Vegans banning parents from caring for grandkids because they can’t be trusted with food choices

It’s a lifestyle that’s devoted to making better life choices, but veganism is tearing families apart, with some grandparents banned from seeing their grandkids if they break family vegan rules.

Audrey Mae Kasa is a vegan but her husband Kane eats meatbut they live together in harmony. Picture: Andrew Tauber

Families are at war over veganism with relationships fracturing over the lifestyle change and grandparents who break strict food rules banned from feeding their grandkids.

A Deakin University researcher studying the relationship impacts of veganism has found conflict is most common in couples where only one person had become vegan.

Alexa Hayley said there was also often “conflict and angst” between parents raising their children as vegans and grandparents who did not support it and fed their grandkids meat, dairy or eggs.

“When grandparents babysit the kids and feed them non-vegan foods, parents can get very distressed by this because there’s this element of feeling that their children have been contaminated,” Dr Hayley said. “It is something which comes up repeatedly and it can lead to a loss of trust.”

Some vegan parents made the difficult choice to stop leaving their children alone with grandparents because they were so concerned about the food which could be served, she said.

“Sometimes they say they won’t be taking the kids back there again because they can’t trust them to look after them, which is really sad because you can see the grandparents are honestly just thinking that the grandkids are lacking something and wanting to feed them,” Dr Hayley said.

Audrey Kasa, a vegan, and her husband Kane, a meat-eater, manage to live in harmony, despite their different diets. Picture Andrew Tauber

When it came to couples quarrelling over food choices, the friction was often the result of recently “converted” vegans’ struggling to accept their partners did not share their new world view, she said.

“It can cause major relationship conflicts between two adults because the vegan may feel that they have had this moral awakening, that they’ve had this great insight, and struggle to understand why others don’t see things the same way.”

Doncaster mum Audrey Kasa, who is raising her two and three year old boys on a vegan diet, said she was fortunate to have a family who supported her decision.

Despite being a meat eater himself the boys’ father now recognised a vegan diet could be healthy if well-planned, she said.

Ms Kasa, 27, visited a dietitian for guidance on her boys’ diet and said they were thriving as vegans.

A psychology lecturer and vegan herself, Dr Hayley has been studying online vegan forums and support groups for the past two years and is also researching how vegan diets affect brain function and memory in adults.

A vegan diet can be healthy for children, if it includes lots of nutrient-rich vegetables, fruit, legumes, seeds and good fats, say nutrition experts.

Professor Karen Campbell from the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) said it was possible to raise healthy children on a vegan diet, as long as parents were knowledgeable about nutrition and ensured growing kids were getting all the nutrients they needed.

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Vitamin and mineral supplements could be valuable in ensuring vegan children remained healthy, as could be adding a small amount of orange or lemon juice to dark green vegetables, to help with iron absorption, and buying fortified nut and soy milks, cereals and other foods.

But Prof. Campbell stressed it was vitally important vegan parents did not make bad diet choices for their babies or young children by substituting homemade baby formulas for breast milk or tinned baby formula.

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