In Sussex, the UK’s first “Plant Based School Kitchen,” has launched at Our Lady of Sion School in Worthing. This private vegan company is looking to infiltrate more schools in the future.  In an article touting the benefits of the program, (including praise from the students about how good they feel about themselves), the headmaster said, "What we're saying is this is an opportunity to really explore what plant-based food is all about, how it can have a positive impact on the environment and how it can be used as part of education.  

And in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who has long claimed to be vegan, announced recently that as of February 4, America’s largest public school district (New York City) will serve only vegan food on Fridays. Adams, who also recently compared cheese to heroin, wrongly claims vegan meals will improve the diets of New York City’s one million public school students. Nearly ¾ of New York City public school students are economically disadvantaged. One in four children in New York City live below the poverty line. One in three don’t get enough to eat. One in ten are homeless.

When I push back against these anti-meat school lunch policies, it’s common to hear “but kids need to eat more vegetables!” Of course, the main issue is not me being against kids eating vegetables, its two main things – one is that removing meat from the already unappealing school lunches is not based on any scientific evidence that this will improve kids health, and secondly, it sends a powerful virtue signal to kids that eating meat is “bad”, and avoiding it is ”good”, which can have strongly negative impacts on their overall health.

School meals provide critical nutrients and energy for all children, and especially for those most vulnerable to the impacts of malnutrition and hunger. The NYC vegan mandate combined with the city’s long-standing embrace of the dogma of “Meatless Mondays” will leave children with less nutrient-dense meals on the two most important days of the week for those who can’t get nutritious meals at home on the weekends.

Anti-meat policies endanger children and are not based on science 

Banning meat in school-provided meals sends a powerful emotional signal that eating meat is “bad” and being vegan is “good,” regardless of how uninformed that position may be. 

This kind of disordered thinking about food is recognized as deeply harmful, and children hearing this message from authority figures do not have the full choice to make their own informed decisions or protect their mental health from the inherent judgment of what they eat.

If Mayor Adams understood the facts about nutrient-dense meat and its critical role in healthy diets for children, he would know that in a typical diet of “kid-friendly” foods like pizza, macaroni and cheese, burgers, and chicken nuggets, the burger patty, chicken, and cheese are actually the MOST nutritious items within the context of an average kid’s day. Replacing a real burger with a processed, plant-based patty, processed and breaded soy “nuggets”, or removing dairy-based cheese with ultra-processed, fake vegan cheese will not help kids become healthier, it will only take away from nutrient density, protein quality, and digestibility!

Forcing kids to remove meat does not mean they will replace French fries, soda, and chips with kale salads and lentils (which can’t match the high-quality protein and other nutrients in meat, anyway). If New York City wants to address obesity and diet-related diseases, I think we can all agree the city should tackle ultra-processed, hyper-palatable fast food as the real problem facing American kids, not beef. 

Nutrient-dense foods are critical for kids’ healthy diets

There is no evidence that removing meat from kids’ diets results in better health outcomes. In fact, vegan and vegetarian diets result in nutrient deficiencies that may have dire consequences for the growth and development of children. Only one randomized controlled trial (RCT) - the gold standard in scientific evidence - has been conducted to examine the effect of including meat versus limiting meat in kids’ diets. The study found that schools which included additional meat in the diets of food insecure children resulted in improved growth, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes compared to kids who received no additional food and even compared to those who were given more calories or kids who received only extra milk. 

In contrast, studies used to justify limiting or eliminating meat are based on heavily biased and flawed observational research, which cannot prove cause. 

Animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs are uniquely healthy, especially when it comes to the growth and development of children. 

While the American and British dietetic organizations say children can consume  “properly planned” vegan diets, Germany and Switzerland warn against vegan diets for infants, children, and adolescents because of the dramatically increased risk of nutrient deficiencies. 

It is very difficult to achieve “properly planned” vegan diets, which generally require more access to and information about the exact right foods and supplements needed to replace nutrient-dense, animal-source foods. It betrays a great deal of privilege to insist that balanced vegan diets are accessible, achievable, or desirable for children who most need food security and food justice and that those same children should be subjected to judgment about supposedly “better” diets. Is it possible to construct a healthy vegan diet for some children? Yes, but it’s risky. However, plant-based diets are inaccessible for the vast majority of children in New York City or anywhere.

In addition to losing out on the high-quality protein found in animal-source foods, children forced to go vegan may be subject to other critical nutrient deficiencies. For example, animal source foods are the best source of iron and the only source of B12, both critical for healthy growth, energy, and brain function.  B12 deficiency can lead to severe and irreversible delays in cognitive development, impaired academic performance, nerve damage, and failure to thrive. DHA, a fatty acid needed for brain development, is absent in a vegan diet without supplementation. The Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine states that a vegan diet induces serious deficiencies in vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iron, zinc, iodine, and DHA. 

Kids in New York City rely on school lunches to stay nourished throughout their day. Mayor Adams’ vegan mandate is harmful and tone-deaf. Passing off dietary dogma as morally superior will have severe and long-lasting consequences for children’s health.

I’ve posted a public letter to Mayor Adams on the Global Food Justice Alliance website. Please feel free to sign it, share it, and encourage others to sign the letter, too.

Diana Rodgers, RD