Why Parents Should Keep Children Meat and Dairy Free

Ever since I wrote my first edition of Baby and Child Care in 1946, I have always emphasized the need for lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole-grain cereals. However, because dairy products and meats have been considered ideal foods for so long, I was hesitant to talk about their hidden disadvantages. What changed my mind was an episode in my own medical history.

My Encounter with Heart Disease

In 1988, I fainted while crossing the lobby of a hotel and spattered the marble floor with blood. After a week-long hospitalization, it was concluded that my condition was partly due to the irregular rhythm of my heart (atrial fibrillation), a familial condition I’d had for several years. Also, I had a supposed narrowing of arteries in my brain from arteriosclerosis, which had stopped or interfered with the heartbeat enough to allow blood to clot in my heart. A piece of the clot presumably broke off and plugged an artery of my brain long enough to cause the faint. Not long afterward, I had a brief episode of speaking gibberish instead of English. I was put on a digitalis medication to slow and steady the heartbeat and given a pacemaker to substitute for my heart if it decided to stop again. That my mother and two sisters died of strokes was enough to remind me that I am mortal, a fact that I had ignored until then.

Without any particular intention on our part, my wife Mary and I were introduced to a macrobiotic counselor. Macrobiotics is a form of vegetarianism that was originally formulated in Japan on the basis of their traditional diet and brought to the West by George Osawa. It consists of a strong emphasis on whole grains, vegetables, and legumes and an avoidance of not only meats and poultry but dairy products, too.

I had a miserable year before this episode in the hotel lobby, with almost constant bronchitis, requiring antibiotics, and a weakening and loss of coordination in my legs, which had made walking and standing increasingly difficult as I came into my late eighties. My neurologist said there was no cure and that it would be progressive.

I Lost Fifty Pounds

So, we said, “Let’s give the diet a try.” In the four years since then, I have had only a couple respiratory infections and a very gradual improvement in my legs instead of a further progression of the symptoms. Involuntarily, I lost fifty pounds in three months from the lack of fat in my diet.

Since this change, I have been thrown in with a number of cardiologists, oncologists (tumor specialists), internists, neurologists, pediatricians, and their patients, who have converted to various forms of a vegetarian diet. Not all of their diets are macrobiotic, yet they are conducive to health in general and serve to inhibit and even, in some cases, reverse coronary heart disease, strokes, and certain forms of cancer. I’ve met a few people whose coronary heart disease and cancer were reversed even though, despite surgery, they had been close to death. Such arrests of fatal diseases are extremely impressive.

The Problem with Animal Fat

It was assumed by many people in the past that a vegetarian diet was merely an obsession of a few people with an exaggerated, sentimental love of animals or a fear of being poisoned by meat. In recent years, we’ve discovered that a high-fat diet, which means eating relatively large amounts of meat, dairy products, and fried foods, is the main cause of arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, stroke, certain forms of cancer, and obesity. Before this was discovered, nutritionists, professionals, and parents worried that a diet low in dairy products and meat might bring about deficiencies, especially regarding calcium, protein, and other nutrients needed for children’s growth. Studies have since shown that if diets are planned sensibly, as all diets should be, protein, calcium, and growth needs will be well covered by a diet of varied whole grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits. (When children learn to love an animal-based diet and want it for the rest of their lives, heart disease, stroke, and cancer pose much greater danger.)

What’s the answer? The overall aim in early childhood should be to steer children away from an animal-based diet and favor a largely plant-based diet; this way, the child will become used to foods at an adaptable age. Even if the child rebels in adolescence, there is a good chance of their returning to a plant-based diet in adulthood, especially if the parents set that example.

This article has been adapted from New Century Nutrition—a former health internet site and publication developed under the leadership of Dr. T. Colin Campbell—and edited for consistency with CNS editorial guidelines.

T. Colin Campbell, PhD