Feeding Baby Green by Dr. Alan Greene

Today I finished Feeding Baby Green by Alan Greene, MD.  I REALLY enjoyed this book.  I checked it out from the library (yay!  Free is within my budget!) and I'll be honest, I only skimmed the last couple chapters, which are more about older toddlers and kids.  I figure I'll check it out again in the future if I want more advice at that point in time.

But the first few chapters are great for new moms!  You might even want to read it if your trying to conceive or still pregnant, as it's got whole sections dedicated to what you should eat when pregnant, decision making about breast feeding, etc.  Here are, in my own words, a few take away points that were most relevant to my life given my personal background knowledge...

1) When a baby is breast fed exclusively (or fed pumped bottles), they will have exposure to a wide variety of tastes and flavors, even before they're eating solids.  Thus, for breast fed babies, Dr. Greene recommends starting solid foods at 6 months.  However, with formula fed babies, who typically are only exposed to one flavor for the first several months (e.g., whatever brand of formula you choose), it is more reasonable to start small tastes/flavors of pureed solids earlier (as early as 4 months) so as not to miss out on the window of opportunity for exploring new flavors.  I guess I found this especially relevant because as a feeding therapist, I've worked with so many kids who are failure to thrive and we want them on solids ASAP (e.g., 4 months), but there's a decent argument for waiting until 6 months in this that I hadn't thought of.  (Note: for all you medical folks out there, there are millions of other decent arguments for waiting until 6 months that I know, but I'm just not going to address them all here.)

2) Just as toddlers reach a developmentally appropriate "stranger danger" stage where they don't want to go with new people (this is biologically an AWESOME safety method!), they reach the same phase (around the same time) with flavors... at that point, new flavors will be registered by their brain as unfamiliar, unsafe, essentially poison!  So while you can teach an older toddler or child (or adult) to eat new foods, life is a lot easier if the foods are exposed to the infant/toddler early... BEFORE the food-stranger-danger hits!  Brilliant!

3) Especially if you're starting flavor tasting/solid foods on the early side (but even if you're not), it's a good idea to focus on feeding baby flavors that you don't particularly like.  Think about it.  Throughout their infant, toddler, and childhood stages, they'll have TONS of experience watching you eat your favorite fruit, bananas.  But if you don't particularly like beets, if you don't go out of your way to expose kiddo to them early, then you'll miss them all together... (see #2 for what happens then)!

Finally, I really liked that Dr. Greene included a biodiversity checklist in the back to encourage you to provide varied-enough foods in the early stages. I'd never seen such a complete list. I really liked it, so I copied it here for you (and for my reference after I return the book to the library!):

1. Mushrooms: crimini mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms
2. Amaranths: beet, buckwheat, quinoa, spinach, swiss chard
3. Umbrellifers: anise, arracha, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, cilantro, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, parsley, parsnip
4. Cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chinese cabbage, collard greens, cress, horseradish, mustard, mustard greens, radish, rapeseed, turnip, turnip greens, watercress
5. Bromeliad: pineapple
6. Composites: artichoke, chicory, edible flowers, jerusalem artichoke, lettuces, safflower, sunflower seeds, yacon
7. Bindweeds: sweet potato, water spinach
8. Gourds: cantaloupe, casaba, crenshaw, cucumber, honeydew, muskmelon, pumpkin, watermelon, zucchini
9. Heath: blueberry, cranberry, huckleberry
10. Legumes: azuki, beans, black beans, carob, chickpeas, dried peas, green peas, kidney beans, lentils, lupins, navy beans, peanuts, pinto beans, snap peas, snow peas, soybeans, tamarind
11. Lilies: asparagus, chive, garlic, leeks, onion, shallots
12. Woody: bananas, plantains
13. Sesames: benne, black sesame, gomashio, sesame oil, sesame potherb, sesame seeds, tahini
14. True grasses: barley, brown rice, corn, millet, oats, rye, spelt, wheat
15. Rosy plants: almond, apple, apricot, blackberry, cherry, loquat, medlar, peach, pear, plum, quince, raspberry, strawberry
16. Citrus: grapefruit, lemon, orange, kumquat, kim, mandarin orange, tangerine
17. Nightshades: chili powder, chipotle, fingerling potato, green bell pepper, jalapeno, paprika, red bell pepper, red potato, russet otato, tomatillo, tomatoes, uchuva, yellow bell pepper, yukon gold potato
18. Grapes: currants, grapes, raisins
19. Laurels: avocados, cinnamon, bay leaves, cassia, sassafras
20. Myrtles: allspice, cloves, guava, feijoa
21. Loosestifes: pomegranate

My Foray into Home Made Baby Foods

The benefits of home made baby food are, in my mind, almost innumerable.  Just to state a few, we've got:

Enhanced flavor - have you ever tasted jarred baby food?  The stuff is intentionally made blander than adult food because supposedly that's easier on baby's growing taste buds.  Homemade baby food or blenderized adult foods, in contrast, have the same nutritional input as we get as adults and have quite strong tastes in a lot of cases.  Sure, there may be flavors your little one doesn't like... but you're teaching them about real food taste from day 1 of eating solids-- as a feeding therapist, I think that's great.

Caloric/Nutrient density -  How about looking at the nutrition information on the back side?  It is quite low in caloric density, meaning that your baby can eat and eat it, but it doesn't actually add much nutritional value for them.  Yes, when they're little, they should be getting "most" of their calories from their liquid intake (breast milk or formula) because it's complete nutrition.  But why does that mean we have to minimize what they're getting in their fruits and veggies

Cost - that's right, ladies and gents... it's frugal.  When you buy real foods and puree them (or dice, chop, steam, etc based on whether your kiddo is old enough to do a little mashing/chewing), you're paying real food prices.  You're not paying for extra packaging, shipping, etc.  You're also not paying for ingredients or procedures intended to extend their shelf life in little jars.  Which brings me to...

Quite simply, You know what's in it - I'm trying (though not always succeeding, I'll be honest) to eat foods that my grandmother would recognize as foods.  That means that foods shouldn't have a million ingredients.  And I should be able to pronounce and identify all of the ingredients.  I think this is going to be especially important in those early months when I'm learning what my little girl is or isn't allergic to and does or doesn't like to eat.

Thus, this week, I began my foray into home made baby foods.  Yes, I realize that I'm 8 months pregnant.  And yes, I realize that my child won't eat pureed baby foods until she's AT LEAST 4 months old and possibly older.  But I've got some veggies in my organic delivery box that I need to store before they go bad-- it's hard to eat all of these things when I'm not feeling like cooking and I've been cooking for 1 this month while Ben's been out of town.

Tonight's experiment was to roast, puree, and store some rutabega.  I use my oven, my blender, and my new So Easy Baby Fresh kit that my friend, K, got me for my baby shower and put myself to work!  The little ice cube trays for storing the food are excellent, in my opinion.  Once they're frozen, I'll pop them out and put many of them down in a ziplock or other storage container.  Each little cube is 1 ounce, which will make it easy for me to know how much the little one needs and is eating at each meal.  They're also a bit sturdier (and have a lid) than regular ice cube trays, so I'm hoping that means the frozen pureed rutabega will pop out a little more smoothly.

All in all, it was a great experience.  AND... in a bit of selfishness (or maybe just to see what happens), I can also borrow a couple of those cubes to mix into other foods for the adults in my house... popping a couple down in some mashed potatoes or a little bit of spaghetti sauce means that hubby is exposed to a few more vitamins than normal... always a goal of mine.  And in a small volume, he'll never taste the difference.  Shhh...

Any experienced moms out there have advice about home made baby foods for me?

Healthy Baby requires a Healthy Mama!

So as many of you know, bi-weekly (or is it semi-weekly... I always forget how to use those terms) I receive a fruit and vegetable delivery from http://www.bostonorganics.com/.  What a great company, btw!  They're reliable and definitely a great cost-effective, easy choice for me to make to take one step towards organic and healthy living.

This week in my Organics box, I got celery.  I'm ashamed to say that two weeks ago when the celery arrived, I let it sit in my fridge, unused, and it ended up going bad.  But I refused to let that happen again! Thus, tonight I decided to make some cream of celery soup to put away.  I'm using a slight variation on this recipe, from The Humbled Homemaker.  I, of course, am tripling the volume so I have some to use this week if I want and some to put up in the freezer for later.  I'm using up the end of some milk that is just about to go bad, so it feels like a frugal choice.  And I'm also using my own home made veggie broth in it instead of chicken broth.  One step closer to organic, healthy, and home made!  Finally, I'm using more celery than she calls for, and I'm going to puree it too, 'cause I like it creamy and smooth and my celery mincing and garlic chopping was more coarse than it probably should have been.

In the future, I can use my homemade cream of celery soup as a base for all kinds of casseroles, cooked veggies and chicken dishes.  Sure, these aren't "baby foods"... but for the next year or so as I breastfeed (or pump and bottle feed breast milk if necessary), my food IS the baby food.  So as the title says, a healthy baby requires a healthy mama!