PRINTThe little vegetarian
Children around the country are taking on a meat-free diet
Beverly Denny
Asa Pojmann-Ezeonyilo eats tofu and vegetables at her favorite restaurant, Bangkok Gardens. She loves Asian and Mexican food and eats lots of beans and tofu.
July 10, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Asa Pojmann-Ezeonyilo, 8, made the meat-equals-animals connection in 2005, one year after a trip to Africa. Just like she had on most other fast-food excursions, Asa ordered a Happy Meal and was excited to eat her nuggets. But something was different about this particular day. Asa’s older brother, Eze, reminded her about the hundreds of chickens kept in dirty cages that they witnessed on their four-month trip to Nigeria.
Asa is now a self-proclaimed vegetarian, despite the fact that her mother, her father and Eze are all omnivores and always have been. Her mother, Karen Pojmann, recalls her daughter’s transition to vegetarianism: “I started to notice she was eating the breading off of her chicken nuggets and throwing the chicken away. Initially, I was frustrated that she was being finicky and skipping an entire food group, but soon I realized she simply didn’t want to eat meat anymore.”
Three percent of 8- to 18-year-olds in America are vegetarians, according to a 2005 survey by the Vegetarian Resource Group. That translates to 1.4 million meat-free kids, and that doesn’t include the younger children who weren’t surveyed. VRG says this percentage has remained fairly consistent during its 10-year polling history and is likely to remain the same.
Influential ingredients
Dr. Catherine Peterson, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences at MU, agrees with VRG’s polling, but she also says that vegetarianism is not a hot topic right now. “I used to get many more questions on the topic from my students in the ’90s,” Peterson says.
So why all the vegetarian kids? Peterson says these children must be receiving influence from someone or something. Are the parents of these children animal-lovers or vegetarians? What activities are they involved in and what are their friends eating? “Young children model others’ behavior,” Peterson says.
This can be seen with children like Asa and her friend Kahlil. Karen and her two children live in the same building as her boyfriend, Anand Prahlad, and his 8-year-old son Kahlil, with whom they share meals. Karen and Prahlad have moved around the country a bit; both lived in California at separate times. While living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the ’80s, Prahlad was a vegetarian. After reading the book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe, he says, he realized that a meat-free diet was better for the earth. However, when he moved to Columbia in 1990, Prahlad starting eating poultry again. “California offered more creative vegetarian options,” he says, “It wasn’t as easy to have that lifestyle here in Columbia.”
Despite the limited vegetarian options in town, Asa has remained meat-free for almost the entire three years the family has lived here.
During a dinner at Bangkok Gardens in late June, Asa and Kahlil sit next to each other and share vegetables and tofu. Kahlil’s mother, LuAnne Roth, who lives in Columbia, has been a vegetarian for several years. Also, Prahlad’s 22-year-old son, Nick, who lives in New York, has been meat-free all his life. Although the children only see him a once or twice a year, Karen says this may have added a cool factor.
Kahlil decided to be a vegetarian shortly after Asa. But on a recent car ride, following two years of a meat-free diet, Kahlil proclaimed he would start eating meat again. Yet after two weeks, during which he tried shrimp, hot dogs and pepperoni pizza, he returned to a meat-free diet. At this specific dinner, when asked if he was a vegetarian, Kahlil says, “I am today.”
He and Asa are the only family members at Bangkok Gardens eating a vegetarian meal. The two seem to be best friends. They not only share meals but also play with thier chopsticks amd imitate each other. Asa is wearing a racerback tank top that says “Anything I want to be.” When her outfit comes up in conversation, she confidently reads it aloud and adds, “And I will do anything I want to do.”
Although there might be outside influences, kids like Asa and Kahlil are taking a stand for their animal-rights beliefs. Karen Hussar, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, researched vegetarian children ages 6 to 10. What surprised her, she said at the time of the study’s publication in 2006, was that such young kids were able to make independent decisions. “It’s exciting to see how relatively autonomous and independently minded these children are,” said professor Paul Harris in a Harvard press release, who advised Hussar throughout the research. “This means that children are being influenced by other children and going against the tide in their own homes, which are meat-eating homes.”
Like Asa and Kahlil, many of the children that Hussar studied became vegetarians because of their relationships with animals. “Their responses were more about how animals are their friends,” Hussar says. “They could’ve used personal reasons like, ‘I feel healthier,’ or taste reasons like, ‘Bad for my taste buds — it’s really chewy.’”
Hussar looked at kids from vegetarian and non-vegetarian families and also found that vegetarian kids who have meat-eating family members don’t judge. She says it might be hard for young children to be judgmental of their family members because these individuals are their role models.
The Pojmann family fits this description. Asa would never eat Eze’s eel or squid — “It grosses a lot of people out,” she says and laughs — but she never tries to change him or her parents. And the same goes for a neighborhood family that carpools with the Pojmanns. Judson Casto, 11, is a friend of Eze. Judson officially became a vegetarian a year and a half ago, and he is the only one in his family to have made that choice. “It doesn’t bother me when my family members eat meat because it is their own decision,” Judson says.
Asa and Kahlil (center) are the only ones with vegetarian meals at the family dinner. ...
Growing up vegetarian
Vegetarian children don’t face as many challenges in a meat-eating society as might be expected. Asa says finding something to eat is usually easy. She eats pizza at birthday parties, and she goes grocery shopping with her mom for food at home. Fast food’s a little difficult, but she eats salads at McDonald’s and veggie burgers at Burger King. At friends’ houses, finding food can be hard, but her only big concern is school lunches. “After I tell (the cafeteria workers) I’m a vegetarian, the next day, they’re like ‘You have to eat the meat,’” she says. “I tell them again and again and again.”
Yet, Laina Fullum, dietician and director of food services at Columbia Public Schools says children shouldn’t have any problems trying to find healthy, vegetarian options. “I try and mix it up,” Fullum says. “I look at what other school districts are offering and incorporate what will work for our community.” All meat-free students in the district can choose from the salad bar or peanut-butter-and-jelly sack lunches. Elementary students have the option of lunch express, which includes juice, a cheese stick, snack mix and peanut butter crackers. Asa usually opts for a school-bought sack lunch.
Not only did Asa’s lifestyle surface as a problem at school, but Karen also says it was difficult explaining Asa’s choice to her extended family. “A couple of months after she became a vegetarian, my parents took both of my kids on a road trip and tried to convince Asa that she needed to eat meat in order to be healthy,” Karen says. “They seemed to think she was just going through a phase.” But now the family accepts and accommodates Asa’s vegetarianism.
The health debate
The biggest perceived challenge for vegetarian kids is health. Many adults question the viability of such a diet for anyone, let alone for kids. Gretchen Hill, a former MU professor of food science and human nutrition who now teaches at Michigan State University, said vegetarian children could potentially face problems. She’s quoted in a paper published by Vanderbilt University’s psychology department: “My bet is those kids will have health problems when they reach 40, 50 or 60 years of age, mostly because of imbalances with micronutrients, particularly iron, zinc and copper.” She also said vegetarianism can lead to protein deficiency, which can result in stunted growth.
But the American Dietetic Association disagrees. In a 2003 position paper, it stated that an appropriately planned vegetarian diet can be nutritionally adequete. Health benefits include lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein. “Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle,” the paper said, “including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.”
Judson’s mother, Bonnie Cassida, says she struggles to provide her son with a well-balanced meal; he can sometimes be classified as a “carbavore.” However, she strives to give him the nutrients he needs and is confident that vegetarianism can be healthy. “Families all over the world have been successful,” Cassida says. “I want to help him become an individual and support him in making good decisions.”
Karen is also aware of the health debate, and she says her kids get plenty of protein, vitamin D, fruits and vegetables. “I think we’re much more nutrition-conscious than the average mid-Missouri family,” she says. “When we don’t have fruit, Asa complains there’s no food in the house.” Asa was initially reluctant to eat meat-substitutes, such as soy burgers and veggie bacon — “She suspected people were trying to trick her into eating meat,” Karen says — but now she eats those sources of protein.
Karen completely supports her daughter’s decision. “Although it can be inconvenient to try to establish a meat-free diet for a child in a meat-oriented culture, I was proud of her for taking charge of her own sound nutritional choices,” she says.
Asa has been a vegetarian for more than one-third of her life, and she’s happy with her decision. “I think I’m going to be a vegetarian forever,” Asa says.
