March 23, 2007

Sugar in baby food

I get a newsletter by email from BabyCenter, and this week there was a short bit about feeding your baby foods with added sugar. You're not supposed to! This didn't come as a surprise to me. But I have been upset in the past at the availability of certain baby foods without added sugar!

I've spent quite a bit of time staring at the baby food at the grocery store, trying to find something new to feed Z. I decided I wouldn't feed her strained meat, so all the chickens, turkeys and lambs were out. She had tried nearly all of the rest of the available fruits and veggies, and all that was left was desserts! DESSERTS! Why does an 8- or 9-month-old need to eat dessert? And I did check the ingredients, and many of these desserts contained added sugar. I have no idea why anyone would want to give their baby extra sugar.

This all lead me to begin making my own baby food. I make most of the food that Z eats - my own sweet potatoes, yams, green beans, apricots, prunes, peas, black beans, applesauce... I feel good that she's not getting any refined sugar, and that I know the steps that her food has gone through (to a certain degree... I didn't grow it myself... yet. This summer I will be giving her some fresh garden food).

By the way, high nitrate foods shouldn't be home prepared before your baby's about 8-months old. High-nitrate vegetables include beets, carrots, green beans, squash, turnips, spinach and collard greens.

3 comments:

B said...

Wow all of your prepared veggies sound Delicious!

nancy said...

Hey - I just found you while looking for something else and this post caught my eye. You might want to look into "baby led weaning." You can google that phrase and get some info, but basically the baby gets regular adult food from day one. We are doing that with our daughter (now 13 months) and love it. It makes things a LOT easier. Let me know if you need more info and I can point you in the right direction. Oh, also, it only works if you have b'fed your baby, and I haven't read enough posts of yours to know if you have.

Anonymous said...

hey guys just want to ask..how about giving a 2 year old with rice sprinkled with sugar because the daddy said the baby has no appetite..omg i cant believe it.. i am working abroad so the son is left to the care of the father and this is what he does..can you please advce on this?