Just as we use food as medicine in the adult world to help us heal, we can use it in the baby food world for perfectly developing bodies from the best ingredients. Unsurprisingly, it’s easily overlooked when your focus has shifted and time is of the essence. Convenience becomes even more of a priority than it has ever previously been in your life.
However, nutrient dense food should be high on the priority list when it comes to your little ones and to ‘first do no harm’ should never be overlooked especially in a baby’s world. A baby grows more in the first year than any other time in his life: his need for nutrients is significantly higher than perhaps any other time of his life and with insufficient enzymes as yet, they’re also a reduced ability to eliminate toxins entering their body. So it’s critical his first foods contain all the very best nutrients he needs right now.
Pediatricians, media, family and friends will all insist first foods should be rice cereal, then vegetables, fruits and other grains like oatmeal. Yet surprisingly, not only do these common baby foods not contain enough of the specific nutrients that babies at this age absolutely require, they are rough on their still developing digestive systems.Your gut has a direct affect on your brain, as the site of production of most of our feel good hormones, as well as behavioral issues that can stem from gut problems, like autism!
Rice is Not a Great Choice for Baby
Rice cereal flakes are refined grains, stripped of natural nutrients – hardly more than sugar for a baby’s body. Even iron fortified rice cereal contains a form of iron than makes zinc absorption worse. While the label might look nutritious the contents aren’t – they don’t provide the critical nutrients a baby needs and then they can actually rob them of the nutrients they currently have to try and use, or even dispose of, these anti-nutrients. Add to that, grains are not only hard to digest but block critical mineral absorption. Low zinc is often found in diets high in grains, whole or not, because they contain anti-nutrient phytic acid, which block absorption of zinc but also calcium, magnesium and iron. Grains would seem to be a double whammy ‘no’ for your baby’s developing body.
What about rusks, rice cakes, teething cookies, rice cereal and formula? So many baby foods list ingredients like soy, isolates, organic but numbers of preservatives – all a far cry from Paleo. Considering babies today are born with more chemicals in the their bodies than ever before – some 200, and that’s just what’s been passed down from mum, not ingested yet as food. It should be top priority to give them the best start we can when it’s time to incorporate food in their diet. However, these are the baby food “go-tos”; it would seem that the baby food market is molded on these foods. We have to ask ourselves, are we setting our babies up for lifelong allergies, behavioral issues or tummy discomfort?
Simply put, your baby is not ready to digest grains. Though he produces lactase to break down milk sugar, he doesn’t yet produce other enzymes to digest additional carbs. Closer to a year he will begin to make amylase but the more complete carbs enzymes won’t be present until around 3 years. Some carbs, like fiber, can never be digested, even by adults, since we don’t ever produce the right enzymes; we rely on our friendly intestinal flora (probiotics) to digest them. And since food intolerance can be defined as not having the proper enzymes to digest food, babies are functionally grain intolerant because they don’t effectively make starch digesting enzymes. They’ve not yet built up sufficient beneficial bacterial colonies, they’re also fiber intolerant too.
If it’s critical your baby’s first foods contain all the nutrients he needs right now, it’s even more critical his first foods not contain foods that are going to rob his little body of the very nutrients it’s thriving on. Ideally your baby’s first foods should not contain anti-nutrients, whether phytic acids from grains, fortified, whole or anything in between. With the increasing reliance of grain food and other pitfalls in baby food, a Paleo platform seems like choice you can’t really avoid. And looking for the best foods, that contain protein, fat, cholesterol and plenty of absorbable iron and zinc – namely animal foods (and unsurprisingly, mum’s milk, which is rich in exactly this combination) – it’s hard to get more Paleo than that right?
