Hi I'm 13 years old and I have interest in vegetarianism?

Question

I'm 13 years old and I am interested in vegetarianism

my parents are against it and I plan to go to see my doctor in a few days to tell him..

the thing is I need help balancing out my vitamins like I know I need B12, protein, and iron but how can I get alternate sources without eating meat?

and how do I convince my parents what I am doing is healthy?

and will I stunt my growth without eating meat?

thanks guys <3

Answer 1

There is nothing wrong with being vegetarian but you do need most of those vitamins. You need to eat a lot of vegetables to get those vitamins in your system.

Answer 2

YAY!

I became a vegetarian when I was 12. Lucky for me, my parents were very supportive.

Good idea talking to your doctor. He might be able to recommend a good multi vitamin you can take.

Eat lots of lentils, beans, dark veggies and soy (but not too much of this!) Amy&#039;s Kitchen makes delicious frozen vegetarian entrees that I love, go to your supermarket and look for them. Also look for Boca, Smart Life and Morningstar prodcuts.

Smart life makes meat subsituties that are delicious and full of protein and really low calorie. I got their hot dogs and each one is 50 calories. My brothers got real hot dogs, each was 180 calories and they had the SAME amount of protein per dog. I had two dogs and got double the protein for almost have the calories.

You won&#039;t stunt your growth without meat, unless you live on soda and chips. Eat the things I recommended and take a multi vitamin and you&#039;ll be fine.

Now, your parents. After you talk to your doctor, ask if he can talk to your parents. He should know that a vegetarian diet is healthy, and if you eat smart you can be even healthier than an omnivore.

If that still doesn&#039;t convince them, show them this question and the answers you&#039;ve gotten.

If you need any food tips or parent tips, please email me. I love when we can add a new veg to the bunch!!

Answer 3

I don&#039;t recommend that you talk to a &quot;doctor&quot; about this. Most of them are complete morons when it comes to nutrition.

You need to see a registered dietitian. If you find a dietitian that says vegetarianism is unhealthy, you&#039;ve found a dud and you need to find someone that isn&#039;t a lazy moron and can keep up with modern diet research.

Bread, pasta, cereal, rice, beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, fruits and veggies can easily offer everything that you need except B12.

http://www.veganhealth.org/sh

http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo

All vegetarians should take a B12 supplement regularly since most people eat meat, dairy AND fortified cereals yet still have a B12 status that is lower than recommended.

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/b12

It may help you if you see proof that vegetarians have the same potential as anyone else.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sto...

http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/phpBB2/...

http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/phpBB2/...

http://www.macdanzig.net/bio.php

http://www.scottjurek.com/career.php

If you need meat or dairy during any stage of your life or to live any certain lifestyle, why does the American Dietetic Association say otherwise?

http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada...

Answer 4

hey,

make sure your parents understand that you will eat all of the vitamins you need everyday, by eating fake meats, dairy (if your not going vegan), veggies and fruits, and more. give your parents a bunch of facts about why vegetarianism is good (get some good ones from the internet), and they shouldn&#039;t have a problem.  

Answer 5

First of all, by your comments, you know little about vegetarianism to start with.

B12 can be gotten from a regular healthy diet.  No need for B12 supplements unless your diet is totally devoid of it somehow.  B12 comes from the poo of one-celled organisms.

Protein is found in every living thing, on this planet at least.  We don&#039;t even need to eat protein -- human bodies make proteins from amino acids.  Any whole proteins we consume are first broken down into amino acids before being absorbed and used by the body.  Where do all the other herbivore animals get their protein?

Iron, same thing.  You can find iron all over the place.

Seeing a doctor... well, if you are lucky the doctor will not be a total ignoramus and will say, &quot;Yeah, so what?&quot;  My friend went to the doctor and her father was all ready to say &quot;My daughter is a vegetarian!&quot; implying that that&#039;s why she&#039;s sick.  The doctor said, &quot;So what.&quot;  Remember, there are a billion people all over the world that are vegan or vegetarian from birth to old age.  In the little country of Taiwan there are about 3-million.  So, imagine how many hundreds of millions of people there in India and China alone that are vegetarian from birth to old age death.  Lots.  There are famous actors, athletes, politicians (there a president of a European country that&#039;s vegan), and so on.  And it&#039;s nothing new.  Vegetarianism is very very old.  Meat is not our natural food, after all.

You can find info in the library.

If the doctor doesn&#039;t help, try another, or start asking around school and find the other vegetarians that are around there and see what they say, and how they deal with their parents etc.

Answer 6

I think you are making a great choice!! :)

I&#039;m 15 and was trying to be a vegetarian for like.. a year and a half. now i&#039;ve been a vegetarian for about 5 months.

I love it.

The first time I tryed to be a vegetarian, my parents didn&#039;t really support me and it was pretty hard so i was just eating &#039;less meat&#039; not a full vegetarian. now my mom fully supports me, and we have been trying lots of vegetarian recipes and making sure I get the protien I need. She has even started eating less meat, but she&#039;s not a vegetarian, which is good enough for me!

I love tofu and boca burgers and stuff like that.

I got my protien level tested, and I was just fine but I still decided to take a teen multivitamin, which I got from GNC. I just take that daily, even though I dont really need to.

there are tons of different meat substitutes and ways to get your vitamins and protien.

you will NOT stunt your growth without eating meat, that is a myth.

here are some things that might help in convincing your parents that being a vegetarian is healthy and healthier than a meat diet even!!

http://www.yourlifesource.com/myths.htm

if you do some work and show that you are responsible by researching how being a vegetarian would benefit your life, your parents would probably be more likely to listen to you and appreciate your opinions. they should be listening to your opinions in the first place, but they are your parents and if they really think that being a vegetarian isn&#039;t whats best for you, i&#039;m sorry,

but i think you can convince them. maybe try saying that you can just try it out for like... one month and see how it goes and see what they say from there. you could go get your protien levels tested and if you&#039;re doing good then you could go from there... It&#039;s really not that hard and you could tell your parents that you&#039;ll cook you&#039;re own meals, since you won&#039;t be eating meat.

you could say that you&#039;ll be responsible for your meals (just make sure your parents agree to buying you the groceries you need, otherwise you&#039;ll have to use your own money.. you could babysit).

you might have to do some reading, but if you make a list of pros and cons and show it to your parents, it could show how responsible you are that you would actually go and research into the topic. you could make a little thing that shows the pros, cons, and benefits and reasons on why you want to become one and show it to them or talk about it with them. my main reason is health reasons, it reduces risks of heart diseases, etc... and also animal cruelty is another reason I have. and all the stuff they put in the meat, the growth horomones and the bad stuff that goes into your body, and also the risks of E. Coli, etc.. my friend became a vegetarian for the reason of the risk of E. Coli for her cousin who got E. Coli from undercooked meat at McDonalds or some place like that.

just look here for some reasons you can mention to them:

here are 22 reasons to go vegetarian:

1 You&#039;ll live a lot longer. Vegetarians live about seven years longer, and vegans (who eat no animal products) about 15 years longer than meat eaters, according to a study from Loma Linda University. These findings are backed up by the China Health Project (the largest population study on diet and health to date), which found that Chinese people who eat the least amount of fat and animal products have the lowest risks of cancer, heart attack and other chronic degenerative diseases. And a British study that tracked 6,000 vegetarians and 5,000 meat eaters for 12 years found that vegetarians were 40 percent less likely to die from cancer during that time and 20 percent less likely to die from other diseases.

2 You&#039;ll save your heart. Cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer in the United States, and the standard American diet (SAD) that&#039;s laden with saturated fat and cholesterol from meat and dairy is largely to blame. Children as young as age 3 who are raised on fast food and junk food show early signs of heart disease, according to the Bogalusa Heart Study done at the Louisiana State University. Cardiovascular disease is found in one in nine women aged 45 to 64 and in one in three women over 65. Heart attacks are also deadlier to the fairer s*x: 53 percent of women who have heart attacks die from them, compared with 47 percent of men. Today, the average American male eating a meat-based diet has a 50 percent chance of dying from heart disease. His risk drops to 15 percent if he cuts out meat; it goes to 4 percent if he cuts out meat, dairy and eggs. Partly responsible is the fact that fruits and vegetables are full of antioxidant nutrients that protect the heart and its arteries. Plus, produce contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. Incidentally, cholesterol levels for vegetarians are 14 percent lower than meat eaters.

3 You can put more money in your mutual fund. Replacing meat, chicken and fish with vegetables and fruits is estimated to cut food bills by an avera

Answer 7

PROTEIN

Protein is found in beans, nuts, seed, lentils, meat substitutes, potatoes, etc.

It isn’t necessary to EAT protein, which then has to be broken down before it can be assimilated.  What the body needs is amino acids- the building blocks of protein.  Most amino acids are made by the recycling of old tissues, without any effort on your part whatsoever.  Of the ones which must be obtained through diet, ALL are present in plant foods.

Most people (in the U.S. especially) consume far too much protein, which puts a great deal of stress on the kidneys, prevents absorption of calcium, and can lead to an accumulation of toxins in the liver.

Outside of famine conditions, protein deficiency is all but unheard of.  Generally speaking, if you consume enough calories, you’re getting enough “protein.”

IRON

Show your parents this table:

• tofu, 1/2 cup firm (13.2 mg)

• raisin bran, ready-to-eat, 3/4 cup (4.5 mg)

• sirloin steak, cooked, 3 oz (2.9 mg)

• shrimp, cooked, 3 oz (2.6 mg)

• black beans, boiled, 1/2 cup (1.8 mg)

• chickpeas, canned, 1/2 cup (1.6 mg)

• turkey breast, 3 oz (0.9 mg)

• bread, whole wheat, 1 slice (0.9 mg)

• chicken breast, skinless, 1/2 breast (0.9 mg)

• pinto beans, boiled 1/2 cup (2.2 mg)

Point out that per serving, tofu has more iron than steak, and that beans have more iron than poultry.

Or this website:

http://www.bloodindex.org/iron_rich_food...

Teenagers only require between 8 and 11 mg of iron per day. This is easily obtained with one cup of fortified breakfast cereal, or one serving of tofu.

B-12

B-12 is found in eggs, fortified breakfast cereals and dairy products. Unless you&#039;re going vegan, don&#039;t worry about it.