BABY’S FIRST PORRIDGE: bought or homemade?

    Naturally one can prepare everything from the beginning.  Of all things the vegetables for our small ones must be neither genetically altered, radioactively treated, nor dosed with agricultural or environmentally unfriendly chemicals.  The only certain markets for non-dosed and unsprayed vegetables are either the local health food store and certainly your own garden.  Always be cautious when purchasing vegetables, however, as one never knows for sure what chemicals may be on food labeled “organic” or “natural”.  Because of their high nitrate content, one should be particularly careful of feeding spinach or carrots to an infant before it is six months old.  It is not always possible to choose known safe home-grown vegetables in opposition to chemical-laden store-bought ones.  In such a case it may be advisable to go back to the option of grabbing a jar of  baby food from the store shelf.  However, before doing so it is a good idea to research which brands do and do not use genetically altered vegetables and fruit.  It is quite simple and natural to cook and mash a potato and add a half glass of milk.

    During pregnancy the baby puts on reserves of iron which it needs six to nine months after its birth.  Iron is important for building blood.  Without it, the iron wrestling match with the environmental poisons of cadmium and lead would be lost; since iron eliminates these elements.  Because iron is found in such foods as meat and eggs in abundance, it is a good idea to stir in two to three teaspoons of pureed meat in a baby’s food every other day from its sixth month on.  Once a week a cooked egg yolk can be mixed into a sauce with its vegetables.  Children from those having allergies should definitely not have eggs during their first year. 

    Fats are important for an infant because they contain unsaturated fatty acids and many vitamins.  If one has to turn back to the jar of baby food, then one should definitely mix in a tablespoon of oil; because they usually contain too little fat.  It is a good idea to make use of refined plant oils such as corn or sunflower, since they contain mostly unsaturated fats.  Cold-pressed oils are not recommended, as they contain peroxides that seriously burden the child’s life.

    A maintenance dose of iodine is not recommended from the beginning onwards.  Iodine early on can come to interfere with the function of a child’s lymph glands later in life.  Iodine is a trace element that is found in milk and fish.  Instead of meat or egg yolk mixed in the vegetable mush one may give fish once a week from the eighth month on.  For babies with risk of allergies one must be cautious and at least wait until the tenth month to add fish. 

    The vegetable mush should always be prepared fresh.  Naturally one can advisably cook and store portions frozen.  These portions can be warmed up just before serving.  The best is a sparing preparation, for example stewing in a little water.  Afterwards the vegetables and potatoes must be finely pureed with either a puree stick or a blender.

    Fruit and vegetable drinks are frequently too sweet.  From the fifth month on one can give an infant two teaspoons of fruit juice after lunch as a dessert.  The Vitamin C within increases the availability of iron from the vegetables at the meal.

    After the seventh month infants should best have a milk-free grain-fruit porridge.  Since milk inhibits the uptake of iron from the vegetables into the body, it is important that there should be no milk or milk-product in the lunch.  The relatively high iron content in cereals such as millet, oats, or rye will thereby be made use of to a greater degree.

    The same rules go for fruit sauces as for baby food.  Pay attention to the ingredient list!  Jars with contents such as milk-egg whites, modified starches, or sugar are in every case to be very strictly limited or avoided.  Also the ingredient Vitamin C, that is available in such large doses as a touted “wonder vitamin”, is often overdone.  Fruit contains enough of several vitamins.  Also contents such as salt and spices are overdone.

MAKING FRUIT MUSH ONESELF

Finely mashed apple, fork-smashed banana, and according to the age of the baby and seasonal availability of fruit pear, peach, or strawberry mush all excellent choices.  It is best to purchase the fruit from a local grower and find out what sort of chemicals and hopefully not radioactive treatments were used.  Fruit should always be washed thoroughly and, if possible, be peeled.  Discard the outer skin on peaches and plums.  With infants at risk of allergies one should not give citrus fruits and strawberries before the ninth month.

THE “CEREAL EXPERIENCE” FROM AN INSTANT PACKAGE?

    “Now you can make healthy spoons of cereal a total joy!  Your little connoisseur will be entirely happy…” intones the company Aleta that wants to provide a sugary nutritionless baggy as a tasty “climb into the milkporridge world”.  Cereals, fruits, powdered milk, or sugar previously mixed so that you only need add water or milk.  The provider’s recommendation of what month the porridge is recommended can be totally forgotten.  The data, for example the cereal to be given at the fourth month, is totally premature.

    Milk cereals contain considerably more calories than mother’s milk, which the baby is adapted to consume.  This can therefore lead the baby to put on too many fat cells and make the infant too fat.  Furthermore, infants can not digest a lot of cereal contents and can come to bloat painfully.  Not until the sixth or seventh month shall an evening meal be set with a cereal-whole milk porridge.  The homemade cereal porridges are without a question better than the packages.  Most ready-made packets contain too much sugar and the child will too quickly get accustomed to the “sweet” element of taste.  This leads to cavities and also an oversweet expectation of food.

    While parents concerned with the sustenance of their baby may have talked about it, therefore the role of substitutes may be concealed.  Against the influence of sugar such things as fructose, glucose, sugar beet syrup, and honey are often to be found on the ingredient list of the package.  These are of all things related to sugar with different names which nonetheless have the same action.  Even with “sweet from the grain” the taste for sweets can be programmed.

    One should give your child the chance to get to know the taste of a proper milk porridge.  For how is a good natural taste possible if the ingredients come from freeze-dried pulverized fruit, de-mineralized whey, artificial vitamin mixtures, or deficient powdered milk?  In contrast the benefits are great by cooking a milk-grain porridge oneself!  Ready mixtures with stone-ground grains and ecologically sound ingredients can be found in few markets.  It is best to prepare them yourself.  One can cheerfully renounce sugar and other substitutes.  If the child absolutely totally sets the porridge aside you can use fruit such as mashed banana or ground apple or perhaps apple juice to sweeten it up.

MAKING WHOLE MILK PORRIDGE ONESELF

    When cooking the milk porridge pasteurized whole milk (3.5% fat) is the recommended as best.  H-milk or condensed milk should not be made use of because too many vitamins are lost while heating and condensed milk contains too much sugar.  Sour milk products like yogurt, kefir, or cheese curds are fine after the tenth month.  They contain left-turning milk sours that can lead to an overly sour blood for an infant.  Many milk products are prepared with thickeners, flavorings, and colorings that an infant should not eat with the porridge.  Cheese curds are not recommended because the egg white content is very high.  The limit of three ounces of cheese curds daily shall be set so that the kidneys of the infant are not overburdened.