On April 23, 2005, Blair Parker called 911 because his 3-year-old daughter seemed to be having a seizure.

Doctors in the emergency room found that the girl was emaciated - she weighed just 13 pounds - and they asked to examine Parker's other two children.

His 11-year-old daughter was the size of a 5-year-old, and his 9-year-old son was the size of a 3-year-old. All of the children had been fed a diet that Parker and his wife misguidedly believed was a proper vegan diet, meaning that they eschewed all meat and fish and even dairy products.

Parker, 38, of Scottsdale, and his wife were arrested and criminally charged.

On Thursday, a Maricopa County Superior Court jury convicted Parker of two counts of negligent child abuse and one count of reckless child abuse, but acquitted him of the more serious offense of intentional child abuse.

The jury also found aggravating circumstances that could earn him as much as 16 years in prison when he is sentenced on Aug. 14 by Judge Roland Steinle. But Parker could also be sentenced to probation, which is likely given his lack of a criminal record.

His wife, Kimu Parker, 38, did not fare as well.

In August 2007 she was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a jury found her guilty of three counts of intentional child abuse. The judge in the case made a record in her file that he found the mandated sentence to be "excessive."

And though the judge acknowledged that the parents nearly starved the children to death, he felt that they obviously cared for their children. However, he said that their diet was "improperly administered over a period of years based on a recklessly misguided understanding of what was appropriate."

Improper vegan diet results in father's child abuse conviction


One of the many reasons that SOME vegans drive me up the wall.
Don't get me wrong. I have some respect for REALISTIC food diets with REALISTIC approaches.

But too many times, I hear people trying to sell "health" when they obviously don't know the first thing about nutrition. Nor do they have the brain-power to acknowledge what their approach would mean if it were applied on a global scale.

This sounds a lot like what they called the "micro-biotic diet" in the 70's. I happened to read an article on it in Readers Digest just at the time I had been introduced to a couple who were on it and trying to "convert" everyone they met. The thing is they didn't know how to combine legumes with grasses to form the right substitute for meat. (beans and lentils have half the amino acids and rice and some other grains have the exact missing half to form a complete protein.) They ate mainly rice! And some leafy vegetables. The girl ended up in the hospital.
Very dangerous. Not having the right amount of protein can make a grown woman stop having her menses. I can't imagine the dangers a diet like that would do to a child.
I don't like a lot of meat myself. I just do not like it. But you have to have all the essentials to live. If a person wants to go on a vegetarian diet, I suggest they read up on nutrition and vitamins and what each thing does for the body.
And on a personal basis, I don't care what they say about dairy, if you're not allergic to it and don't overdo, it's a food that sustains.

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Salty

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