Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
Many parents believe that baby cereals are the best first food for babies, but doctors are increasingly suggesting otherwise with more traditional foods that are easier to digest and less likely to trigger allergies gaining favor such as soft boiled egg yolk.
What is the best baby first food? This is a question all parents inevitably ask and the answer given by most pediatricians is rice cereal.
Unfortunately, any grain-based food is not a good idea for children only a few months old as a baby’s immature digestive system does not produce sufficient amylase, the enzyme required for digestion of carbohydrates. The fact that rice cereal is gluten-free makes no difference whatsoever – rice is still a carbohydrate and therefore very difficult for babies to handle digestively.
Incomplete digestion of rice cereal guarantees putrefaction in the gut leading to an imbalance of digestive flora and the potential for allergies and other autoimmune illnesses to develop down the road. In addition, much of today’s rice is contaminated with arsenic! This includes brown rice syrups used in powdered organic baby formula (best to always make homemade formula instead).
If rice cereal is not ideal for a baby as a first food, then what?
In this video lesson, I show you how to prepare the perfect first food for your baby around 4-6 months of age: egg yolk.
While egg white should not be given to babies under a year old, the egg yolk supplies critical brain-building cholesterol and fatty acids that will reward you with a child who speaks at an early age.
All 3 of my children were speaking short, yet complete sentences by a year old. I attribute this not only to extended breastfeeding but also to the brain-building nutrients supplied by their early first foods as practiced by Traditional Societies.
The video along with the recipe below shows you how to properly make a soft boiled egg to use the warm, liquid yolk as baby’s first food. Do not use the white as it is allergenic until a baby is over a year old.
Just give baby a taste or two at first. Even if they love it, eating the whole thing too fast (it’s very rich!) risks vomiting. Go slow!
Hint: Try making this recipe using quail eggs, as they are tiny and the perfect size for baby’s appetite.
Egg Yolk For Baby
The simple recipe below takes 3 minutes to prepare and is the ideal first food for your baby!
Note that egg yolk is recommended over cereal grains by Health Canada. It is unfortunate that the USA is still behind on this important baby weaning step.
Baby First Food Recipe
Recipe to make the best first food for baby as practiced by healthy, traditional cultures to boost intelligence and encourage early speaking.
Ingredients
- 1 egg preferably pastured or free range
- 1/2 tsp organic liver optional, grated
Instructions
-
Boil the egg for 3 1/2 minutes. Crack the egg open (no need to peel) and carefully place the soft egg yolk into a bowl. Discard the shell and the egg white.
Stir in the optional liver (grated while still frozen is the easiest method).
Serve baby a taste or two building slowly over days and weeks as tolerated.
-
Stir in the optional liver (grated while still frozen is the easiest method). Or use organic desiccated liver powder.
-
Serve baby a taste or two building slowly over days and weeks as tolerated. Feeding to much too quickly risks vomiting as this is a very rich food!
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
The organic raw liver should be frozen for at least 14 days to ensure safety.
Alternatively, if a clean source for organ meats is not available, use desiccated liver pills and sprinkle 1/8 of a tsp into the warm yolk.
I fed my second baby grass-fed ground beef and plain yogurt starting around 8 months. He wasn’t able to handle anything until then.
My third baby is just about 6 months and not interested in eating. He will grab food off my plate, but drop it (while non-food items go straight in the mouth). I’ll just keep on exclusively breastfeeding him until he is ready! I have lots of liver, and always have pastured eggs, plus I’ll offer him raw plain yogurt (since he will be 7 – 8 months, I’m sure, when he is ready), mashed avocado, and other things like this. Oh, chunks of raw butter too. 🙂
Hi Sarah,
Just loved this baby video! Can you provided more info. for 3, 4 and 5 year olds.
thanks for all the great info.
Abby
One other question. What type of liver? Through my food co-op I can get beef or duck liver. I can probably get chicken liver if I ask my chicken farmer. Curious as to the healthiest liver for babies.
I’d get a variety of livers. They all have different micronutrient profiles and are equally valuable. Most people consider beef liver to be the king of nutrient density but it has a really strong taste so your results may vary.
This is great. I feed this to my baby everyday. He’s 8 months old, and a chubby as anything!
Thank you Sarah for the great video! My baby is 6 months old and I was gonna start feeding her egg yolk and liver….but I do have a question. Does the liver HAVE TO be raw? Or is it just as good if it’s cooked or baked in the owen? Only asking bc I’m sure my husband will have a pretty HARD time accepting this way of feeding the baby and I either need to convince him that it’s safe of come up with an alternative, such as cooking the liver….
So is it good as well or not so much?
Thank you for your reply!
It really should be raw. Cooked meat for a young baby of 4-6 mos would be very difficult to digest as the enzymes would be destroyed. Cooked meats are for a bit older of a baby .. I introduced cooked meats (like mashed up meatloaf loaded with pureed veggies) and soups with blended up meats about 7-8 months.
A question for other mommies – Any ideas of what to do with the soft boiled egg if you don’t like to eat soft boild eggs?
You can mix it in to waffle batter! I sneak lots of extra yolks into mine (my recipe calls for just a couple but I put in 5-6 typically). The kids never know the difference.
Depending on how old your child is and what they’re eating you can also pop those yolks in a smoothie or make egg nog with raw milk and cream. I also make pancakes out of just plain bananas and eggs and fry them up in plenty of butter. I use about 6 eggs to 4 bananas which makes a lot. They’re delicious and easy to make but then you are cooking them which is not quite as nutritious as if you were to offer the yolks raw in a drink.
Tracey
I sneak yolks in to almost everything my son eats. It’s one of those foods you can just stick in to everything. His yogurt, his stirfry, his meat loaf, my chicken liver pate is loaded with egg yolks. If you occasionally make rice pasta you can stick a bunch of them in to a cream sauce, you can even throw them in oatmeal.
THANK YOU SARAH!
Please keep the posts coming on feeding our babies:) What we feed our children is one of the most important choices we make in parenting. I will welcome all the help I can get!
Jenny,
Just a thought for you feeling liver isn’t fair. Think about knowing what is the best for your child and choosing to give them second best….. I found this helpful when starting my four month old on fermented cod liver oil. He is now five months and has never gone a day without it!
Wishing the best to everyone:)
What was your method of feeding fclo to your 4m old? I have a 6m old I’m giving fclo. Just trying to find the BEST and most effective way of doing this since most of it seems to be spit out on his bib. Thanks.
Thank you so much for posting this! Our baby is 6 months old and while I am breastfeeding exclusively, he has shown a lot of interest in eating solid foods. I knew I would soon need to figure out where to start. Perfect timing! With my other two children (now 7 & 8), I followed the traditional pediatrician’s advice for food and immunizations and one of them has food allergy issues, a weakened immune system (possibly from all the antibiotics from ear infections), etc. It was because of all his issues that I began searching for answers. Looking forward to doing it differently with our new little guy. Thank you for continuing to educate!
Question: I gave my 6 month old the yolk from a soft boiled egg. Her face got splotchy and then she threw up about an hour later. I then tried it when she turned 8 months old. The same thing happened. Thinking that she has an egg allergy, the next day I rubbed a small dab of raw egg on her back and the skin broke out in a rash. She is now 10 months old. Should I wait a long time before trying the egg yolk again? Any thoughts?
Yes, I would wait awhile. No need to wait on the raw grated liver though. She is old enough where you could hide that in some soft grassfed meatloaf loaded with pureed veggies for example. Or, add a bit to some pureed soups made with homemade broth.
Could be soy fed to the chicken. Try to find soy-free eggs from pasture-raised hens. If that doesn’t work, you could address a food allergy with the GAPS diet.
Beth, we are fortunate to buy our eggs from pasture raised hens on a local organic farm. I am familiar with the GAPS diet, but how could this help with allergies. Curious b/c my 7 year old has peanut and tree nut allergies. Could the GAPS diet help my older child?
Sure. You’re never too old for GAPS!
gaps is all about allergies! google gaps allergies and see what you get.
The same thing happened to my son. I gave him the egg yolk at 6 months and his face got red and splotchy and then I waited another month and a half (now 7.5 months) and just tried it again yesterday and he ended up throwing up an hour later.
@Jen I had the same experience with my son. We tried them every couple months from 5 months and on. Once he turned about 12 months he was fine with the egg yolks and now at 4 months he eats 3-4 egg yolks a day!! Some kids take longer for their guts to seal. I just gave my son tiny chunks of grassfed butter, liver pureed with grassfed beef, banana, and cultured cream. He still doesn’t seem to do too well with the whites but who needs the whites anyway?? 🙂
14 months not 4. haha