A Helpful List of Foods Healthy for Your Baby
We all want to raise healthy children and make sure that the choices that we make for them are good ones. For this reason, it is vital to know the list of foods healthy for your baby. The difficulty arises, of course, in knowing who to listen to. If you interview ten people on the street, they will probably give you ten different answers about baby food selections. Some will advocate giving rice cereal while others will explain the dangers of it; some will urge you to stay away from peanut butter until a child is three, while others will laugh at this suggestion. The list of foods healthy for your baby is long and confusing. Here is one set of suggestions. Take this, along with your own common sense, your family’s diet, you region’s selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, and your other research, to create your own list and to decide what is right for your baby.
There are many suggestions for introducing food to babies. Babies are generally introduced to solids somewhere between the fourth and sixth month. Rice cereal is a practical and easy food choice, as it can be put in their bottle, doesn’t generally cause allergic reactions, and is easily digested. In addition to rice cereal, start your baby on unsweetened vegetables. While it may be tempting to start them on sweeter vegetables or on fruits, it may ruin their taste for more plain items. By starting them on squash, green beans, peas, potatoes, and carrots, you will introduce them to these products without creating a sweet tooth. Each item should be introduced individually and no other selection should be given for three to four days. This allows you to quickly isolate food allergies. Once you know that they are alright with the carrots, you can move on to the peas, the squash, etc. Add to this list of foods healthy for your baby fruits such as applesauce, bananas, pears, peaches, and apples, introducing each by itself.
If you have the time and patience, it’s great to make baby food yourself. Remember not to add sugar or salt. Don’t cook in copper pots, as this can destroy vitamin C. Don’t cook acidic foods such as tomatoes in aluminum, as this can cause small amounts of aluminum to dissolve and become absorbed in the food. If you don’t have the chance, however, you can still feed your baby healthy options. Most commercial baby foods contain no added salt or chemicals and they are made with the right consistency for the right stages.
By eight or nine months, your baby will have tasted most fruits and vegetables and you’ll have a sense of what he likes so far. At this point, when your doctor gives the green light, you can begin to introduce dairy products such as plain yogurt and cottage cheese and other proteins such as chicken, meat, and tofu. In addition, start to introduce legumes and grains such as whole-grain cereal or pasta, kidney or garbanzo beans, lentils, and peas. Even if you are on a diet and buy many diet products, do not skimp on fat for your baby! The list of foods healthy for your baby does not include any diet options! Serve only full fat yogurts and cottage cheeses, full-fat cheeses, and the like.
Two things that are definitely not on the list of foods healthy for your baby are honey and salt. Honey may contain the spores of Clostridium botulinum which can lead to pneumonia and dehydration and can, in rare circumstances, be fatal for babies. While some doctors say honey is alright after eight months, others say to wait until a year. Salty foods are difficult on a baby’s developing kidneys and can give babies a fondness for salt that may lead to hypertension later in life. While you don’t have to go crazy reading every label and outlawing all products with salt, you certainly don’t want to buy anything with added salt or to cook with too much salt.
By the time a baby has been introduced to everything on this list, he is well on his way to eating at your table. Slowly increase the variety and the quantity with time and introduce new things all the time. By age one, your baby can eat just about anything that you are eating, and he will, undoubtedly, let you know his preferences. Remember to give him whole grains, fruits and vegetables, diary and plenty of protein everyday as you watch him grow into a healthy, strong child.
