Meeting a Vegan (or Plant-Strong) Toddler’s Daily Nutritional Requirements
When Cassie over at Love Me Vegan posted this list of Daily Nutritional Requirements, I decided to take the time to analyze something I’ve been wondering about for a while–the nutritional content of what my kids are eating. As it turns out, it is pretty easy to meet the daily requirements, and people that question our decision to steer clear of most meat and dairy are off-base.
I have a 1-yr old and a 3-yr old, so I’ve used the figures for that age range. Before anyone gets uppity about meals not being “balanced” or something, I didn’t want to skew my results, so I just used a standard day, rather than trying to be “super-healthy.” I looked at total calories, protein, calcium, and vitamin B-12, since those are nutrients that people always assume vegans are lacking.
Breakfast
Morning Glory Muffin
1 cup Naked brand Green Machine Smoothie
Snack
2 Chocolate Zucchini mini-muffins
1 cup soy milk
Lunch
Fruit squeezie pouch
2 tbsp sliced black olives
Hummus on whole wheat crackers
Raw pumpkin seeds and cashews
Snack
Pretzel sticks with natural peanut butter
Dinner
Green peas
Diced avocado
Bean soup
Snack
Soy yogurt w/ wheat germ
Result: At the end of a standard day, my kids have consumed more than 1,300 calories (recommended daily is 1,000-1,400) and more than 30g of protein (recommended is 13g). Daily calcium and B-12 requirements were easily met, and that was before I gave them their daily multivitamin.
Faster than a speeding couch potato! Able to leap the produce aisle in a single bound! Welcome to Super Veggie Mom, which chronicles my efforts to raise a plant-strong, creative, and bright family while pursuing my own writing and fitness interests. 
This is so great to hear! Thanks for the shout-out as well 🙂
Do your kiddos take any supplements? I’ve started to wonder if Pen should be on a kids’ DHA supp…
Yes, they take Dr. Fuhrman’s Pixie-Vites a couple times a week (http://superveggiemom.com/parenting/choosing-a-multivitamin-for-your-kids/), just as insurance that I’m hitting all the essentials, and they get DHA either from the Silk soy milk with added DHA or the lemon-flavored DHA Purity drops (http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/DHA.aspx).