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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
I have to unlike this page. Disappointed!
Francoise de Rougemont, if you clean up your lifestyle and eat a nourishing traditional diet, the animal foods you eat will help prevent cancer by keeping your body well nourished and able to repair itself in the way it was deigned to do. If you already have cancer or are one of those few who gets it despite the far lower rates among those living a non-toxic but well-nourished lifestyle the best way to go is probably the Gerson Therapy, which no longer includes any animal foods although it did in its original form.
Christa Sabin, I’ve known of several people to cure an egg allergy with the GAPS program. I’ve been on GAPS for 18 months now and have benefitted tremendously including but not limited to curing my food allergies with anaphylaxis that began in the mid 1970s. It’s not uncommon in our society for people’s bodies to have a bad reaction to a food that should be healthy for them. But despite all the harm we’ve done ourselves with our poor diet choices and toxic lifestyles there is hope. 😉
I highly recommend the book Gut And Psychology Syndrome by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride.
But… what do they say about the role of the meat easing the cancer’s cells to grow ? °°
Who is “they”?? Good grief.
Meat doesn’t have to cause cancer. It produces more free radicals when digested, which can damage DNA but in children these are quickly mopped up and the damage is repaired.
Adults do not have as good a DNA repair system as children and need a balanced diet of both meat and veg / fruit as fresh fruits and veg (not frozen or dried) provide antioxidants which mop up the free radicals produced from meat digestion.
Eating just vegetables can be as bad as eating just meat, as you will not get the correct ratios of minerals and amino acids needed for maintainence of the body. The brain suffers the most from lack of meat – its no coincidence that our ancestors got smarter when they started eating meat.
Meat makes sense as a first baby food because it is the most similar to milk, and is the easiest to digest (digesting vegetables takes a lot more effort and more enzymes, humans arguably don’t digest vegetables very well as it is – we need to cook them to get any nutrition out of them as we cannot break down cellulose).
Fruit might be taken readily but it is mostly sugar and doesn’t provide much iron and provides negligible protein and fats.
Vegetarians may not like it but the truth is that meat really is superior to tofu or legumes for a baby’s first food.
my god people. just feed your kids healthy food. find out what they like and let them eat. its not rocket science raising a child.
My baby ended up getting very sick the third time giving egg yolks. Have not given him eggs since. They were organic cage free. He even had a reaction to chicken!! I hope his egg allergy doesn’t last long for him.
Melody Metzger good info here.
Whitney Streck
Ken Taylor & Marianna Taylor check this out
We are giving avacado as first food.