 minutes to put together.

9) Redefine “meal”

There’s settling for substandard food, and then there’s recognizing that there’s a fair bit of wiggle room in what constitutes a meal. As Julie’s doula instructor said, “if it covers two food groups, it’s a meal.” That would include cereal and soy milk, even if it’s for dinner, and you can always make a “real” dinner for yourselves once the kids are in bed.

10) Get the Gear

You don’t have to invest in any tools to make your life easier, but be aware that there are gadgets out there that really make a difference – we were talking about this just this weekend when Angela’s mom made coleslaw with the food processor’s shredding disc, for example. Here’s what some Council members recommend:

Amy says that the Magic Bullet is a “lifesaver. Easy to use, easy to clean and purées food well.” We have one up at the cottage where facilities are more limited, and I’d totally agree – it’s one of those infomercial things that actually come close to the promise, from what I’ve seen.

Kristie recommends both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker, which can really help out, but in different ways. The slow cooker can be loaded up the night before or in the morning for a super-easy stew, and the pressure cooker can turn dried beans into meals in no time flat – you can see our video of how to do that here.

Rebecca says that the Oxo Good Grips Apple Corer and Divider is “a surprising time saver when we’ve got to be in the car and driving to preschool five minutes ago and we have to take a snack and are out of bananas.”

Lastly, we’ve used a Vita-Mix for around 12 years now, and it’s a little pricier than the other suggestions, but it’s hands down the best time saver we’ve got in our kitchen, from operation (dump stuff in and turn it on) to cleanup (usually we just rinse it out.) You can use this link to learn more, and it’ll also get you free shipping if you buy through it.

[we believe in everything we just said, but FYI links to the products above may be affiliate links, for which we'll earn commissions to help pay our bills if you purchase through them.]

11) You tell us!

What have you done in your kitchen, whether you have kids or not, that’s shaved off precious minutes? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to Kimberly, Julie, Lisa, Amy, Kristie, Sarah, Kim, and Rebecca for their help with this one!

(Photo by wwarby)

No, this isn't Photoshopped: it's an actual Marvel Comics character (that someone in the health field needs to license for a D campaign!)

For this week’s parenting topic, we’re taking a look at vitamin D and your baby – while at a pre-natal class recently we’d heard that supplementation was advised right from birth, which triggered some alarms, since many vitamin D supplements aren’t vegan friendly. With that, we turned to the Council of Vegan Parents and the internet (have you tried that thing? It’s awesome!) for answers!

First, an overall disclaimer – not to weasel out of anything that appears below, but you really shouldn’t get your health and nutrition information from Some Guy On The Internet. Everything that looks like science in this article came via guidance from the National Institutes of Health in the USA and Health Canada, and I encourage you to follow those two links for the current state of vitamin D recommendations. As with all of our parenting columns, I reached out to the Council of Vegan Parents, but for this one I used their input as background on what a decent subset of the vegan parenting population was doing.

Secondly, even if you don’t have kids, this article might be pretty important, since most of it has to do with availability and requirements in everyone, but we’re paying more attention to infants, is all.

Why does any of this matter?

It turns out that vitamin D has been linked with a lot more than rickets, which was the primary concern when it was added to cow’s milk in the USA in the 1930′s. Research is suggesting links between vitamin D deficiency and issues including cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, depression, and possibly even autism.

What’s more, there’s been growing concern that current “acceptable” levels of vitamin D in the body are actually significantly lower than some new suggested levels that are going around.

This isn’t just a vegan problem, by the way – while there are some non-vegan foods with vitamin D in them (either naturally or through fortification,) the percentage of the North American population that’s deficient (by current or proposed guidelines) is much higher than the percentage of the population that’s vegan.

Is sunlight enough?

Worldwide, sunlight is the primary source of vitamin D: your skin synthesizes it after absorbing ultraviolet B radiation from the sun. With that said, there are a number of factors that need to be considered before we all start praying to the sun god for all our (and our baby’s) needs:

First and foremost would be the conflict between the “absorb sunlight” and “don’t expose your baby to sunlight” recommendations. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends keeping babies out of direct sunlight for the first six months. I’ve seen many other (non-medical) sources saying that five or ten minutes a day isn’t a problem, and might be enough to synthesize enough vitamin D, but I haven’t done enough research on the topic to do more than repeat the AAP recommendation.

Even with sunlight, depending on where you live it might not be enough through the entire year. The NIH says that, in the USA, you need to live below 34 degrees North latitude (which stretches from Los Angeles, California through Columbia, South Carolina) to be able to use sunlight as a sole source year round. In other regions, a window from November through February (or larger) is a “dead zone” for sufficient sunlight.

Skin pigmentation is also a factor: paler skin absorbs UV radiation faster than darker skin does, which means that darker skinned people (both adults and infants) need to spend more time in the sun for the same dosage – up to 10 to 20 times as much, according to the Health Canada information.

Cloud cover, smog, shade and other factors can also reduce the radiation levels significantly, and the use of sunscreen above SPF 8 will reduce your ability of vitamin D absorption to pretty near zero (OK,it’s a 97.5% drop, which I’ll call “close enough.”)

Generally, advice seems to be that the hours between 10AM and 3PM are the best times to be soaking it in, as it’s when the sunlight is strongest.

Will breastfeeding supply vitamin D?

Vitamin D does exist in breast milk for mothers with adequate levels themselves, but it’s not considered enough to meet the daily recommended levels. On a semi-related note, your baby may have some vitamin D on backup from what it got through the placenta while in the womb, but this usually is only enough for a few months at most.

What supplements are available?

As we mentioned in our article about vegan infant formula, there doesn’t seem to be any formula out there with vitamin D2 instead of D3. Briefly, there are two forms of D: D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol.) D3 is derived from lanolin (wool) and sometimes fish or egg, so it’s not considered vegan. D2 is made from yeast. I remember the “good” one because I like Star Wars (R2-D2) and “I am vegan, ergo I make up silly mnemonic devices.”

As for supplements, there are many liquid drop supplements of vitamin D that would be easier to administer than a pill or a powder, but the majority are based on D3. As Julie from the Council noted, be careful to read the labels, since most D3 is lanolin-derived, which is wool, so the bottle could say vegetarian but not be vegan.

We live in a disclaimer-filled world, but one more probably won’t fill the internet: check with your health professional to determine suitability of any or all of these – other than “you can buy it,” “it’s liquid,” and “it’s D2″ we’ve done no vetting of these products whatsoever but hope they help speed up your search.

• Meredith pointed out this D2 spray.
• Monica mentioned Dalivit, which looks like it has to be ordered from the UK but doesn’t seem too expensive – here’s one source.
• Jodie left a comment about Drisdol Drops [PDF], which it looks like you can get from any pharmacy.
• Wow, I wish there were more items here! Please let us know what you’ve found in the comments and I’ll update the list!

Once your child has teeth, there are some vegan chewables out there that might be appropriate, including Freeda Vitalets and the VegLife Vegan Kids Multiple [affiliate links].

Depending on what country you live in, you might have access to fortified soy milk (or other plant-based beverages,) but it’s important to note that these aren’t viable nutritional substitutes for breast milk or formula.

Remember – it’s testable

This goes for infants and adults – vitamin D levels in the blood can be measured by your health care people, so if you’re concerned about current levels or your intake plan, it’s pretty straightforward to get a status check (subject to costs for some of you, of course.)

As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t just a vegan problem – the supplement options are just a little more limited, and if there’s nothing available where you are for whatever reason, I think the “do your best” clause we mentioned in the infant formula article would apply. This is also one of those areas where it’d be good to share what you’ve learned with non-vegan parents as well!

What about you? Have you found any products not mentioned here that could bridge the gap? Please share them (along with any other thoughts you might have) in the comments!

Thanks to Amy, Kari, Julie, Meredith, Kim, Monica, Doh, Erin, Elaine, Kelly, Rebecca, Kristie, Sylvia, and Dalyn for their help with this one!

Update May 6/2010: Lisa Tweeted Angela with a reminder about the Toronto Vegetarian Podcast’s interview with Brenda Davis about vitamin D – I haven’t had a listen yet, but they’re good people.

Update Aug 28/2010: The Health Canada link has changed.