What to do when your vegan child is diagnosed with low iron?

Hi there, it's Gen and welcome to this week's podcast. So this week, we're going to be talking about a really important topic, which is what to do if your child has actually been diagnosed with low iron. Or even if they haven't been diagnosed with low iron. Your child's doctor has just said that they might have low iron because they're vegan. Now, before I get started on that, I just wanted to talk to you about my brand new recipe book that is coming out really soon. It's called Super Boosted Vegan Snacks and it's full of snack recipes that have been specially developed by me and vegan nutritionist to be recipes that your kids love.

And will definitely eat, but that have also been packed full of all the nutrients they need. So they're really high in iron, they're really high in zinc, they are high in protein as well, which isn't a super important nutrient, but I know it is still on people's radar. They also have things like they're packed with veggies for kids who are a bit fussy and don't like to eat their veggies, they're also full of beans as well. So they're really great, really healthy snacks for your kids. And they are ones that they're actually going to eat. So I'm currently testing the recipes. I am now through all of the sweet recipes, which is really exciting and I'm moving on to the savory ones. And I'm hoping to have that out and published by the end of April. 

So it will be a physical book too. It's not just new book, it's a proper physical book that you'll be able to buy. So yeah, that's going to be awesome. And definitely sign up for the waitlist below so you can get all the updates about it and find out when it's already and published. Okay, so let's go back to talking about what to do if your child has been diagnosed with low iron. Now, unfortunately, what tends to happen when vegan kids are diagnosed with low iron, or even if a doctor finds out that your child is vegan, it isn't handled in the right way. 

Generally, when I hear from clients who I work with or just people who talk to me about their vegan kids. Generally, the first thing the doctor tells them is that they need to have red meat for iron, which is completely incorrect. And then normally, the doctor will just prescribe an iron supplement for the kids without doing any actual further testing at all. It makes me really angry when I hear this. And I hear it quite often it happens a lot, because it's really irresponsible of your doctor to be doing this for a couple of reasons. So the first one is low iron actually can be caused by a number of different things. So it can be caused by not having enough iron in your diet, or your child's diet. 

So they might not actually be eating enough high iron food, which is quite common. And yes, it does happen but at the same time, low iron can actually be caused by poor absorption of iron as well. So there are quite a few different digestive disorders, food allergies, celiac disease, and then there are many other more serious diseases, which can also cause poor iron absorption. So, when the doctor is just sitting here and assuming that the reason why your child has low iron is just because it's hard to get iron on a vegan diet, which is incorrect. Then they're completely ignoring the possibility that your child actually may be having trouble absorbing iron. 

I know for me, personally, I have always had low iron, and it never mattered what I ate. I'd have red meat and things and I'd still have low iron. So, obviously, red meat certainly wasn't just fixing the problem for me as a child. And there should have been a lot more investigation and it's only been as an adult and becoming a nutritionist that I have realized that I did actually have a lot of food allergies and intolerances and things, which were actually stopping me from being able to absorb iron. It had absolutely nothing to do with how much iron I was actually getting in. I wasn't able to absorb it properly from the food that I was eating.

Now, one of the other problems is if the doctor just gives you a supplement, you're not actually looking at the cause of low iron, whether it be low amounts of iron in your child diet or something else as well. So the supplement are basically just a band aid solution and I'm gonna go in in a minute into why I really don't like just giving you iron supplements. And it really doesn't help you come up with the solution to why your child has low iron at all. Basically, they're just making you be reliant on supplements, definitely. Now, the other thing is that red meat isn't actually the bean and end all when it comes to iron for kids. 

If you listen to my past episode about can kids actually get enough iron, I talk there about the fact that even omnivores aren't actually supposed to be getting very much of their iron from red meat. It was never intended for anyone to be just getting all of their iron from red meat. And there are plenty of vegan foods, which have a lot more iron than red meat does take cocoa powder for example. I think eleven times higher in iron than red meat is and there are plenty of others, like pumpkin seeds that I talk about a lot, and cashews. And even almond is a really great grain as well, that I'm just doing some recipes and things with at the moment. 

So yeah, there are plenty of other sources of iron and red meat certainly isn't a good solution at all, for anyone really. Now let's talk about iron supplements themselves. Now, iron supplements are often given. And I know that there are a lot of people who just put their kids on iron supplements indefinitely, and a lot of adults who do as well. And doctors will very often just prescribe an iron supplement for low iron without doing any further research as investigation. Sorry, either. But there are a couple of problems with iron supplements, which is why I don't recommend just going for a iron supplements just in case. 

Now, the first thing is that iron supplements to iron, and zinc and calcium are all really closely intertwined in the body. And if you're having too much iron in your diet, or from supplements, especially, it can actually impede the absorption of zinc and calcium. Which are two nutrients that are just as important as iron. In fact, zinc is actually harder to get from a vegan diet. I talked about this in my last week's podcast about zinc. So, if you have too much iron, and especially from supplements, it can actually mean that your child's not getting enough zinc or calcium, or not absorbing enough of that from their diet. Iron can actually be toxic in high doses. 

Now, this is generally very high doses and it is from supplements, and from meat and things. It's not iron, plant based iron. So you don't have to worry about iron in your diet, your body can sort that out if it's all plant based. But if you or your child are having high amounts of iron supplements, it can be toxic. It's really important that you work with a doctor when you're doing iron supplements and don't just take high amounts of iron yourself. And the last thing is giving your child iron supplements doesn't actually solve the problem. You're not finding ways of making sure that they have enough iron in their diet. 

If your child isn't getting enough iron right now, and you supplement them to get them up to the amount that they need. So to get them up to a healthy range either you're going to have to stay on supplements forever, or you're going to stop supplements and the child's iron levels will just go down again, you're not actually solving the problem at all. You're just putting a bandaid solution over it. Now, having said that, there is a place in time for iron supplements, but it is working with your GP. And so rather than just supplementing yourself. So let's talk about what actually should happen when your child is diagnosed with low iron. Now first off, in order to do this, you may need to find a new doctor or GP. You do need to find one who is vegan friendly. They don't have to be vegan, but they do need to appreciate that a vegan diet is healthy for kids. 

Now, if you need some information to give to your doctor to talk to them about it. In the nutrition guide freebie that I will post the link to down below. There is actually a page in there which gives evidence of the nutrition guidelines and some studies and some things from the American Pediatric Association. Talking about the fact that a vegan diet is healthy for kids. So, if you need some evidence, or you want to take something to a doctor that's in there, it's an easy print sheet that you can just take with you and give it to your doctor with evidence. Yeah, as I said, make sure you've got a doctor who you can actually talk to, and you are comfortable giving them this evidence or discussing a vegan diet with them and stuff. 

It's really important because if you don't feel comfortable talking about your child's diet, with your doctor, then things could get missed, and so that's the first thing. Secondly, don't just take iron supplements or decide your child needs to have red meat or whatever, just from your doctor deciding that they need that because they're vegan, I hear so often, of doctors who just put kids on iron supplements simply because they're vegan, they don't test their iron levels, they don't do any of that, they just decide that they need to have a supplement because you can't get enough iron from a vegan diet, that is wrong. So, make sure that you're actually dealing with your child having low iron, and not just a doctor who thinks that they need to have iron. 

So the first step is that you actually need to have your child tested. So, they actually need to be diagnosed with low iron. So then what needs to happen next is you need to have an investigation about whether the low iron is caused by your child not eating enough iron, or not getting enough iron in their diet, or whether it's because they're not absorbing the iron from their diet. So this is a multi step process. So what you need to do is you actually need to go to a nutritionist or a dietitian who is vegan friendly, and they need to actually look at what your child is eating, and determine whether they're actually getting enough iron from what they're eating. 

Now, you'll find there's actually iron in a lot of foods. So although your child may not may not be having a perfect diet of kale and beans and everything, they could actually be getting a decent amount of iron. And so you need to actually look at that, and investigate whether they're getting enough iron. Now, if they're not getting enough iron from their diet, then what you need to do is work with the GP with supplementing, to get them back up to where they need to be. Because if you're iron deficient, it's very difficult to get back up to normal healthy levels of iron without a supplement. So that's where you do need to supplement and you need to be working with your GP to make sure that the supplements are working and that you're getting enough and then that you stop once the levels are high enough. 

But you also need to be working with a nutritionist, or dietitian or using the Snack Book that I am making soon. And actually work on making changes to your child's diet to make sure that they're actually getting enough iron. Because if you don't do this, as I said before, as soon as he stopped the supplementing, their iron levels will just go back down. And then you'll just end up being on supplements permanently. So there are lots and lots of different ways to get enough iron into your child's diet. There are so many things like as I said, my favorites are cocoa powder, and pumpkin safe and cashews. 

But there are so many other ingredients that you can be adding. And so you need to work with a nutritionist or a dietitian who will actually work with you with what your child is eating, and teach you how to make sure that they're getting enough iron in those foods or in foods that your child will actually eat. The other thing also is dietitians and nutritionists who give you just a list of foods. So maybe beans and whole grains and everything, which yeah, they're great foods. But if there's no way of actually getting your child to eat them, that also is not going to actually help you and it's not going to get more iron into their diet either. 

So make sure that it's a nutritionist or a dietitian who will actually work with what your child is eating and works with you to see what you think you can easily get your child to eat. Rather than just giving you a list of foods and just expecting you to figure it all out yourself, which I have heard of happen in the past as well. Now, I do personally offer one on one sessions where I do this for you where I will do an assessment of what your child is eating. And I will then work with you in a session where we will go through what your child eats and we'll come up with foods that your child will eat in order to increase their iron And then I also give you access to over five-hundred high nutrient recipes that you can go through and you've got access to those for 12 months.

So you can kind of work through and work on different ones over time and just see what works to increase the nutrition in your child's diet. And also in ours, we don't just do iron, we work on all the nutrients as well. So yeah, I will put the link for that below, if you want to check that one out, if you want to help from me to work with that. So basically, that's if it turns out that your child isn't getting enough iron. Now, it could also turn out that your child is actually getting a decent amount of iron from their diet. But their iron levels are still low, in which case, this is where you need to go back to your doctor. And you need to say to them that, yes, it looks like they're getting enough iron in their diet. 

So now we need to start investigating other ways that the iron might be low, and other reasons for it, which goes more into the absorption side of things as well. And you really do need a doctor that you can trust in order to do that, because you don't want them just pushing back and saying they're vegan. So obviously, they're not getting enough iron. Yeah. So, if you have a child who has been diagnosed with low iron, it's really important that you don't just get a supplement from the GP and that's all. Make sure that you have a doctor who you can work with, in order to investigate why your child's not getting enough. So as I said, basically, if your child has been diagnosed with low iron, you need to first make sure that they've actually been diagnosed with low iron and it's not just an assumption because you're vegan. 

Then you need to look at their diet and figure out are they getting enough iron from their diet or not. And then if they are, you need to work to supplement with the GP supplement to get them back up to a healthy level. But at the same time, work on actually getting high iron foods into their diet as well so that their levels don't drop down again. And if they do have enough iron in their diet, then you need to go back to the doctor and actually investigate other things like food allergies or celiac disease or things like that. So, I hope that all makes sense, and I hope that will give you the knowledge so that you know what to do if your child has been diagnosed with low iron.