A mother has sparked a debate after revealing that she is raising her seven-month-old daughter, Oak, on a completely vegan diet.
On TikTok, Natasha Callahan frequently shares videos about her life as a mother, some of which discuss breastfeeding and her daughter’s eating habits.
In one clip posted this month, which has nearly 10,000 views, she noted that she was planning to raise her daughter vegan.
Some viewers in the comments applauded Callahan and shared that they were raising their children to be vegan too.
“We’re a family with two boys, all vegan!!!” one person wrote. “People say to me all the time - do you give your kids a choice and I reply, do you??”
“Amazing,” another wrote. “Good for u!!! So many people are uneducated and so quick to judge. U got my support girl!”
However, many viewers disagreed with Callahan and claimed that babies rely on meat to get the nutrients they need.
“Babies need meat,” one comment reads. “One day when they grow up older they will start eating meat.”
Other viewers claimed that Oak wasn’t old enough to decide what she wants to eat, with one viewer responding: “Surely it should be her choice whether she is vegan or not and if she’s not old enough to decide then she shouldn’t be.”
On TikTok, Callahan shared a video responding to this comment, in which she said that it didn’t make sense to her that this viewer thought Oak was “not old enough to be vegan but is [old enough] to decide to eat meat”.
“You make decisions for your kids I make decisions for mine,” she wrote in the caption.
Callahan has continued to share videos about her daughter’s eating habits, including one that shows all the nutrients Oak gets from plant-based foods. In the clip, Callahan showed a photo of the top 25 vegan foods with the most protein, some of which are peanut butter, flax seeds, and oats.
Although Callahan wants her daughter’s diet to be vegan for now, she told Good Morning America on January 18 that her daughter can decide when she’s older if she wants to continue being vegan.
"If she comes to me and says I don’t want to be vegan, then she doesn’t have to be vegan anymore,” Callahan revealed.
Callahan also opened up to GMA about the many negative comments she’s received on her TikTok videos, with the TikToker revealing that there were “people telling us I was being selfish and abusing my child because I’m not giving her meat”.
She continued: “And then there was other people saying: ‘Don’t be silly, it’s a great thing.’”
As noted by Healthline, babies between zero to 12 months old don’t necessarily have to eat meat, fish, or dairy to stay healthy.
“In general, it’s safe and healthy to offer a plant-based diet [for this age range],” paediatric dietitian Amy Chow, RD said.
“Protein is usually met through a vegan diet, but only if animal proteins are adequately replaced by plant-based proteins (ie beans, peas, lentils, tofu, nut/seed butters),” she added.
Chow noted that one limitation with plant-based foods is that they contain less iron than meat does. However, in this case, there are still ways for babies to get the vitamins and nutrients they need with a vegan diet.
“Combine non-heme iron (ie lentils, peas, beans, ground seeds, seed butters, tofu) with a source of vitamin C, use a cast iron pan for cooking, and offer iron-fortified baby cereal,” Chow explained.
The Independent has reached out to Callahan for a comment.
