Baby Food Guest Post: Azucar

It’s Bananas

It started with a box of rice cereal. I picked it up at the store because that’s what you’re supposed to pick up when you have a baby. The rice cereal stood on the shelf, gleaming in its plastic wrap with a dozen just like it, in the baby goods section in the middle of the store, far from the produce and refrigerated areas. The baby on the front was the same darling sketched baby you see in your baby dreams. I took it home and put it on my pantry shelf. When my son turned six months, I took off the plastic wrapping, punched through the cardboard, and shook flat, flaky bits into a small bowl. I looked at the pile of small white shavings; it didn’t look like rice. I stirred in some breast milk and watched the shavings turn into a white, pasty goo. The box said it was fortified with a dozen vitamins and minerals and wouldn’t expire for another two years. Two years.

I put down the bowl and looked around my kitchen. An open cardboard box sat on my counter. My mother-in-law, always excited for every baby product on the face of the planet, had mailed me pureed baby food in the cardboard box, sealed in packages, and ranging in color from beige to dark beige. My eyes skipped to the avocado in the fruit basket: dark green, bumpy, almost glossy, perfect. I opened the avocado, gave it a run through with a fork, and fed that to my baby.

Something didn’t seem right about the baby food in the store. Processed, pressed, milled, sealed, fillers, shelf-stable for months or years. I don’t eat that kind of food. Doctors tell you not to eat that kind of food. Why do baby doctors tell you to feed your baby that kind of food? It goes against everything you know about what food is: real, whole, unprocessed, fresh, in its original state, no added ingredients, no fillers, something that eventually decomposes. This made no sense.

So I looked it up. I read books. I found out that to make rice cereal, the whole grain of rice is stripped of its nutritious shell, processed, and vitamins and minerals are added to try to make it worth something again (because they took out what was good and integral and had to add a synthetic version back in.) White and starchy--what you’re supposed to avoid. Vitamins and minerals that your baby probably can’t even absorb because it doesn’t come from real food. So what did I feed him?

I took vegetables and meats from stews, cut them into bite sized pieces, and let baby feed himself. I made oatmeal. Whatever fresh fruits and vegetables we had with dinner, he had: red peppers, pears, peas, broccoli, peaches, carrots, chicken, celery, beans, beef, barley, quinoa, squash, green beans, and actual rice.

That wasn’t the end of it. I didn’t feed him. No sitting in front of a baby chair with a jar of beige and a spoon trying to coax my child into opening his mouth. He sat on my lap and ate from my plate. Why do babies reach for your plate? Because evolution has told them that what you’re eating is safe to eat. Why wasn’t he propped up in a high chair? Because your child should be sitting by themselves before they eat solid foods. Why wasn’t I using a spoon? Because babies do not have the enzymes they need to process solid food until they are old enough to reach out, grab that food with their own fingers, and put that food in their own mouths. Why wasn’t I trying to force him to finish a jar? Because a baby doesn’t know from jar weight; he knows when he’s not hungry anymore. Parents making their child eat when they don’t want to is another building block in teaching a child to override their inner signals and create food/obesity issues. What about iron and vitamins in processed cereal, doesn't baby need those? It's better for you AND your baby to get iron and vitamins from foods that naturally contain those nutrients because your body can actually process and use those nutrients (most artificially fortified foods and even vitamin supplements aren't readily absorbed by your body and pass through your system.)

What’s this called? Baby-led weaning. You present healthy, whole foods to your baby, and your baby feeds herself and decides when she’s done. This is the way that babies were fed for hundreds of thousands of years, until about 80 years ago when some corporations decided to market processed food to parents. Those parents bought the food because it seemed new and fashionable; a mark that you could afford it. And then, pretty soon, people thought that was the only thing you were supposed to feed your baby. Science told moms that their milk wasn’t enough to keep babies alive, so moms should start pureeing “real” food and spooning it down their month-old babies’ throats. And then, pretty soon, people thought that even older babies were supposed to eat pureed food. That’s not how babies are designed to be fed. Babies who are weaned onto real food and still mostly drink breast milk don’t have constipation problems. Babies who wean themselves don’t reject foods with texture and flavor. They have fewer allergies, they suffer less from gluten-intolerance, Crohn’s Disease, and obesity.

It makes logical sense. And it’s easier.

Stop believing a corporation’s marketing about what your child should be eating and when. Ignore your doctor when they tell you can start feeding your child solid food before they're six months old--especially if your baby is less than four months. Your doctor is probably old and doesn't know better. You know better. You know your baby. And your baby is smart. Your baby will reach over, grab food, and start eating it when she's ready to start eating solid food. Open a banana, not a jar.

Thank you Azucar for posting on my blog, and for being my biggest breast feeding support via Twitter. She is my go-to for my questions!