(Baby) Food for thought

             

As a first time mum of a 4 month old, I questioned myself, my abilities and my instincts, constantly. Sometimes things just didn’t feel right for no other reason but my intuition telling me so. But I was terrified to trust myself. I didn’t want to take the chance of making the wrong decision based on “a funny feeling” and end up being responsible for “doing it wrong”. It was much easier to seek and take advice. So instead of daring to carve my own path in this seemingly perfect earth, I found myself continuously following well-meaning advisors down the rabbit hole into what I hoped would only be Wonderland. But it wasn’t wonderland. It was never wonderland. Not even once, and starting Evie on solids was no exception to this rule.
After a solid (mind the pun) month or so of furious and continuous breast feeding, sleepless days, restlessness and hourly feeds overnight, pumping, topping up and tearing my hair out in bloody clumps (I exaggerate), I turned to my support network for answers and the general consensus was:  “she’s hungry”.  Surely not? She was only 4 months old! Everything I had read stressed the benefits of waiting until babies are 6 months before starting solids, and the damage that can ensue if this caution was not heeded.  It felt wrong. The idea of starting my baby on solids ‘early’ sat heavy on my chest in a way that I would liken to a feeling of guilt. But what did I know? I was a novice and I was delirious with lack of sleep. Maybe I was blinded by the need to do everything by the natural parenting bible? I decided that I couldn’t live with the thought of my daughter possibly being hungry because I refused to supplement her breast milk based only on my minimal experience and anxiousness. So after a few days of agonising over the decision and discussing it with Papa Bear, I expressed some milk, blended it with avocado, sat my tiny daughter in her bumbo on the kitchen table (she was still too little to balance in a high chair) and spooned this mixture into her confused but trusting little mouth. And it didn’t change a thing. She wasn’t hungry. I realised months later that she was actually tired and trying to put herself to sleep by comfort sucking, hence the constant “feeding”, irritability and wakefulness. But that’s another story for another time (blog).
Do I regret going against my instincts and starting my baby on solids earlier than I should have? No. Although it didn’t change anything about the situation that we were in, it taught me that I probably know more than I give myself credit form and I was doing the best I knew how to do at the time. It is through experience, both good and bad, but particularly bad, that we learn and grow and move forward in this life. But, I digress.  The point im heading toward here is that our journey to and through solid food hasn’t been an easy one from the beginning. It has, however, landed me in a place where I now feel confident and competent making and feeding Evie because many mistakes, means many lessons learned, and here are some of them:

Plastic bad, glass good
It seems every baby aisle in every store that we walk into as parents is plastered with “BPA free!” advertising. BPA, or Bisephenol-A, is an estrogenic chemical that leaches into food from plastics, particularly when heat is applied. If you know a little bit about pathophysiology, you may know that estrogenic chemicals (chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body) can cause any number of diseases from cancer, through to developmental abnormalities (particularly of the sexual organs) and infertility.
Whilst it’s great that all of the plastic producers have cottoned on to the fact that we know BPA is bad for us and will stop us from buying their product, what’s not so great is that the focus on BPA directs attention away from all of the other estrogenic chemicals that still remain in the plastics we consume (studies have shown that 95% of plastics still contain estrogenic chemicals that can and will leach into our foods during use). It seems that BPA is the ‘sacrificial lamb’, if you will, thrown under the bus so that the others may continue to be sold to us with a false innocence.
Estrogenic chemicals will begin to leach out of plastics particularly when heat is applied, that is in the dishwasher, microwave or even over a pot of simmering water. That’s why it is very important that if you do use plastics when feeding your children, and yourself, for that matter, (for cold foods, dry foods or spoons etc) they are washed by hand and not placed in the dishwasher where extreme water temperature and harsh chemicals with denature the plastic and bleed chemicals into whatever they may come into contact with thereafter. It is also important to avoid the use of microwavable plastics to heat food (use glass, instead) as once again the extreme temperature and radiation will cause the plastics to begin leaching (if they aren’t already).
Also of concern are disposable plastics (water bottles and ‘take and toss’ containers)  that are not intended to be used more than once – these do not have to meet the same standards as multiple-use plastics. As such, they develop miro-cracks through which chemicals leach very easily – hot or not.
We heat all of Evie’s food using two glass bowls, one filled with hot water, then placed underneath another with whatever food I am preparing to heat. It does require a little more planning ahead to get food ready on time, and it can be frustrating waiting for food to warm up whilst you have a baby who is grizzly and impatiently waiting for their dinner, but the benefits far outweigh the price for this method. If our children are born perfect and healthy into this world, we have a responsibility to keep them that way, even if it means that dinner is a little late sometimes.
When I talk of heating food, it is also important to mention heating of formula and/or expressed breast milk. The same rules apply. There are quite a few brands of glass bottles available and it would be well worth the effort to seek them out. It is here, however, that I will make a confession: I am human and I’m my desperate attempts to get Evie to take a bottle of expressed breast milk, I tried every brand, teat and shape known to mankind – even those made of plastic. I had convinced myself that if only I could get her used to the idea of a bottle, then I could switch back over to glass once the first hurdle had been jumped. It never did happen, however, because to this day she still refuses a bottle of any kind. Cest la vie.

Rice cereal is bullshit
Do you really think that rice cereal is what nature intended to be babies first food? Do you honestly believe that once upon a time our foremothers noticed their babies were still crying in hunger after being breast fed so they leisurely went and picked some rice grains, started a fire, boiled up the rice, waited for it to cool, mashed it up with rocks and then finally fed it to their still-screaming, and now suffering, babies? Of course not. They would have instinctively sought to ease their babies hunger as quickly and easily as possible, and in a way that met their increased nutritional demands. They would have grabbed a piece of soft fruit, made it into mush with their teeth and promptly fed it straight to their waiting babies then and there. Not to mention the fact that rice cereal legally has to be iron-fortified as it doesn’t contain enough nutrition in its natural state to meet babies increased demands for nutrients. Do you think that our foremothers had access to iron-fortified grains? Babies don’t even produce the enzymes that break down grains until they get their molars in. Not many 6 month olds have their molars now, do they?

Baby led weaning
I know baby led weaning is all the rage on the natural parenting scene, but it didn’t work for us. I do like some of the concepts behind baby led weaning, that babies are encouraged to play with their foods, explore the textures and pick at their parents foods at will in order to explore and develop their pallets. However, babies all develop teeth and the ability to chew at various times. Thus, when I would give Evie ‘spears of vegetables such as broccoli’ (as recommended by a baby led weaning web page) she had no idea what to do with them. She would bite into them initially, but with only her four front teeth, she was unable to grind the food into a swallowable consistency.  It is important to note here that anthropologists suggest that in hunter gatherer societies, mothers would pre chew their babies foods for them and feed via ‘kiss feeding’ (similar to how a mother bird feeds her baby, only without the vomit). This method of feeding had many benefits for babies because the enzymes in their mothers saliva would begin the digestive process for them. In modern society it could be suggested that we premasticate our babies food by cooking and blending it – and research actually suggests that babies benefit most from beginning their solids journey on cooked foods rather than raw (some enzymes are broken down somewhat by the cooking process, thus digestion is easier).

Portion sizes
At one point in time, I became fixated on the amount of food that Evie was, or was not, eating. I think in the back of my mind I had convinced myself that “if only she would just have a few more mouthfuls, she will sleep through the night” and “If she doesn’t eat this, she’s going to start losing weight!” And then I discovered the beautiful, painless truth: babies under one year (especially breast fed babies) only need to eat as much as they will eat, and every baby is different. A meal for one 10 month old may be a whole bowl and the same meal for another 10 month old may be 2 teaspoons. Babies should never be forced to eat, bribed to eat or punished for not eating an amount set by anyone but themselves. Babies are much more attuned to their sense of hunger than we, as adults who can suppress the discomfort of overeating for the sake of taste, pleasure and emotional comfort, are. Forcing babies to eat more than they are willing will only create negative associations with food and a whole lot of unnecessary stress and heart ache for everyone involved.

Jars, pouches & cans There are many additive free, sugar free, organic baby foods available in super markets today, which is great if you are in a rush, travelling, unwell, living in a third world country, or otherwise physically unable to make your baby fresh food at home for a short period of time. However, don’t be fooled. How healthy do you honestly think meat and vegetables that are able to sit at room temperature for months on end can really be? Pre-packaged organic and/or additive/preservative free baby foods are made ‘sterile’ using intense heat to kill any and all bacteria, then sealed air tight to prevent oxidation. The problem with using intense heat to kill bacteria is that it also greatly diminishes the nutritional value of the food. Enzymes are destroyed by intense heat, as are delicate nutrients such as vitamin C. I’m not suggesting that your babies will get no nutrition whatsoever from packaged foods, but they are not getting nearly as much as they would be if the food they were eating was fresh. Furthermore, making baby food at home gets your baby used to the kinds of foods and flavours that your family eats *assuming you are stewing and puréeing fruits and veggies that you have in the house already, which will hold you in great stead when everybody is finally eating from the same pot!

After starting Evie on solids, my next hurdle was what, on God’s green earth, to make for her. It has been a long and winding road figuring this one out, let me assure you. But I got there in the end. So I will leave you with one of the recipes that is her favourite for lunch or dinner – if you would like to see some more you can visit me on facebook at www.facebook.com/theoriginaloccupation

Sweet potato & Carrot Mash 
1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
1/2 a large sweet potato, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1/8 of a brown onion, diced
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped

1. Heat oil in a small fry pan, with lid
2. Add onion and carrot and cook until soft (about 5 minutes)
3. Add sweet potato and water, bring to the boil
4. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for approximately 10 minutes (until potato is soft)
5. Add oregano - blend and serve