Choosing Health Now!

This page is for all you parents out there who want to feed your kids real food, but need a little guidance.

My daughter enjoying her first grass-fed beef rib.

New parents certainly have their work cut out for them when trying to decide what should be on their baby’s menu. Developing “nutritional whiplash” is easy to do with all the misinformation and contradictions. There is so much misinformation out there that it is a miracle that our kids don’t start to develop all sorts of awful health problems at an early age like diabetes, asthma, atherosclerosis, ADD, obesity, etc. Oh wait: they do.

Unless there is a genetic predisposition to a health problem, these conditions can often be avoided through proper diet and lifestyle. Even if there is a genetic predisposition, a healthy diet is essential and can sometimes make the difference in whether a health condition is expressed or not.

Simply giving babies calories is not good enough. We need to do better than that and we can do better than that with the right guidance. We used to be better at nourishing ourselves, ate far fewer processed foods and rancid vegetables oils, and plenty of healthy fat, fresh meat and produce. The time for a reminder has come. This article provides new parents with accurate information about the best way to feed babies so that they thrive.

Most parents introduce solid food around 4-6 months of age. When babies start showing a lot of interest in solid foods such as leaning in and opening their mouths, trying to grab food off the fork or plate, they are ready to try solids.  If a baby doesn’t show much interest in food until later than 6 months, it is alright to wait.

Best foods for babies: Foods our ancestors ate

Paleo diets are all the rage right now and for good reason. Cutting out processed foods and grains and eating plenty of fresh foods is excellent for our health. Some paleo followers exclude dairy and others do not. If there is no family history of dairy allergies, dairy can be part of a healthy baby’s diet. My one recommendation is to make sure the dairy is organic (explanation below).

• Preparation: Mashed or cut in small pieces. Avoid over-cooking to retain as many nutrients as possible.
• Foods: Whole, unprocessed foods. Organic whenever possible. Babies are at greater risk for toxic overload because they are smaller and the organs that filter toxins out of the body aren’t as strong as adults’. Pesticides, hormones, herbicides, and heavy metals are especially dangerous for babies. Use the Dirty Dozen produce guide, http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/, to ensure that the worst offenders stay out of your baby’s diet if you cannot buy all organic produce (i.e. apples, celery and strawberries are high on the Dirty Dozen list).
• Toxic-free: For dairy and meat, organic is very important since toxins accumulate in fat tissue. Babies need fat in their diet to build cell walls, hormones, healthy eyes, and brain tissue so non-fat and skim dairy is an inferior nutrition source. Organic and full-fat dairy, grass-fed meats, and free-range poultry provides much needed fat, protein, iron, vitamin D, calcium and B vitamins required by growing babies.
• Aside from honey, which should be avoided until 1 year of age because of the risk of botulism, any whole food is fair game: ground meat, liver, poultry, butter, zucchini, sweet potato, cooked celery, cooked carrot, peas, cottage cheese, plain full-fat yogurt, banana, coconut butter, avocado, and egg yolk are great nutrient dense foods for babies. Rib bones from pork or beef and chicken leg bones are excellent for teething. Every 3 days or so, introduce a new food and let your baby tell you what he/she likes.
• Foods that have a family history of allergies should be avoided until at least 1 year of age.

Baby feeding tips

Amounts: Babies vary a lot from each other in the amounts of food they consume. A single baby’s appetite can vary tremendously from meal to meal or day to day depending on growth cycles, teething, sleep and activity level. Most new mothers start to worry if their baby doesn’t seem to be eating much one day. Babies aren’t going to starve themselves. If their color looks healthy, they are moving around and seem to be in a pleasant mood, it is okay if their appetite is on the low side for a couple of days. If it seems to continue for more than a couple of days, check in with a pediatrician.

Baby led feeding: An approach to eating solids where the baby decides when and how much food to eat and, to some extent, what they eat. As long as parents offer healthy choices to their baby and the child has the motor skills to get the food into their mouths (which does take practice), this is a great way for babies to eat.

Babies are intuitive eaters. They listen to their bodies and eat foods that give their bodies the nutrients they need. Don’t be alarmed if your baby wants the same food day after day. It will pass. In the 1920’s and 30’s pediatrician Clara Davis and her team of nurses led a study on baby led feeding which lasted for several months. Babies were given a variety of healthy food options at every meal and the babies chose what they ate and how much. The babies varied from each other a lot in the foods they chose and the amounts. One baby ate up to seven eggs one day, another ate mostly bone jelly, another ate four bananas. Though this seems extreme, all the babies thrived. Their love affairs for certain foods changed on their own without any interference from an adult.

Food is such a vital component of good health. Using these tools will give your baby a greater chance to grow up healthy, strong and appreciative of nutritious food.

Baby food myths

Myth #1) Rice cereal is an ideal first food.

Firstly, babies do not make much amylase, the main digestive enzyme needed to digest carbohydrates, until they are at least 1 year old (some pediatricians argue 2 yrs old). Feeding babies high amounts of starchy carbs, like rice cereal, does not provide the main nutrient that tends to become deficient in babies around 6 months of age: iron.  Around 6 months of age, breastmilk is still providing almost all the nutrition a growing baby needs except for iron. The foods richest in highly absorbable iron (beef, lamb, liver, poultry, oysters), therefore, are especially important to include in a baby’s diet.

Secondly, rice cereal is a processed food. Rice cereal doesn’t occur in nature. Most of the vitamins and minerals in rice cereal are synthetic and not metabolized as well as food-based vitamins and minerals. Also, contrary to some information on a food’s allergic potential, rice is one of the foods more likely to cause an allergic reaction.

Myth #2) Babies need to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

Babies given quality foods daily will get the nutrients they need to develop. Vegetables, especially lower starch veggies like celery, greens, zucchini, cauliflower, and broccoli, are nutrient dense, but so are meats and fats such as liver, grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, pastured raw butter and cream, coconut butter and olive oil. Offer a protein, fat and vegetable OR fruit with each meal and let your baby pick what they want. Some babies focus their attention on protein at one meal, carbs at another and fats at another. Other babies eat small amounts of each at every meal. Other babies eat large portions of whatever you put in front of them! All of these varieties are healthy eating styles.

Myth #3) Babies need to have teeth before they can eat solid foods.

ü  Babies do amazingly well gumming food. As long as the pieces are small enough to reduce choking risk, most babies are going to do just fine with or without teeth.

Recipes!!!

Liver Mousse
I don’t care if you haven’t historically liked liver. With enough butter and cream, even cardboard would taste good. And by the way, liver is WAY more nutritious than cardboard. It ranks at the top of superfoods, is full of vitamins D & A and several B’s, high in all nine essential amino acids, iron, and antioxidants: So don’t knock this recipe till you’ve tried it! Oh and by the way, babies LOVE liver mousse. Seriously.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lbs free-range chicken livers
• 3 T organic grass-fed butter
• 2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1.5 cups organic heavy cream (even better, use raw cream)
• 1 tsp sea salt

*This recipe is adapted from Julia Childs’.

How To:

1. Saute chicken livers in butter on low heat for about 5 minutes or until chicken livers are still slightly pink inside.
2. Transfer to a food processor and puree.
3. Pour liver puree back into the pan (low to medium heat) and add cream, salt, and spices, stirring occasionally. It’s done once the cream has thickened slightly, but don’t cook it till it is thick. It’s best when it’s a slightly soupy. Do a little taste test. if it doesn’t taste awesome yet, add a little more cream and/or butter. I’m only half joking when I recommend adding butter and cream until it tastes good.

This mousse is incredibly high in healthy fats and is great for protein type metabolic types. If you aren’t someone who does well with higher amounts of protein and fat, I’d advise enjoying smaller portions of this moussey goodness.

Great with any meal, as a dip for veggies or on its own. Good hot or cold.

Coconut chicken

Babies love chicken drumsticks! This is a tasty and nutritious alternative to traditional fried chicken.

Ingredients:

4 free-range chicken drumsticks (or more if you have a large family or want leftovers)

1 pastured chicken egg

1/2 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened

3 T refined coconut oil (refined coconut oil holds up better when cooking at higher temperatures)

Sea salt and pepper to taste

How to:

Beat the egg in a bowl and set aside. Spread the coconut on a plate. Melt the coconut in a large skillet (medium heat). Dip each drumstick in the egg until coated well and then roll in coconut before placing in skillet. Repeat until all chicken is in skillet and then cook for about 15 mins or until temperature reaches 160-180 degrees. Delicious over fresh greens or with a side of your child’s favorite veggie (make sure to put plenty of good fat on their veggies, like coconut oil, raw butter, ghee or olive oil). Enjoy!