'She's an Animal Lover': Mom Explains Why Her 3-Year-Old Went Vegan

A mom has shared how she and her 3-year-old daughter switched to a completely vegan diet.

What started as copying mommy turned into an education, and today, Jessica Barclay's daughter, now aged 5, is strictly vegan.

"I swapped to vegan six days a week as a way of improving my energy," Barclay, 36, from the U.K., told Newsweek. "This was in late 2019 and early 2020, then not long after COVID, I shifted into full vegan and my daughter just sort of followed suit."

A vegan diet abstains from the use of any animal products, particularly in diet. Vegans avoid all meats, including fish and insects, dairy, eggs and honey. Many vegans also avoid animal-derived materials like leather and will not use products tested on animals.

A U.K.-based lifestyle coach and founder of A Happy Lifestyle Club, Barclay was inspired to make the change in a bid to improve her energy, but quickly started to learn more about the environmental and ethical side of veganism.

"It started as needing more energy, became about health and then sustainability and animal welfare as a reason actually came last," she said. "I'd always felt my food was very dissociated from an animal, but I wouldn't have said I was a massive animal lover then, but I am now."

As she made the change, Barclay explained that her 5-year-old started to get involved too. "To start with it was more copying mommy, but she has a great vocabulary and was asking me lots of questions about food. She started watching a fair bit of David Attenborough and then even programs like Game Changers and Seaspiracy," explained the mom.

The Game Changers is a 2018 documentary bringing top athletes and visionary scientists together to change the way we think about protein intake and a plant-based diet. While Seaspiracy, released in 2021, examines the impact humans are having on marine life and advocates for ending consumption of fish.

As her daughter began to ask more questions and look into these things for herself, Barclay explained it was a natural step for her to go vegan too.

"She's a big animal lover and we've always been honest about where food comes from. We also love reading about the planet and they have done topics on recycling at school," she said.

A 2022 online Statista survey asked 170,742 respondents aged 18-64 about their diet. Of these, between two and six percent of respondents from the U.S. ate a vegan diet.

Many people who opt for a plant-based diet report looking and feeling better than ever, while meat-free food alternatives continue to gain popularity.

Barclay's daughter has been completely vegan for the last two years, and her mom explained that she hasn't found any issues so far.

"I'm yet to find something she wants that we can't find a vegan version of. Although she wasn't very pleased with our first attempt at vegan tuna," she said. "We have a few more brands to try."

At school, there are even a couple of other vegan kids and a fair few more that are vegetarian. "We usually make sure we are taking enough food to cover us wherever we go, but we rarely need it," said Barclay.

Of course, the diet change isn't without some challenges. "All change is tricky. My daughter still remembers being a meat eater and she was barely 3 when she stopped eating meat," said Barclay. "We have a very open and honest relationship, and she has a very good understanding of life for her age. I think this is a very personal choice and really depends on your motivation and relationship with your child. Forcing anything belief based on a child rarely ends well, so I give her facts and let her form her own beliefs."