Illustration of a parent feeding a toddler. (Photo by Andrea Piacquadio of Pexels)
JAKARTA, kilat.com- Head of the Center for Nutrition and Health Studies at UI Ahmad Syafiq, Ir, MSc, PhD, does not recommend parents to adopt a vegan diet for children who are still in the stage of growth and development, especially children under the age of two (baduta).
The reason, said Syafiq, is that animal food is needed to support the child’s growth and development process. If a vegan diet is applied to children, it is feared that the adequacy of micronutrients is not perfect, so parents should not force their children to live a vegan life.
“I don’t agree that vegans are given to children, they still have to eat animal foods. If it’s a vegetarian, okay, let’s say a lacto-vegetarian, so he can still get (animal protein) from milk. So don’t go straight to vegan if the kids are small, vegan is too heavy. That’s my suggestion,” said Syafiq in a virtual webinar, Tuesday.
He said that infants/children aged 6-23 months really need supplementary feeding with animal protein. Syafiq explained that animal food is important for children to consume because it has a density of macro and micro nutrients and contains nutrients that are difficult to find or do not exist in plant foods.
In animal foods, the micronutrients contained are easily absorbed by the body so that iron can be absorbed many times more easily than iron in plant foods. Animal foods also have high protein quality with complete essential amino acids.
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“Then animal foods have a low content of anti-nutrient factors. Anti-nutrient factors are certain substances in plant foods that reduce the absorption of other nutrients, for example in tea there is tannin which inhibits the absorption of iron. in animal food, there is no anti-nutrient factor or if there is, it is low,” explained Syafiq.
Especially in milk, this nutrient source contains insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) which increases height. Not only that, according to a study published in the journal Nature in 2022, animal foods can also reduce the risk of metabolically unhealthy obesity (MUO).
“Eat protein of any kind. But even better protein from animal, it turns out to reduce the risk of obesity, “said Syafiq.
According to Syafiq, a number of studies in Indonesia show a close relationship between insufficient intake of animal protein and stunting and other nutritional problems. He recommends that parents can provide animal foods that include eggs, chicken, fish, beef and milk.
“As one of the intakes with the most complete nutritional sources, milk is a good choice of intake that is easy to consume and is liked by children,” he said.
If a child has an allergy to cow’s milk, Syafiq said parents can choose various milk alternatives, for example hypoallergenic milk whose protein content has been hydrolyzed so that it does not cause allergies when consumed.
“And of course there are many and varied sources of animal protein, so please vary it according to the needs of the child,” said Syafiq. (yes)
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