Life's unjust

This woman's got three kids and I have none...

Beyond my personal bitterness, it's a good warning that just because the health food store says it's "good for you" doesn't mean it really is.

One morning over breakfast, Holly Paige looked at her daughter and realised
things weren't right. Lizzie should have been flourishing. Instead, her cheeks were pinched, she was small for her age, and although she had skinny arms and legs, her belly was big and swollen. When Lizzie smiled, Paige suddenly noticed her front teeth were pitted with holes."I was absolutely horrified," recalls Paige.

At the time, Paige was feeding them what she thought was the most nutritious diet possible. They had been raw vegans for three years, and ate plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, soya and pulses, but no meat, fish or dairy. According to the raw-food doctrine, Lizzie and Bertie, then three and four-and-a-half respectively, should have been brimming with good health.

But Paige's mothering instinct was on the alert."I knew something was wrong," says Paige, 45. "They were two sizes behind in clothes. Of course, children come in all different shapes and sizes, but their growth seemed to be slowing further."

There were other oddities: "I remember going to the supermarket and buying butter for my older children. Lizzie, who had never had butter in her life, would grab the packet and gnaw into it," says Paige. "It was really disconcerting. I would be thinking, 'What is going on? Here is this purely fed child - why would she need to do this?' I was so brainwashed into thinking dairy products are bad for you."Finally, Paige
stumbled across the answer in an old vitamin book and she believes the family had symptoms of vitamin D and protein-deficiency. "I felt like such an idiot. I got the information from a book I'd had sitting around on my shelf for 20 years."The discovery brought a swift end to her experience of veganism. Despite taking a daily supplement that included vitamin D and B12, she and the children were suffering. Today, the family still mainly has a raw diet, but Paige includes butter, cheese, eggs and occasionally fish. "I had let malnutrition in through the back door in the name of health," says Paige.

- The Independent This article was originally published on page 9 of Cape Times
on June 18, 2008