Baby Food Grinder

Every food can be allergenic.

And milk products are in formula that are given to babies of all ages.

I didn’t like the idea of baby food, so I skipped that stage with my son and just went straight to table foods, I even bought a food grinder to puree my foods so he could eat them too.

Edited:

I did some research and found this:

So why do many commercial baby foods marketed as “Stage 2″ contain strawberries? Beech Nut commercial baby food states:

“Fresh strawberries can sometimes cause food reactions in babies. Cooked strawberries, on the other hand, usually do not. That’s because heat pasteurization destroys the substance responsible for reactions. So Beech-Nut includes strawberries – pasteurized for safety and good tolerance”

When speaking with a pediatrician, I was told that it is possible that the strawberry protein may be destroyed in commercial baby food processing. Whether or not home cooking of strawberries would reach temperatures high enough to destroy any protein is uncertain. It is recommended to wait on strawberry introduction if there is a family history of strawberry allergies.

I would assume that the same would apply to other high allergen foods as well.
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I find it really annoying too. Almost every source I’ve read says to not give wheat products to babies until they are 1. Yet most cereals, all the finger foods, and many, many of the jarred foods contain wheat in large quantities. I find this one especially annoying because my daughter is at a high risk for Celiac Sprue Disease so she is on a wheat/gluten free diet. I gave up and make almost all of her foods at home from scratch. This way I know exactly what is in it, how it was processed, etc. Besides, this way I can make sure I am using all organic produce and surprisingly the cost (even with the more expensive organic stuff) is quite a bit cheaper than buying the store foods like Beech Nut or Gerber. If I have to buy store food for travel or something like that I try to always go with Earth’s Best. They are very health conscious and have the best allergen free selection I’ve found.
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Living and learning with my 10 1/2 month old baby girl, Avary

Firstly baby food companies have only one person’s interests at heart: their shareholders. If they really cared about babies they wouldn’t break the law (in Canada and other places) and advertise baby food for babies under 6 months of age, they wouldn’t add fillers to cereal, or annatto to foods. In fact there wouldn’t be any “infant” cereal on the market at all and probably no pureed foods.

Secondly there is no agreement about withholding foods any longer than 6 months. There is really no good evidence that it prevents allergies, or any agreement as to which foods should be avoided.

Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

“These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels” and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

Food allergy fears get some of the blame for the bland approach. For decades doctors have said the best way to prevent allergies is to limit infants to bland foods, avoiding seasonings, citrus, nuts and certain seafood.

But Butte’s review found no evidence that children without family histories of food allergies benefit from this. Others suspect avoiding certain foods or eating bland diets actually could make allergies more likely. Some exposure might be a good thing.

And bring on the spices. Science is catching up with the folklore that babies in the womb and those who are breast-fed taste — and develop a taste for — whatever Mom eats. So experts say if Mom enjoys loads of oregano, baby might, too.

The prevalence of peanut allergy was 1.85 percent among the U.K. students and 0.17 percent among the Israeli children, said the study, which also found that 69 percent of Israeli children were eating peanuts at nine months of age, compared to only 10 percent of the British children.

“The most obvious difference in the diet of infants in both populations occurs in the introduction of peanut,” wrote lead author Dr. George Du Toit and colleagues. But they cautioned that more research is needed before the U.K. and other countries change their guidelines that advise avoidance of peanut consumption during pregnancy, breastfeeding, and infancy.

From these observations and her own studies she developed her feeding programme, called Baby-Led Weaning.

According to this programme, during the first six months babies should receive milk only.

She said: “In 2002 the World Health Organisation backed research that found breast or formula milk provided all the nutrition a baby needs up to the age of six months.

“That research said feeding a baby any other food during the first six months would dilute the nutritional value of the milk and might even be harmful to the baby’s health.”

These findings have been incorporated into government recommendations on baby feeding.

Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby’s small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)

Babies do produce functional enzymes (pepsin and proteolytic enzymes) and digestive juices (hydrochloric acid in the stomach) that work on proteins and fats.12 This makes perfect sense since the milk from a healthy mother has 50-60 percent of its energy as fat, which is critical for growth, energy and development.13 In addition, the cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from food.13 In some cultures, a new mother is encouraged to eat six to ten eggs a day and almost ten ounces of chicken and pork for at least a month after birth. This fat-rich diet ensures her breast milk will contain adequate healthy fats.14
Thus, a baby’s earliest solid foods should be mostly animal foods since his digestive system, although immature, is better equipped to supply enzymes for digestion of fats an
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