What to actually put on the plate
The stage-by-stage guide tells you which nutrients matter and what to supplement. This page answers the question that comes next, and the one parents actually ask at five o’clock: what does a day of food look like? Portions, servings, and real meals, from first solids to seventeen.
How to use this page
Everything here is built on the VegPlate Junior, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2019 by Baroni, Goggi, and Battino. It is, as far as I know, the only peer-reviewed food guide designed specifically for vegetarian and vegan children from six months to seventeen years. Rather than invent portions, I have used theirs and built meals around them.
A word on how to hold this. A serving count is a planning tool, not a rule your child has to hit. Children self-regulate across days, not meals, and a toddler who eats almost nothing on Tuesday and enormous amounts on Wednesday is a normal toddler. Use the tables to see whether a typical week looks roughly right, not to audit a single dinner. Two honest caveats: the VegPlate was calibrated to Italian reference intakes, so treat the calorie bands as approximate anchors rather than targets for your specific child, and it plans food groups, not individual nutrients, which is why the supplements on this page are listed separately and are not optional.
What counts as one serving
This is the part most guidance leaves out, and without it a serving count is useless. These sizes come from the VegPlate system, chosen so that servings within a group carry roughly the same calories.
| Group | One serving is |
|---|---|
| Grains | 1 slice of wholegrain bread (30 g) · 30 g dry grains, pasta, bulgur or couscous (about a third of a cup dry) · 3/4 cup ready-to-eat cereal · 1 egg-sized potato (120 g) · 1 cup (200 mL) of a cereal-based plant milk |
| Protein-rich foods | 30 g dry legumes (2 Tbsp) · 80 g tofu or tempeh (about a third of a cup) · 1 cup (200 mL) soy milk · 125 g soy yoghurt · 30 g meat analogue |
| Vegetables | 100 g cooked or raw · half a cup of vegetable juice |
| Fruit | 1 medium piece (150 g) · 150 g cooked or sliced · 30 g dried · 3/4 cup juice |
| Nuts and seeds | 30 g nuts or seeds (3 Tbsp) · 30 g nut or seed butter (3 Tbsp) |
| Fats | 1/2 Tbsp (5 g) oil or soft spread |
| Calcium-rich foods | Roughly 125 mg of calcium per serving. A fortified plant milk or yoghurt usually counts double. Calcium-set tofu, low-oxalate greens, almonds, sesame, and dried figs all count. |
| Omega-3-rich foods | 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed (10 g) · 1.5 Tbsp ground chia (15 g) · 3 Tbsp walnuts (30 g) · 1/2 Tbsp flaxseed oil |
Nuts and seeds for young children must be ground or served as a smooth butter, never whole, until around age four or five. See the choking guidance in the parenting guide.
First solids
Breast milk or formula stays the foundation through the first year and continues on demand until at least twelve months. Solids are added alongside it, not instead of it. The amounts below are what the VegPlate Junior suggests offering daily at this stage, spread across meals and snacks.
| Food group | About 6 months | About 8 months | About 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grains | 1 serving | 2 servings | 3 servings |
| Protein-rich foods | 1 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Vegetables | 1 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Fruit | 1 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Nuts and seeds (ground) | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1 |
| Fats | 1 | 2 | 3 |
A day at around 8 months. Breakfast: a few spoons of iron-fortified infant cereal made up with breast milk or formula, with a teaspoon of smooth almond butter stirred through and a little mashed pear. Lunch: well-cooked red lentils mashed with peeled, soft-cooked carrot and a drizzle of olive oil. Snack: a strip of soft ripe avocado or a little smooth soy yoghurt. Dinner: mashed potato with finely mashed peeled chickpeas, a spoon of soft-cooked broccoli, and half a teaspoon of ground flaxseed. Breast milk or formula on demand throughout.
- Introduce solids between about seventeen and twenty-six weeks, not before.
- Iron-fortified infant cereals are genuinely useful in the first two years; this is the one stage where fortified processed food earns its place.
- Peel and strain generously. Fibre is the enemy of a small stomach right now, see below.
- No cow’s milk or plant milk as a main drink before twelve months. Fortified soya can go into cooking from six months.
Toddlers
The VegPlate Junior plans this age across roughly 800 to 1,500 calories a day depending on size and activity. The middle of that range looks like this.
| Group | Around 1,000 kcal | Around 1,200 kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Grains | 4 servings | 5 |
| Protein-rich foods | 3 | 3 |
| Vegetables | 2 | 2 |
| Fruit | 2 | 2 |
| Nuts and seeds | 1 | 1 |
| Fats | 3 | 4 |
| Calcium-rich foods | 3 | 3 |
| Omega-3-rich foods | 2 | 2 |
A day at two years old. Breakfast: porridge made with fortified soy milk, mashed banana, a teaspoon of ground flaxseed. Morning snack: a few cubes of calcium-set tofu and some soft fruit. Lunch: small pasta shells with red lentil and tomato sauce, a spoon of olive oil stirred in, steamed broccoli florets. Afternoon snack: fortified soy yoghurt with smooth peanut butter swirled through. Dinner: mashed sweet potato, well-cooked white beans, wilted spinach with a squeeze of lemon, a slice of wholegrain bread.
Notice the shape of that day: every meal has a protein anchor, a calcium source, and something calorie-dense. That is the rule from the parenting guide, made concrete. Toddlers eat small amounts often, so five or six eating occasions is normal and better than three large ones.
Young children
Roughly 1,200 to 1,800 calories a day at this age.
| Group | Around 1,400 kcal | Around 1,600 kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Grains | 6 servings | 7 |
| Protein-rich foods | 4 | 4 |
| Vegetables | 3 | 3 |
| Fruit | 3 | 3 |
| Nuts and seeds | 1 | 1 |
| Fats | 4 | 5 |
| Calcium-rich foods | 4 | 4 |
| Omega-3-rich foods | 2 | 2 |
A day at five years old. Breakfast: fortified cereal with soy milk and berries. Lunch: hummus and grated carrot in a wholemeal wrap, cherry tomatoes quartered lengthwise, an apple, a small handful of ground-almond flapjack. Snack: soy yoghurt and a satsuma. Dinner: chickpea and vegetable curry with rice, a spoon of ground walnuts stirred into the sauce, sliced cucumber. Fortified plant milk with dinner.
School age
Roughly 1,500 to 2,500 calories a day. This is the stage with the most daily feeding decisions, five packed lunches a week among them.
| Group | Around 1,800 kcal | Around 2,200 kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Grains | 8 servings | 10 |
| Protein-rich foods | 5 | 5 |
| Vegetables | 3 | 4 |
| Fruit | 3 | 4 |
| Nuts and seeds | 1 | 2 |
| Fats | 5 | 6 |
| Calcium-rich foods | 4 | 5 |
| Omega-3-rich foods | 2 | 2 |
Five packed lunches that hold up. Each of these pairs a substantial base with a fruit, a calcium source, and something energy-dense, which is the lunchbox equivalent of the toddler rule.
- Monday. Hummus and salad wrap, fortified soy yoghurt, grapes quartered lengthwise, seed bar.
- Tuesday. Pasta salad with white beans, sweetcorn, and olive oil dressing; an orange; a fortified soy milk carton.
- Wednesday. Peanut butter and banana on wholegrain bread, cherry tomatoes, a flapjack, fortified plant milk.
- Thursday. Falafel and tabbouleh in a pitta, apple slices with a small pot of nut butter, soy yoghurt.
- Friday. Tofu and cucumber sushi rolls or rice bowl, edamame, mandarin, a handful of ground-nut cookies.
Teenagers
Needs climb steeply here, roughly 2,100 to 3,200 calories from eleven to fourteen, and up to 3,600 for older, active adolescents. Under-eating is the most common mistake at this age, on any diet.
| Group | Around 2,400 kcal | Around 3,000 kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Grains | 11 servings | 14 |
| Protein-rich foods | 6 | 7 |
| Vegetables | 4 | 5 |
| Fruit | 4 | 5 |
| Nuts and seeds | 2 | 3 |
| Fats | 6 | 8 |
| Calcium-rich foods | 5 | 5 |
| Omega-3-rich foods | 2 | 2 |
A day at fifteen, training most days. Breakfast: large bowl of oats with fortified soy milk, peanut butter, banana, ground flaxseed. Mid-morning: two slices of toast with hummus, a handful of walnuts. Lunch: burrito bowl with rice, black beans, grilled tofu, avocado, salsa, plus a fortified soy milk. Afternoon: trail mix and dried figs. Dinner: tempeh stir-fry with noodles, plenty of vegetables, sesame oil and seeds. Evening: soy yoghurt with granola. Nothing exotic, just more of it.
Protein powders are not needed here and carry a real drawback: independent testing has repeatedly found plant-based powders higher in lead and cadmium than whey. Food gets a teenager to the same place. More in the full protein breakdown.
The fibre problem, and why the youngest children are different
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it runs against instinct. For adults, the bulk and fibre of whole plant foods is the whole point. For a child under two, it is a liability. A small stomach can reach fullness long before it reaches the calories and protein that growth requires, and excess fibre also binds minerals like iron and zinc that are already harder to absorb from plants.
So for roughly six to twenty-four months, deliberately lower the fibre and raise the energy density: peel fruit and vegetables, strain or mash pulses to remove skins, use some refined grains alongside wholegrains rather than wholegrain everything, and add fat freely, oil into purees, nut butter into porridge, avocado into anything. This is not a compromise on the diet. It is the diet correctly adapted to a body that is growing faster than at any later point in life. From around two years, gradually move back toward wholegrains and whole pulses.
The daily non-negotiables
Food groups cover most of the ground. These do not come from the plate reliably enough to leave to chance.
- Vitamin B12. Never skipped, at any age. Doses by age are in the supplement guide.
- Vitamin D. 400 IU daily for infants under one; 600 IU from one year onward.
- DHA. The VegPlate Junior’s corrigendum is specific: all children from six months to three years should have a 100 mg per day DHA supplement derived from microalgae, regardless of the type of diet they follow.
- Iodine. From iodised salt or a measured supplement. Not from kelp, which can deliver many times the safe upper limit in a single serving.
- Calcium and omega-3s come from the food groups above, but only if you actually hit those servings. They are the two most commonly missed.
On protein, the VegPlate Junior builds in what the research supports: because plant protein is digested slightly less efficiently, its plans raise protein above the standard reference intake by roughly 10 to 15 percent. If your child is eating the protein-rich servings in the tables above, that is already handled.
Where this fits
This page is the how. The stage-by-stage parenting guide is the what and the why, including supplements, growth, social situations, and what to watch for. The full evidence guide is where every claim is cited to the study behind it.
Sources
- Baroni L, Goggi S, Battino M. Planning Well-Balanced Vegetarian Diets in Infants, Children, and Adolescents: The VegPlate Junior. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2019;119(7):1067–1074. (Serving counts by age and calorie level, and the infant feeding amounts, come from this paper.) DOI
- Corrigendum to the above. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2020;120(7):1256. (Source of the microalgae DHA wording and the breastmilk and formula clarification.) DOI
- Baroni L, Goggi S, Battino M. VegPlate: A Mediterranean-Based Food Guide for Italian Adult, Pregnant, and Lactating Vegetarians. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2018;118(12):2235–2243. (Source of the serving sizes.) DOI
- Baroni L, Goggi S, Battaglino R, et al. Vegan Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Practical Tools for Healthcare Providers. Nutrients. 2019;11(1):5. DOI
Last reviewed: September 2026. Serving counts and infant amounts are taken directly from the VegPlate Junior tables; the meals are my own, built to fit them.
This page is for general information and education, not personalized medical advice. Portion guidance is a planning tool, not a prescription, and children vary enormously. 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.