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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
AWESOME!
My grandmother told me to feed my first smashed up boiled egg yoke, I did. Years later I found out that egg yoke has great enzymes for baby’s tummy… I think I’ll stick with grandmas advice…
Grandma knows best! 🙂
Sounds like the meat industry has powerful lobbyists there too… 🙁
I fed my first 2 vege’s and meat. I had tried rice cereal with the first but he always spat it out. I didn’t learn about better nutrition until I had my 3rd, and he had raw egg yolks from 6 months. All 3 ate huge amounts of avocado too, they could never get enough of it. I wonder, is this a good first food too? I always thought it to be. We had moved overseas to the netherlands before our 3rd was born, and I am constantly astounded by the nutritional advice given to parents here. From 6 months, parents are pushed to give brown bread with margarine as a first food. I was often asked why I was not giving my son bread, as it is important fibre that the baby needs for digestion! margarine is also pushed by child nutritionists, to give children the vitamin a & d they need. What a shame! there is so much beautiful grass fed butter here!
The reason for giving babies butter (I don’t know if I’d give margarine, it’s usually synthetic) is that fats in foods help to better absorb fat soluable vitamins. Complex carbohydrates are very good for digestion.
margarine is usually synthetic? I thought it was always synthetic – or are there genetically modified margarine producing cows now? I give my kids heaps of butter, I know its importance for absorbing the fat soluable vitamins. I merely was stating the advice given to parents here by the dutch children’s health network. They advise to give margarine so that children will get the vit A & synthetic vit D that is added to it. No thanks.
I feel like the tides are turning for quality food advice and traditional cooking/nutrition. Maybe it’s just in my mind, but when I hear that my sister bought a pasture-raised side-of-beef, I feel hope. Blogs like yours, Sarah, are making a difference. I read it frequently and have learn a lot. Thanks.
Wow, I’m impressed with with your children speaking full sentences prior to 1. I have an 11 month old who can barely get dada down appropriately. But I’ve never given cereal or grains to him. I tried baby led weaning and he’s just not that interested in food (we still breastfeed.) It’s a celebration when he actually swallows something, and that doesn’t happen but every few days. But as they say “food for fun until one”, I keep having to remind myself this.
Anyway, I have a question on how to feed meat to him. Do you puree it or just hand him a chunk. I’ve just handed him chuncks of meat and he sucks on them and tries to mess with them but never swallows anything. I’ve just recently tried a soft boiled egg yolk. Which btw, I’ll also take tips on how to handle that a little easier. It’s been a mess. And I just recently bought a frozen liver (will let freeze for 14 days just to be sure) to start giving him. So I guess my question is, how to you give the baby meat?
Thank you!
Sara has a video on how to do this, you should check it out! In short you grate the frozen liver with a cheese grater. I grated the whole frozen liver with a food processor and re-solidified in ice cube trays. This made serving it a matter of leaving a cube in the fridge to thaw the night before.
Shaniqua, as per food safety rules it is NOT safe to refreeze raw meat or other food once it has already been defrosted.
Your idea about grating frozen raw liver is a good one. Even easier is what our paleo ancestors would have done: Chew a small piece of meat a bit, then pop the chewed wad into baby’s mouth. Yum! And perfect for toothless babies. (Except Sarah’s remarkable kids, who had a full set of adult teeth by the age of 3.) But this would probably make modern moms a bit squeamish.
I eat plenty of healthy fats and my little began eating egg yolk at 6 months. She is almost 13 months and is not speaking. She started at 4 lb. 9 oz. 18.5″ (no known reason). She is now in the 90th percentile for height and about 20% for weight. She just does not seem as far along as my first two were by age 1. Maybe it went to making up lost ground? I don’t know.
None of my three sons spoke a word before 21 months, yet they spoke 50 words by their 2nd birthdays, and it snowballed from there. They are very bright and do well in school now many years later. I think all babies develop a little differently and not to worry much about one area as long as other milestones are met.
Fantastic testimonial Caitlin. My three children were also all speaking sentences before age one even my 2 boys who are typically slower to learn to speak than girls. My first child I did feed rice cereal early unfortunately as I didn’t know better at the time, but I was still breastfeeding and eating lots of fat even though it was pasteurized organic dairy (blech!). Now we only do raw dairy which is so much better and more digestible.
My next two children got egg yolks and bits of grated raw liver (frozen for 14 days prior to ensure safety) as their first foods and they did speak even earlier than my first.
Speaking sentences before they even turned one? That sounds completely impossible.
I think she must mean before age 2.
I’ve known babies who can speak *short* sentences before age one… it’s not impossible, just uncommon.
My now 22 years old daughter sang the happy birthday song to herself the day she turned one!
And of course she spoke in sentences, living people around impressed.
I spoke in sentences before I was one. Just simple, two word sentences usually, but sentences none the less.
My son spoke/signed in sentences before age 1. And he was rice cereal at 4 months and on formula. It’s not that uncommon.
Yes, it is impossible. Sarah is notoriously dishonest unfortunately. She has a lot of good ideas and suggestions about traditional diets but she just plan makes things up at times which is why I am done following her on FB. I think she just likes to write provocative articles to get lots of hits on her blog so that she makes money. Disappointing.
back that up.
Well to start on this particular lie here are ASHA’s month by month development charts:
0-1 Year:
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/01.htm
1-2 Years:
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/12/
2-3 Years:
http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/12/
So to say a child is speaking in complete sentences before age 1 is simply fallacious. Anyone with young children can confirm this. So unless all of her children are prodigies then she is lying. To go through and highlight every instance in which she exaggerates or has made strong conclusions without backing them up would take way longer than I want to spend on this.
I’m curious…what was the first food(s) you fed your children? I don’t ask in judgment at all! I’m nearly 55, my kids are grown, and I have 4 grandsons. But I’ve learned so much since my kids were babies, and I can’t even count the number of things I would have done differently had I known. Thank you for the work you do. I appreciate what I have learned and continue to learn from you.
With my fourth daughter I was unable to breast feed after 4 months so I was extremely careful about making homemade formula. At around six months I began adding a bright orange raw egg yolk from a pastured hen to her bottle every single day. Now at 11 months she is eating bits of meat and raw cheese (no grain, whatsoever) and some fruits and veggies, usually cooked with butter, as well as her bottle. She is BY FAR my earliest developed mentally. She takes commands and responds to questions with both intelligible words and signs and interacts with people on a greater level of understanding for her age compared to my other three. I credit the egg yolks!
My first 3 babies had quite a rough start with allergies, severe eczema, etc. I started them all on rice cereal because I didn’t know any better then. I was also a vegetarian part of that time and very restricted in what I could eat while breastfeeding; seemed like everything bothered my babies. All 3 of my sons have had ongoing health struggles that are only now starting to resolve on GAPS, years later.
Soon after my twins (2nd and 3rd babies) were born, I discovered WAPF and gradually changed our family’s diet. When the twins were 5, I gave birth to a much healthier son who still had allergies (my gut is not 100% healed yet), but did a whole lot better than his big brothers. I also had learned by then that rice cereal was a bad first food, so I fed him mostly liver (he couldn’t tolerate eggs at first) for many months, with some muscle meat added in occasionally. He also got FCLO every day, from my milk and then directly, and plenty of bone broth and healthy fats.
This boy is now two years old, enjoys abundant health, and is far more intelligent and aware than his older brothers were at this age (and his brothers are/were not dummies). He is already able to read a lot of words and is eagerly learning more words each day … since when can a 2yo READ? I am in awe, and I’m certain that his diet has everything to do with this.
I can’t wait to have another sweet baby to nourish like this. 😀