In today's NY Times:
An article by Dr. Greene (whose website I find fairly useful, even if I don't agree with everything he writes), that supports what I wrote about introducing a variety of real foods (not baby food) to your child as soon as they are showing signs of interest in food (past six months....although at least one recent study shows that little bits even earlier might be better for allergy prevention).
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The "Leave It" command and other lessons from dog training #1
Okay.
I know I'm totally going to offend some people with what will likely become repeated analogies between dog training and child rearing, but I do think some important lessons can be imparted from one to the other (see also this--but I made this association long before I ever read the article).
One vital lesson in dog training is to teach multiple types of negatives, so that you can save "NO" for very serious offenses or problems.
For example:
"Leave it" when you want the creature to not pick something up.
"Phooey" when you want the creature to not put something in its mouth.
"Quit" when you want the creature to stop doing some sort of behavior.
So I have been implementing these with EV, and the results have been excellent. The other day, in fact, she started to dig in the bathroom trash (she likes to pull things out of the trash cans), and my "leave it" plus moving her gently to somewhere else in the room "training" paid off. She left the moisturizer box in the trash and moved on to something else. (Flushing the toilet, actually, which both startled and amused her). Lots of praise ensued.*
This morning it worked again when she started to rummage in the bedroom trash. A simple "leave it" resulted in a thoughtful look and a move on to finding pacifiers that had been flung out of the crib and on to the floor. A quick praise from me, smile from her because she knows she understood what I meant, and no garbage on the floor!
Gentle, consistent commands, redirection, and positive reinforcement are the keys!
Now "NO" can be better saved for when EV is about to put her hand in a fireplace, or about to run into the street, or whatever really serious thing might merit it!
[I am also looking forward to seeing if this might avert the infamous "no" stage when kids realize the power of this word, but that will remain to be seen...]
*In retrospect, I realize that flushing the toilet is probably not the best alternate behavior since it is a huge waste of water, but in the heat of the moment it seemed like a much better alternative to picking garbage out of the trash...
I know I'm totally going to offend some people with what will likely become repeated analogies between dog training and child rearing, but I do think some important lessons can be imparted from one to the other (see also this--but I made this association long before I ever read the article).
One vital lesson in dog training is to teach multiple types of negatives, so that you can save "NO" for very serious offenses or problems.
For example:
"Leave it" when you want the creature to not pick something up.
"Phooey" when you want the creature to not put something in its mouth.
"Quit" when you want the creature to stop doing some sort of behavior.
So I have been implementing these with EV, and the results have been excellent. The other day, in fact, she started to dig in the bathroom trash (she likes to pull things out of the trash cans), and my "leave it" plus moving her gently to somewhere else in the room "training" paid off. She left the moisturizer box in the trash and moved on to something else. (Flushing the toilet, actually, which both startled and amused her). Lots of praise ensued.*
This morning it worked again when she started to rummage in the bedroom trash. A simple "leave it" resulted in a thoughtful look and a move on to finding pacifiers that had been flung out of the crib and on to the floor. A quick praise from me, smile from her because she knows she understood what I meant, and no garbage on the floor!
Gentle, consistent commands, redirection, and positive reinforcement are the keys!
Now "NO" can be better saved for when EV is about to put her hand in a fireplace, or about to run into the street, or whatever really serious thing might merit it!
[I am also looking forward to seeing if this might avert the infamous "no" stage when kids realize the power of this word, but that will remain to be seen...]
*In retrospect, I realize that flushing the toilet is probably not the best alternate behavior since it is a huge waste of water, but in the heat of the moment it seemed like a much better alternative to picking garbage out of the trash...
Thursday, January 7, 2010
The Self-Cleaning High-Chair Set Up
This only works if you have dogs, but I highly recommend the Chicco Hippo clip-on high chair.*
Because you can do this:
Or this:
In case this isn't self-explanatory, as the baby drops food on the floor, it falls in or near the dog dishes, and the dogs eat it up! Voilà, no sweeping or scrubbing the floor necessary.
Then when baby is done eating and out of the seat, you can just sweep any remaining pieces of food, crumbs, and whatnot off the counter and the seat into the dog bowls--no handful of gucky orts** to dump in the trash or sink, and since they're perfectly edible, nothing for the landfill or sewage treatment plant!
The only downside is that EV has now realized that it's fun to drop pieces of cheese, apple, cookie, etc. into the bowls first to hear the "ping" and then to watch the dogs scramble to beat each other to the prize...but whatever--it's building critical thinking skills, and Magellan, who used to just ignore the baby, has decided she's not so bad after all...
*Some people are apprehensive about using these, thinking they are not that stable. I researched them, and some are not stable, but others are. Look for one that has loooong support bars that go far underneath the table/counter. My ER doc sister-in-law also uses the gold standard of: "Have I seen accidents from this in the ER?" Re: such portable high chairs, she said nope, no accidents.
It's also great because you can just take off the seat and throw it in the wash (yes I know the instructions say to hand wash, but like I'm really going to do that). The washer treated it just fine.
**Out of the crosswords and into the blogosphere--I have long desired the right context in which to use this fabulous word!
Because you can do this:
Or this:
In case this isn't self-explanatory, as the baby drops food on the floor, it falls in or near the dog dishes, and the dogs eat it up! Voilà, no sweeping or scrubbing the floor necessary.
Then when baby is done eating and out of the seat, you can just sweep any remaining pieces of food, crumbs, and whatnot off the counter and the seat into the dog bowls--no handful of gucky orts** to dump in the trash or sink, and since they're perfectly edible, nothing for the landfill or sewage treatment plant!
The only downside is that EV has now realized that it's fun to drop pieces of cheese, apple, cookie, etc. into the bowls first to hear the "ping" and then to watch the dogs scramble to beat each other to the prize...but whatever--it's building critical thinking skills, and Magellan, who used to just ignore the baby, has decided she's not so bad after all...
*Some people are apprehensive about using these, thinking they are not that stable. I researched them, and some are not stable, but others are. Look for one that has loooong support bars that go far underneath the table/counter. My ER doc sister-in-law also uses the gold standard of: "Have I seen accidents from this in the ER?" Re: such portable high chairs, she said nope, no accidents.
It's also great because you can just take off the seat and throw it in the wash (yes I know the instructions say to hand wash, but like I'm really going to do that). The washer treated it just fine.
**Out of the crosswords and into the blogosphere--I have long desired the right context in which to use this fabulous word!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Homemade Baby Food Recipe #2
OMG (yes I'm channeling teenage girls today), I am writing another blog post, and it hasn't been two weeks since the last one...
Recipe number 2: Sweet potato mush
This goes well with most meat purées...
You will need:
An oven, toaster oven, or convection oven
A medium-sized mixing bowl or other bowl
A fork
An ice-cube tray
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
Optional--a small piece of tin foil or a baking sheet
Also optional--a clean oven mitt or a dishtowel if you suffer from tenderitis, i.e. you can not hold a hot potato comfortably in your bare hand (or the opposite of cast-iron hands...).
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Prick the sweet potatoes in a couple places with a fork (keeps them from exploding...exploded sweet potatoes are even more of a pain in the ass to clean off the interior of the oven than regular potatoes because of the higher sugar content).
You may want to place the small piece of foil or baking sheet underneath the sweet potatoes to catch any sticky drips.
Place them in the oven and roast for 1 hour or until very soft. You should see some sticky goodness seeping out of the fork holes.
You want them very soft so some of the sugars get caramelized for a more interesting and generally yummier flavor.
Let rest for 10 minutes or so to cool down a bit.
Slip the skins off of the sweet potatoes and allow the flesh to fall into a bowl (you can use your fork to help peel the skin off, but it should fall away easily--if it doesn't they are not done!).
Mash well with the fork, pulling out any large fibers or charred spots. EV doesn't mind the fibers, but I imagine some babies might. I removed them at first, but then realized she didn't mind them, so now I leave them in.
Use the fork to transfer blobs of mush to the ice-cube tray, freeze, pop them out when frozen into a ziploc, and you're done.
Follow the meat purée instructions (linked above) to defrost/use, and you now have another homemade baby food for pennies on the dollar compared to the commercial ones (and much better tasting!).
Variation: As your baby gets older, you can add spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, garlic powder, etc.--just a touch of this last one, it goes a long way). Although you can also wait to add these until each cube is defrosted so you can vary the taste from cube to cube (this is what I do).
And a note about ice-cube trays:
Some homemade baby food websites will tell you to find the covered ice-cube trays. I never did. The regular ones work just fine, and we have never had off-tastes or freezer burn on the cubes that I have made. However, I do always pop them out within a few days and ziploc them. (Can "ziploc" be used as a verb?) I guess if you want to be more eco-friendly than me, you could invest in a bunch of the covered ones, thus eliminating the need for using the dreaded disposable plastic bags, but I am a terrible person and a rampant user of the ziplocs (also the paper towels!). (And yes I know the ziplocs can be washed too, but imo that is a big PITA!) I try to compensate in other ways, like composting and not cleaning my house very often (which, of course, saves electricity and water and releases fewer chemicals into the environment, HAH!); we can't do it all!
Recipe number 2: Sweet potato mush
This goes well with most meat purées...
You will need:
An oven, toaster oven, or convection oven
A medium-sized mixing bowl or other bowl
A fork
An ice-cube tray
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes
Optional--a small piece of tin foil or a baking sheet
Also optional--a clean oven mitt or a dishtowel if you suffer from tenderitis, i.e. you can not hold a hot potato comfortably in your bare hand (or the opposite of cast-iron hands...).
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Prick the sweet potatoes in a couple places with a fork (keeps them from exploding...exploded sweet potatoes are even more of a pain in the ass to clean off the interior of the oven than regular potatoes because of the higher sugar content).
You may want to place the small piece of foil or baking sheet underneath the sweet potatoes to catch any sticky drips.
Place them in the oven and roast for 1 hour or until very soft. You should see some sticky goodness seeping out of the fork holes.
You want them very soft so some of the sugars get caramelized for a more interesting and generally yummier flavor.
Let rest for 10 minutes or so to cool down a bit.
Slip the skins off of the sweet potatoes and allow the flesh to fall into a bowl (you can use your fork to help peel the skin off, but it should fall away easily--if it doesn't they are not done!).
Mash well with the fork, pulling out any large fibers or charred spots. EV doesn't mind the fibers, but I imagine some babies might. I removed them at first, but then realized she didn't mind them, so now I leave them in.
Use the fork to transfer blobs of mush to the ice-cube tray, freeze, pop them out when frozen into a ziploc, and you're done.
Follow the meat purée instructions (linked above) to defrost/use, and you now have another homemade baby food for pennies on the dollar compared to the commercial ones (and much better tasting!).
Variation: As your baby gets older, you can add spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, garlic powder, etc.--just a touch of this last one, it goes a long way). Although you can also wait to add these until each cube is defrosted so you can vary the taste from cube to cube (this is what I do).
And a note about ice-cube trays:
Some homemade baby food websites will tell you to find the covered ice-cube trays. I never did. The regular ones work just fine, and we have never had off-tastes or freezer burn on the cubes that I have made. However, I do always pop them out within a few days and ziploc them. (Can "ziploc" be used as a verb?) I guess if you want to be more eco-friendly than me, you could invest in a bunch of the covered ones, thus eliminating the need for using the dreaded disposable plastic bags, but I am a terrible person and a rampant user of the ziplocs (also the paper towels!). (And yes I know the ziplocs can be washed too, but imo that is a big PITA!) I try to compensate in other ways, like composting and not cleaning my house very often (which, of course, saves electricity and water and releases fewer chemicals into the environment, HAH!); we can't do it all!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Homemade Baby Food Recipe #1
So we just finished watching Julie & Julia, and it made me realize that I set up this blog and have completely neglected it! (Fab movie, btw. My mom hormones kept me squeezing back tears the whole time, and if my honey wasn't sitting next to me I would have been bawling through half of it. What is it about becoming a mom that just makes you well up at the tiniest little sentimental things anyway? It's kind of annoying and NOT very punk rock...)
I wonder if anyone did my baby food taste test? Probably not, as I know it can take quite a while to get a following for these blog things (and as this is only my second post in two weeks, I am not giving people much to follow!). But if you did do it, please comment below!
So my first of hopefully many homemade baby food recipes is meat purée. This is intended for babies 6 months to about a year. (Although EV, at almost 1 year old, has aged out of it for the most part--for the past two months, she has preferred food she can pick up and eat herself. However, since we still have a bunch of purée in the freezer, we are finishing it up; she does still chow down on it, as she did this evening mixed with leftover scalloped sweet potatoes from last night.)
One of the new thoughts on feeding babies solid food (especially breastfed babies who are not getting the overkill of iron in formula) involves starting meat as one of the earliest foods around 6 months. I think chicken purée was EV's third or fourth food (after bananas, sweet potatoes, and maybe peas...).
What you will need:
A saucepan
A wooden spoon
A food processor
An ice cube tray or two
A tablespoon-sized spoon
Some water
1 lb of ground meat* (defrosted if frozen)
I've done this with beef, turkey, lamb, and chicken, but I don't see why pork, duck, venison, or whatever mammal or bird wouldn't work. Lamb is a bit on the fatty side (unless you grind your own--see note at the bottom), and your baby will smell like lamb fat for the rest of the day (a divine smell to me, but not so much for my dear husband).
Put the meat in the saucepan with just enough water to cover.
Bring to a boil, and the second it starts to boil, turn down to a bare simmer (so the bubbles just gently and slowly break as they reach the surface).** DO NOT let it boil hard, or the purée will be unpalatable. This is why most meat baby food tastes like chalk!
Let it simmer for about 5-8 minutes or so, stirring frequently and breaking/chopping up the chunks with the wooden spoon into individual grains of ground meat (as much as is possible--don't obsess about this step, it will be puréed after all...).
Let cool in the pan slightly (about 15-20 minutes--just so it's not steaming hot), then spoon the meat into the bowl of your food processor and pour in a small amount of the broth (about a 1/2 cup to start). Pulse the food processor in short, 15-second-or-so blasts until you have a soupy mush. Add a bit more broth if it is getting too thick. You want it to be a little bit on the soupy side, as this allows you to microwave it more easily without it drying out.
The paste will separate a bit from the broth. Using the tablespoon-sized spoon, ladle the thicker bottom paste evenly into the ice cube trays and top with the more brothy liquid.
1 lb of meat should fit nicely in a standard ice cube tray with maybe one or two servings left over for immediate or next-day use (these can be stored in the fridge, unfrozen).
Then freeze the ice-cube tray, and once frozen, pop the cubes out into a ziploc or tupperware for longer storage.
Variation: Once your child gets a little older and can handle chunkier food, sear the ground meat first in a dry saucepan until browned all over (this adds a depth of flavor, but it also prevents a very smooth purée). Then add the water and follow the above instructions. You do not need to purée the meat as finely once your child can handle some chewing (for us this was around 8 months).
To use: put a cube in a bowl and nuke for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute depending on your microwave. You just want to barely defrost the cube, so that you can mush it up with a spoon. Stir it around the bowl to make sure you get rid of any hot spots. Add a little bit of some sort of fruit or veggie purée (if you're doing these from frozen cubes you can defrost them together, but it takes a little bit longer), test to make sure it's all cool enough, and feed!
[FYI--I know they say you're not supposed to nuke things for babies because they heat unevenly. I hope you are not enough of a dumb-ass to just feed this straight to your baby without letting it cool down properly, but if you are, you can also just leave a cube or two to defrost in the fridge before you go to bed at night, and it will be defrosted by the am.]
Texture-wise, on its own, the meat purée will still be a bit chalky. It is unavoidable as far as I can tell--kind of like how you can get a broken emulsion in sausage or paté making (if you have tricks for avoiding this, please comment below!). But once the purée is combined with a bit of fruit or veggie, it's fabulous. I have taste-tested many varieties myself (all the varieties I've fed EV--if I won't eat it, I won't make her eat it!). I promise some recipes for veggie purées later (I have to admit, I do buy applesauce--regular grown-up applesauce--and baby pears, as I just don't have time to make fruit purées and those actually taste good straight out of the jar.)
*I would say preferably organic, as big ag puts all sorts of nasty things in animals and their meat (e.g. see this or this). If you're really DIY, as I am, you will grind your own, but this latter step is not necessary. For pre-ground meat, I have to put a plug in here for the Organic Prairie 1 lb frozen chubs! (Hopefully this plug will pull up ads for them in the sidebar??? I love this company and their companion Organic Valley label.) Defrost the chubs in the fridge overnight, or put in a ziploc and defrost in a water bath--note that the chub packaging is NOT water-tight, hence the ziploc...
**If you are unfortunate enough to have an electric stove, have two burners going--one on high to bring the pot to a boil, and another on low, so you can stop the boil quickly and switch to a simmer.
I wonder if anyone did my baby food taste test? Probably not, as I know it can take quite a while to get a following for these blog things (and as this is only my second post in two weeks, I am not giving people much to follow!). But if you did do it, please comment below!
So my first of hopefully many homemade baby food recipes is meat purée. This is intended for babies 6 months to about a year. (Although EV, at almost 1 year old, has aged out of it for the most part--for the past two months, she has preferred food she can pick up and eat herself. However, since we still have a bunch of purée in the freezer, we are finishing it up; she does still chow down on it, as she did this evening mixed with leftover scalloped sweet potatoes from last night.)
One of the new thoughts on feeding babies solid food (especially breastfed babies who are not getting the overkill of iron in formula) involves starting meat as one of the earliest foods around 6 months. I think chicken purée was EV's third or fourth food (after bananas, sweet potatoes, and maybe peas...).
What you will need:
A saucepan
A wooden spoon
A food processor
An ice cube tray or two
A tablespoon-sized spoon
Some water
1 lb of ground meat* (defrosted if frozen)
I've done this with beef, turkey, lamb, and chicken, but I don't see why pork, duck, venison, or whatever mammal or bird wouldn't work. Lamb is a bit on the fatty side (unless you grind your own--see note at the bottom), and your baby will smell like lamb fat for the rest of the day (a divine smell to me, but not so much for my dear husband).
Put the meat in the saucepan with just enough water to cover.
Bring to a boil, and the second it starts to boil, turn down to a bare simmer (so the bubbles just gently and slowly break as they reach the surface).** DO NOT let it boil hard, or the purée will be unpalatable. This is why most meat baby food tastes like chalk!
Let it simmer for about 5-8 minutes or so, stirring frequently and breaking/chopping up the chunks with the wooden spoon into individual grains of ground meat (as much as is possible--don't obsess about this step, it will be puréed after all...).
Let cool in the pan slightly (about 15-20 minutes--just so it's not steaming hot), then spoon the meat into the bowl of your food processor and pour in a small amount of the broth (about a 1/2 cup to start). Pulse the food processor in short, 15-second-or-so blasts until you have a soupy mush. Add a bit more broth if it is getting too thick. You want it to be a little bit on the soupy side, as this allows you to microwave it more easily without it drying out.
The paste will separate a bit from the broth. Using the tablespoon-sized spoon, ladle the thicker bottom paste evenly into the ice cube trays and top with the more brothy liquid.
1 lb of meat should fit nicely in a standard ice cube tray with maybe one or two servings left over for immediate or next-day use (these can be stored in the fridge, unfrozen).
Then freeze the ice-cube tray, and once frozen, pop the cubes out into a ziploc or tupperware for longer storage.
Variation: Once your child gets a little older and can handle chunkier food, sear the ground meat first in a dry saucepan until browned all over (this adds a depth of flavor, but it also prevents a very smooth purée). Then add the water and follow the above instructions. You do not need to purée the meat as finely once your child can handle some chewing (for us this was around 8 months).
To use: put a cube in a bowl and nuke for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute depending on your microwave. You just want to barely defrost the cube, so that you can mush it up with a spoon. Stir it around the bowl to make sure you get rid of any hot spots. Add a little bit of some sort of fruit or veggie purée (if you're doing these from frozen cubes you can defrost them together, but it takes a little bit longer), test to make sure it's all cool enough, and feed!
[FYI--I know they say you're not supposed to nuke things for babies because they heat unevenly. I hope you are not enough of a dumb-ass to just feed this straight to your baby without letting it cool down properly, but if you are, you can also just leave a cube or two to defrost in the fridge before you go to bed at night, and it will be defrosted by the am.]
Texture-wise, on its own, the meat purée will still be a bit chalky. It is unavoidable as far as I can tell--kind of like how you can get a broken emulsion in sausage or paté making (if you have tricks for avoiding this, please comment below!). But once the purée is combined with a bit of fruit or veggie, it's fabulous. I have taste-tested many varieties myself (all the varieties I've fed EV--if I won't eat it, I won't make her eat it!). I promise some recipes for veggie purées later (I have to admit, I do buy applesauce--regular grown-up applesauce--and baby pears, as I just don't have time to make fruit purées and those actually taste good straight out of the jar.)
*I would say preferably organic, as big ag puts all sorts of nasty things in animals and their meat (e.g. see this or this). If you're really DIY, as I am, you will grind your own, but this latter step is not necessary. For pre-ground meat, I have to put a plug in here for the Organic Prairie 1 lb frozen chubs! (Hopefully this plug will pull up ads for them in the sidebar??? I love this company and their companion Organic Valley label.) Defrost the chubs in the fridge overnight, or put in a ziploc and defrost in a water bath--note that the chub packaging is NOT water-tight, hence the ziploc...
**If you are unfortunate enough to have an electric stove, have two burners going--one on high to bring the pot to a boil, and another on low, so you can stop the boil quickly and switch to a simmer.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Things you will forget about once you have a baby
Admittedly, I have been neglecting this blog. So perhaps I need to focus on posting shorter things and not obsessing that they are perfect gems of eloquently written wisdom...
So here is a draft post that I started ages ago (in late December).
Enjoy....
Okay, a quick look in the bathroom mirror this morning by the harsh light of sun reflecting off of snow revealed a more pressing topic than the continuation of baby food (and I promise some recipes for good home made chow soon [Ed. note: these can in fact be found here and here])--an impressively bold lady-stache verging on the edge of handlebar status (well, not really, but it sure seems like it).
Where the hell did it come from? It has seemed to materialize overnight! Oh, that's right, I have a baby less than a year old, I'm finishing up teaching for the end of the semester, trying to finish a dissertation chapter, and attempting to actually get out and socialize a bit with these lovely holiday parties that keep cropping up like mold on a bucket of veggies destined for the compost that haven't made it there in over a week...(well, perhaps the holiday parties are much nicer than mold, but I'm staring here across the kitchen at a bucketful of moldy compost scraps...so it was the first thing that popped into mind).
My dear husband probably knows better than to have told me about this (btw honey--this is one about which I would have like to be alerted). But then again, he's in his own world of fog...
Anyway, while the baby's napping, no time like the present to attend to this. I recommend these.
So here is a draft post that I started ages ago (in late December).
Enjoy....
Okay, a quick look in the bathroom mirror this morning by the harsh light of sun reflecting off of snow revealed a more pressing topic than the continuation of baby food (and I promise some recipes for good home made chow soon [Ed. note: these can in fact be found here and here])--an impressively bold lady-stache verging on the edge of handlebar status (well, not really, but it sure seems like it).
Where the hell did it come from? It has seemed to materialize overnight! Oh, that's right, I have a baby less than a year old, I'm finishing up teaching for the end of the semester, trying to finish a dissertation chapter, and attempting to actually get out and socialize a bit with these lovely holiday parties that keep cropping up like mold on a bucket of veggies destined for the compost that haven't made it there in over a week...(well, perhaps the holiday parties are much nicer than mold, but I'm staring here across the kitchen at a bucketful of moldy compost scraps...so it was the first thing that popped into mind).
My dear husband probably knows better than to have told me about this (btw honey--this is one about which I would have like to be alerted). But then again, he's in his own world of fog...
Anyway, while the baby's napping, no time like the present to attend to this. I recommend these.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Baby Food Inspired This Blog!
Welcome to my new endeavor--something that has been kicking around in my head for a while, but which time constraints have not allowed to be realized...
But several things over the past few days inspired me to finally take the plunge and join the world of blogging. Those of you who know me personally could attest to the fact that I talk and write about all these topics all the time anyway, so why not put my musings in a public space?
So baby food--I have made most of EV's food since she started eating solids seven months ago or so, and I passionately believe that not only is the baby food industry a crock of hooey, but it is creating incredibly picky palates and perhaps actually harming our children and increasing allergies (the first of many crack-pot theories that will be fomented on this blog...get used to it).
The three things that got me going were:
1) Talking at a holiday party to a food scientist who swore that baby food was made from "first pick" ingredients.
2) Reading this (If you don't want to click on the link, the summary goes: delaying the introduction of allergenic solid foods until past the infant stage actually raises the risk of becoming allergic to those foods.)
3) Reading this (In which I was particularly incensed by the quote that baby food "must be refined...processed to thick soup and be packed in a bottle and be sold in the supermarket.")
People! Parents used to feed their children tiny bits of whatever they were eating (mushed up if necessary to prevent choking--or even masticated by mom to make them soft and baby-friendly).
Tiny. Bits.
A variety introduced gradually...
Nowadays, we're told to feed our children new foods for FOUR DAYS IN A ROW to make sure they don't react. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for inducing an allergic reaction in the fastest possible manner. ("Let's just overload this kid's immune system with a giant bunch of the same, foreign matter all at once for several days in a row!")
People! Baby food didn't exist before the mid-19th century, and not really on a commercial level until Gerber launched it's baby food line in 1928!
My goodness, how did we get by before giant food companies began boiling ingredients to death and telling us that was the safest and most nutritious thing to feed our children???
Okay, I must be getting to bed here soon (yes, babies tire you out amazingly--I am just an old fart now). I will write more on this topic tomorrow. But I'd like to leave you with an experiment to try:
Get a jar of baby peas and get a package of frozen peas. My inclination would be for you to buy organic versions of both, as this will hit the point home even farther, but regular old grocery store brands are fine.
Put some of the commercial, baby-food-glop peas in a bowl and set aside.
Put some of the frozen peas (about a 1/4 cup) in a bowl with about a tablespoon of water. Cover with a damp paper towel (or a damp cloth if you are super eco-friendly). Put in the microwave and nuke for about a minute or so, depending on the strength of your appliance. Mush with a fork until good and puréed.
Now taste one, and then the other.
Tell me which one would you eat on a regular basis...
But several things over the past few days inspired me to finally take the plunge and join the world of blogging. Those of you who know me personally could attest to the fact that I talk and write about all these topics all the time anyway, so why not put my musings in a public space?
So baby food--I have made most of EV's food since she started eating solids seven months ago or so, and I passionately believe that not only is the baby food industry a crock of hooey, but it is creating incredibly picky palates and perhaps actually harming our children and increasing allergies (the first of many crack-pot theories that will be fomented on this blog...get used to it).
The three things that got me going were:
1) Talking at a holiday party to a food scientist who swore that baby food was made from "first pick" ingredients.
2) Reading this (If you don't want to click on the link, the summary goes: delaying the introduction of allergenic solid foods until past the infant stage actually raises the risk of becoming allergic to those foods.)
3) Reading this (In which I was particularly incensed by the quote that baby food "must be refined...processed to thick soup and be packed in a bottle and be sold in the supermarket.")
People! Parents used to feed their children tiny bits of whatever they were eating (mushed up if necessary to prevent choking--or even masticated by mom to make them soft and baby-friendly).
Tiny. Bits.
A variety introduced gradually...
Nowadays, we're told to feed our children new foods for FOUR DAYS IN A ROW to make sure they don't react. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for inducing an allergic reaction in the fastest possible manner. ("Let's just overload this kid's immune system with a giant bunch of the same, foreign matter all at once for several days in a row!")
People! Baby food didn't exist before the mid-19th century, and not really on a commercial level until Gerber launched it's baby food line in 1928!
My goodness, how did we get by before giant food companies began boiling ingredients to death and telling us that was the safest and most nutritious thing to feed our children???
Okay, I must be getting to bed here soon (yes, babies tire you out amazingly--I am just an old fart now). I will write more on this topic tomorrow. But I'd like to leave you with an experiment to try:
Get a jar of baby peas and get a package of frozen peas. My inclination would be for you to buy organic versions of both, as this will hit the point home even farther, but regular old grocery store brands are fine.
Put some of the commercial, baby-food-glop peas in a bowl and set aside.
Put some of the frozen peas (about a 1/4 cup) in a bowl with about a tablespoon of water. Cover with a damp paper towel (or a damp cloth if you are super eco-friendly). Put in the microwave and nuke for about a minute or so, depending on the strength of your appliance. Mush with a fork until good and puréed.
Now taste one, and then the other.
Tell me which one would you eat on a regular basis...
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