Children setting a good example
August 6th, 2009 by admin
Tuesday’s Miami Herald included a story about an advertising campaign by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The campaign features a Miami third grader, Jasmine Messiah, on posters going up in Washington, D.C. train stations (the ads are an effort to persuade Congress to require schools across the country to offer students more low-fat vegetarian and vegan lunch options).
8-year-old Jasmine is a vegetarian who “counts as her favorite foods grapes, apples, oranges and Caesar salad.”
A story in Wednesday’s St. Petersburg Times, profiled Brooke English, a 6-year-old vegetarian who likes pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, olives and lima beans, but avoids meat for a simple reason, “she loves animals.”
Brooke’s mother eats meat, but to her credit she supports her daughter’s decision. Even the family doctor confirmed that vegetarian diets can be perfectly healthy for kids.
The article explained that Brooke is “constantly asks what things are made from,” and in the grocery store, “she doesn’t see meat. She sees cows and pigs.”
The newspaper had a very encouraging conclusion, “These days, Brooke is not alone. Young children are deciding to cut meat out of their diets and many of their meat-eating parents are backing them.”