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One of the most misguided and damaging pieces of advice coming from the vast majority of “experts” is to give rice cereal as a baby first food around the age of 4-6 months. This advice is extremely harmful to the long term health of the child, contributing greatly to the epidemic of fat toddlers and the exploding problem of childhood obesity.
Rice cereal is never a healthy baby first food. Not only is it an extremely high glycemic food when eaten alone (spikes the blood sugar) but it also contains ample amounts of double sugar (disaccharide) molecules, which are extremely hard for such an immature digestive system to digest. The small intestine of a baby mostly produces only one carbohydrate enzyme, lactase, for digestion of the lactose in milk. It produces little to no amylase, the enzyme needed for grain digestion until around age one.
Now, at least one governmental body is waking up to the harmful notion of cereal grains as the “ideal” baby first food.
Health Canada Recommends Traditional First Foods
Health Canada in collaboration with the Canadian Pediatric Society, Dietitians of Canada and Breastfeeding Committee for Canada has issued new guidelines for transitioning a baby to solid food and two of the first weaning foods recommended?
Meat and eggs!
While these guidelines are certain to rile vegetarian and vegan groups, the fact is that meat and eggs are indeed the best weaning foods for a baby. Not only are these animal foods extremely easy to digest compared with cereal grains, but they also supply iron right at the time when a baby’s iron stores from birth start to run low.
The inclusion of meat in these baby first food guidelines is in line with the wisdom of Ancestral Cultures which frequently utilized animal foods for weaning. A traditional first food in African cultures is actually raw liver which the mother would pre-chew in small amounts and then feed to her child.
The guidelines specifically note the role that ancient wisdom played in the decision to no longer recommend cereal grains and instead suggest meat:
While meat and fish are traditional first foods for some Aboriginal groups, the common practice in North America has been to introduce infant cereal, vegetables, and fruit as first complementary foods.
Soft boiled egg yolks are also an ideal choice as a baby first food as they supply ample iron as well as choline and arachidonic acid which are both critical for optimal development of the baby’s brain which grows as its most rapid rate the first year of life.
Unfortunately, while the suggestion of meat and eggs is a good one, the joint statement from Health Canada also inexplicably includes tofu and legumes which are both a terrible choice as a baby first food.
The starch in legumes would cause the same digestive problems as rice cereal and the endocrine-disrupting isoflavones in tofu would be a disaster for baby’s delicate and developing hormonal system.
But, let’s give credit where credit is due.At least meat and eggs are appropriately included on the baby first food list.
Good on you Health Canada! Perhaps your neighbor country to the South will wake up and get a clue about how to properly feed babies based on your lead.
I’m not holding my breath.
Reference
Meat, tofu among recommended iron rich foods for Canadian babies
” the epidemic of fat toddlers” That’s even more news. For two children in a row we were given orders to keep babies chubby to support brain growth.
This article is a complete work of fiction. The comments supporting are fantasy.
Dr. Carey Reams, who created RBTI, Reams Biological Theory of Ionization, a health program, did not recommend children to consume meat until they were 12 years of age.
“I also discovered that babies’ gastric juices are so diluted, so weak they cannot digest the foods that adults eat. By mathematical calculations I worked out the foods that a baby could digest from the very earliest time that it could take food until its gastric juices became strong enough to digest the foods of an adult. Consequently, my children did not get any nut, or nut meats, or nut butters (coconut being the exception) until they were eight years old. (Or, unless the nuts are steamed soft in a pressure cooker, or boiled until soft. … I also discovered children could not digest meats until they were 12 years old … Besides meats and nuts the children should not eat shell fish, oysters, clams, lobster, or any soups with meat or meat broth in them. Children cannot digest chocolate, iced tea or coffee. Our children never tasted coke, or carbonated drinks. We always had fresh fruit drink” (Choose Life Or Death, P. 59,60).
Basically, he recommended a WAPF type diet for children less than 12 without meat or fish. He allowed FCLO, dairy, eggs, etc. At 12 years of age, he would slowly start to introduce meats.
According to RBTI practitioner Michael Olszta, “children under 12 get more energy from a dilute source, that is, they run on a lower octane gasoline. This is why so many children are sick, that is, they are being fed the diet of an adult and thus are getting too much higher octane fuel when that fuel should be lower octane. They not only are minerally deficient because of a wrong diet, their bodies have to deal with getting rid of the heavier foods which they cannot digest.”
According to RBTI, the body’s digestive system under normal health starts to work at its best around 18-20 years of age. Adults require a a heavier diet.
Curiously enough, Carey Reams created RBTI at a time when Weston Price already indicated soil depletion started to show up as a problem in modern society. Incidentally, RBTI focuses on addressing the lack of nutrition in our foods because of exhausted soils. I am trying to reconcile traditional suggestions to feed children meat versus RBTI. Can it be that depleted soils have caused weak digestion in children? Weston Price noted in his book that as soil declines, so does the health of a society.
Although, Reams seemed unperturbed giving non-GM0 soybeans to his kids, which I consider questionable, he raised kids that never had a cavity or misdeed a day of school due to illness. With that said, as anyone observed their children doing better before 12 on going without meats and fish that with these items?
This is my first time on this page and i have to say, pretty disappointed in the attacks and sarcasm. There are many studies advocating varying approaches to diet ( both for and against meat/animal consumption) and i have a half vegan/ meat eating family. Some people asked about digesting red meat, here’s an article i found interesting. http://www.livestrong.com/article/500353-can-the-human-body-digest-red-meat/. Either way, be tolerant of one another and leave the name calling for your kids in the schoolyard.
Did you try feeding your baby the warm egg yolk with a little butter and sea salt added? Try it off your finger rather than a spoon for the first few times. That’s how I did it to begin with and they loved it. Also, if your baby will drink from a bottle, mix a little soft-cooked egg yolk with your breastmilk in a bottle, and at least baby will get the nutrition from the yolk, even if it is a slow process to begin with. There are all kinds of tricky ways to get babies interested in real foods.