Eating healthy can be difficult, but it is also very important.

Helping your kids to eat healthy can help to set them up for good eating habits for life.

What would you do if your children were raised vegan because that is what your ex wanted, but now their doctor recommends introducing animal products?

That is what the father in this story is dealing with, and his ex is now upset and threatening to take away custody.

Check it out.

AITA for breaking my children’s vegan diet imposed on them by my ex?

Before you all jump down my throat, give me a chance to explain.

I was with my ex “Venus” for over 10 years, from when I was 15 until I was almost 26.

I am currently 31.

Venus was raised a vegan and has never (to my knowledge) eaten meat or any animal product.

While we were together, we had 3 boys, M11 “Mercury,” M9 “Jupiter,” and M7 “Mars.”

She is really committed.

When I first got into the relationship with Venus, I started to follow the vegan diet because she wanted me to.

I’ve mostly followed it even after we broke up, mainly out of habit.

During this time, I had to be very careful with what I ate to ensure I got the proper nutrients, and my food bill every month was sky-high.

I also had a lot of issues with depression and anxiety.

About 3 months ago, I slowly started to reintroduce meat into my diet, and since then, I’ve felt so much better.

I haven’t had to buy loads of vitamins or carefully plan my diet to ensure I got every amino acid or avoided deficiencies, and my food bill dropped.

I also started doing research into kids, who are raised vegan, and found some things that made me nervous.

I’ve heard it can be difficult to follow a vegan diet properly.

I read that vegan kids can sometimes be shorter and might need supplements for things like B12, calcium, and iron if they aren’t getting everything they need from their diet.

None of my boys have started puberty yet, which might be okay, but since I hit puberty at around 9, it got me worried about Mercury.

They’re also all in about the 5th-15th percentile for height and weight, which made me want to check in with the doctor.

This also made me very concerned after I learnt that their vegan diet could have impacted this.

I was never a short kid, but idk I think I just assumed they were just short for their age.

It seems like the diet is definitely having some negative consequences.

When I brought my concerns to our GP, he recommended introducing meat and animal products into their diets first to see if it would help with growth before considering other options.

So, following that advice, 6 weeks ago I decided to slowly introduce animal products into their diets whenever they had their time with me, but it has been slow.

That is smart.

I don’t want to introduce it too fast and I gave them the choice with all the information I had and with what the doctor said.

I informed Venus about this and she was furious with me, saying how I’m just doing it to be vindictive to her, when I’m not.

And that if I don’t stop she is going to go back to family court and get the Child Arrangements Order changed so she has full custody of the boys and I only get visitation.

I told her that this was recommended by their GP and she said I had ‘no right in going to the GP without her’, when that is not true, it was during my time with them I am entitled to do whatever I want.

She is trying to manipulate them against him.

She’s calling me cruel and she’s been telling our boys that they should refuse to eat any animal products and to say I’m forcing them.

When this isn’t true and every time they’ve been over they’ve loved trying new foods like real milk, eggs, etc. some they don’t like which is fair.

AITA?

That’s a tough call, but if the doctor thinks it is impacting their development, you should give it a try.

Let’s see if the people in the comments have anything helpful to say.

Honestly, this is very practice advice here.

This person says no judge would side with mom here.

I agree, he is doing nothing wrong.

This commenter recommends going with what the doctor recommended.

This person recommends getting some blood tests done.

These parents need to work together for the kids, not against each other.

Whether that means they eat meat or not.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.