If your kids don’t like their vegetables, maybe it’s because they never learned to. That’s how Alan Greene, M.D., sees it anyway. “Taste preferences are not an accident,” explains the Stanford University professor and author – most recently of Feeding Baby Green (out this month from Jossey-Bass). Instead, preferences are “imprinted” through exposures at crucial times.
Just like baby geese are programmed to follow the first moving objects they see (generally the mother goose), babies are programmed to like the first foods they are offered. And Greene says babies learn the majority of food preferences before age 2 ½. Unfortunately, most of the food we currently offer babies during that window is highly processed, bland stuff that comes in jars. So that’s what they imprint on, rather than the fresh fruits and vegetables they should be eating.
“After 12 months of jarred peaches, give a 13-month-old a fresh peach and he’ll spit it out forcefully,” says Greene.
So what should you feed your baby? Much of the time, the same things you are eating, Greene insists. “My dad and I were talking about this just the other night,” he says. “There was a time when baby food didn’t exist.” Babies’ diets consisted of mashed up grown-up food, something you can accomplish easily yourself with a fork or a food mill. No need to worry about which foods you’re introducing when, says Greene, as the American Academy of Pediatrics now says there is no food you need to delay giving because of food allergies. (Some children will still develop food allergies, but not because they had peanut butter at 6 months instead of one year.)
Moms have one more card to play in shaping their children’s food preferences – their own diet during pregnancy and while they’re breastfeeding. “Babies have more taste buds before birth than at any other time in life,” says Greene. Studies, he adds, have shown that when pregnant and nursing women drink carrot juice, for example, their babies like carrots on the first bite.
If you haven’t gotten the jump on veggie love during pregnancy, keep in mind that you might have to offer a food 10 times before your baby will like it. (Unfortunately, 95% of parents give up after five.) Offer a baby one bite a day of something, and at the end of the week 80% of them will start to like it. And for 70%, it will become one of their favorite foods, Greene says.
Of course, if your baby’s going to eat like you eat, it might be time to give your own diet an overhaul. But Greene has good news here, too. “It’s easier to change habits when you’re a new parent than at any other time in life,” he says. You’ll naturally do what you think is best for Baby.
Greene, who’s on the advisory board of Healthy Child, Healthy World and consults for the Environmental Working Group, has a preference for organic foods, which he says are more nutritious and free from pesticide residues and synthetic hormones. He says the early years are the time to spend a few extra dollars – especially on things like beef raised without hormones, organic milk, and types of produce (strawberries, for instance) most likely to have high pesticide levels. If you’re on a budget, Greene points out that even nonorganic produces has lower pesticide levels when it’s locally grown and in season.
And if, as a busy parent, you don’t always have time to make your baby’s food, there are some good organic ready-made foods out there. Many are frozen, and much closer to what you would make yourself than the stuff in the jar. Give your baby a taste of real healthy food now, and that’s what she’ll love.
Check out Dr. Greene’s Web site …
Tags: baby nutrition, organic, pesticides, vegetables