When I was pregnant with Leon I searched for books on how to raise a vegetarian child. I always figured I'd go back to being a 100% vegetarian when I was pregnant because it was the healthier thing to do, right? I was a vegetarian (but not vegan, so I ate dairy and eggs) for almost 10 years before I became a pescatarian (mostly vegetarian diet with fish/seafood). Then at some point in the last three years I started eating vegetarian with a little bit of everything else.
I was quite surprised when I was pregnant to come across this book "Real Food for Mother and Baby." Instead of finding a vegetarian book to bring me back to my senses, I read Nina Planck's book about how everyone but especially pregnant women, nursing women, and babies should eat meat and other "real foods." Her basic belief is that there are no true natural vegan societies and that even in vegetarian societies (not talking about San Francisco, I'm talking about people who lived centuries ago or "natives" now) pregnant women and children are giving meat-based supplements. She thinks that we eat too much fat free/sugar free/chemically created and processed foods instead of real butter and foods that our ancestors ate.
I agree with her that it's probably more important for our health that we eat organic, whole foods than processed foods, including meat free processed foods. I try to feed Leon everything and let him decide what he likes the best.
Though at some point I'd love to be a self-sufficient vegetarian again. Or at growing most of my own food that isn't purchased at some organic market (definitely one reason I would love to move back to the U.S (or Europe/South Africa) is to be able to buy all organic diary and meat products.
Some day soon!!!!
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