PERSONAL HEALTH; Feeding Children off the Spock Menu (original) (raw)
Science|PERSONAL HEALTH; Feeding Children off the Spock Menu
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/30/science/personal-health-feeding-children-off-the-spock-menu.html
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PERSONAL HEALTH
- June 30, 1998
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June 30, 1998
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Section F, Page
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PICTURE a childhood without ice cream or the occasional hot dog or burger at a birthday party or ball game. Picture in their stead organic applesauce, peanut butter and soy patties.
The latter are the kinds of foods children should be fed if they are to grow up lean and healthy, states the most influential book on bringing up children, Dr. Benjamin Spock's ''Baby and Child Care'' (Pocket Books). In a radical shift from previous versions, the seventh edition of this bible of child-rearing advises parents to provide an all-plant, or vegan, diet for children after age 2.
Dr. Spock, who died in March at 94, just weeks before this edition was published, had become a strict vegetarian in 1991, a change that his wife said greatly improved his health and enabled him to complete the revision of his world-famous book, which has guided parents through child-raising for decades.
But what an ailing man near the end of his life is willing to eat (especially when a devoted wife is willing to spend hours a day preparing his meals) is not necessarily what children and their overworked parents could or would readily adopt.
The dietary change recommended would mean getting all protein from plant foods like beans, nuts, tofu and other soy products and seitan, a protein concentrate made from wheat. It would mean relying on vegetables, fortified plant foods and drinks and a daily vitamin-mineral supplement to provide needed amounts of essential nutrients like calcium, iron, zinc and vitamins D and B-12 that are most readily available from animal foods like meat, poultry, fish and milk.
It is not that this way of eating is unhealthy -- quite the opposite. Avoiding the saturated fats and cholesterol in animal foods and consuming lots of fiber and nutrients from vegetables and fruits could go a long way toward reducing problems with heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, gallbladder disease and even some cancers later in life.
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