Raise a healthy, kind, thriving child on plants. Here is exactly how.
A practical, science-backed guide for parents and parents-to-be, from pregnancy through the day they move out, alongside a year of interviews with real families doing it, curated books and resources, and a community of vegan parents, lifelong vegans, and health professionals.
Find your stage
Every stage has its own priorities. Pick where you are and jump straight to the foods, the supplements, and the practical advice for that moment.
Pregnancy
Eat generously, pair iron with vitamin C, and supplement B12, vitamin D, folate, iodine, and algal DHA. A plant-rich pregnancy may even be protective.
Read the pregnancy guideBreastfeeding and newborn
A well-nourished, supplemented vegan mother’s milk is broadly comparable to anyone else’s. The one supplement every breastfed baby needs, on any diet, is vitamin D.
Read the newborn guideStarting solids
Iron-rich first foods, energy-dense additions like nut butters and avocado, a little less fibre, and B12 as milk feeds decrease.
Read the weaning guideToddlers and preschoolers
Small, frequent, energy-dense meals with a protein anchor and a calcium source at every one. The golden age for building a wide palate.
Read the toddler guideSchool age
Packed lunches with pride, real cooking skills, and calcium and iron kept in view. Vegan kids in the research eat more of what every child should.
Read the school-age guideTeens and leaving home
Iron, calcium, and protein for the growth spurt, honest conversations about identity and food, and a young adult who leaves home still taking B12.
Read the teen guideWant it all on one page? See the supplement cheat-sheet by age and the seven feeding habits that help kids love vegetables, or download the whole thing as a printable PDF.
Why vegan, in one minute
Less of the disease that shortens lives
Well-planned vegan diets are consistently linked to lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, and artery disease begins forming in childhood, which is why the early years matter.
The health evidenceValues your child already has
Research shows most young children extend real moral concern to animals, and that the idea animals matter far less is learned later. A vegan home lets them keep the kindness they were born with.
What children already feelA world worth inheriting
Livestock use roughly four fifths of the world’s farmland to supply less than a fifth of its calories. Eating plants directly is the single biggest lever a family has.
The planet evidenceMeet the families
For a full year I sat down with a different family every week: lifelong vegans, parents raising children vegan from the very start, and the doctors and dietitians who help them. If the science is the why and the guide is the how, these families are the proof.
Open the full Raising Children Vegan playlist on YouTube (82 videos and growing).
Resources
Books and guides
Dietitian-written nutrition guides for families, picture books that do the values work gently, and reads for teens, all curated and reviewed.
Browse booksAll resources
Recipes, stories, tools, and more from vegan parents and professionals. Members can add their own.
See all resourcesKid-friendly vegan places
Restaurants, sanctuaries, and family-friendly spots that welcome vegan kids, listed by location.
Find placesMembers can add a resource or add a place.
You are not doing this alone
Join vegan parents, lifelong vegans, and health professionals who have already signed up. Share your family’s story on your profile, add the books and places that helped you, and connect with people raising children the same way.
Why this site exists
Nothing is more important than our children and their future. Since 2017, through VeganLinked, I have met and interviewed hundreds of long-time vegan doctors, dietitians, lifelong vegans, and multigenerational vegan families. What I have seen is consistent with the totality of the evidence: the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has stated across successive position papers that appropriately planned vegan diets are healthful and nutritionally adequate, its 2016 position extending that explicitly to pregnancy, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Yet most parents have never heard any of it. This site exists to change that, honestly: the affirmative case, the practical how-to at every stage, and the real families who prove it works.
Everything here is for general information and education, not personalized medical advice. For guidance specific to your family, consult a physician, registered dietitian, or nutritionist, ideally one who practices lifestyle medicine, since that field is evidence-based and works with your values rather than against them. Bring any questions or concerns to them, especially during pregnancy and your child’s first two years.