My Baby Eats Meat.
This post is sponsored by Nuffnang
When the opportunity to do a sponsored post for Meat and Livestock Australia came up I was initially hesitant. I don’t want my blog to become one big advertorial, so I am picky about what campaigns I accept and which I pass on. But recent events have made this opportunity to talk about meat in a young child’s diet a timely one for me…
Last month I wrote a guest post for Childhood101 about starting our youngest child on solids and what works for our family. That post sparked an interesting discussion about fortified rice cereal as a ‘first food’ and the need for iron in a baby’s diet.
Some people are surprised to hear that Noey has not had rice cereal. Our other children had iron fortified rice cereal, but not Noah.
The girls, being prem, had ongoing issues with iron deficiency, they also had chronic reflux and ‘failure to thrive’ so a bland, low allergen first food enriched with iron was common sense for them.
We also started Morgan on it, but soon realised that wasn’t such a good idea for him. His system couldn’t cope with the cereal and he became terribly constipated and unhappy.
This time around I did some reading and decided that fortified rice cereal wasn’t the right thing for Noey.
But what about his need for iron?
We are often advised that at around 6 months of age a baby’s needs for iron and zinc may not be fully met by milk feeding alone, which is why commercial rice cereal is usually fortified with iron (and other vitamins and minerals). However, new research shows that this is not necessarily true for breastfeed babies. Kelly Mom explains the various research well and says – “The original iron stores of a full-term healthy baby, combined with the better-absorbed iron in breastmilk, are usually enough to keep baby’s hemoglobin levels within the normal range well into the second six months.”
The Paediatric News reported in 2009 that rice cereals are bland in flavour, low in protein, high in carbohydrates and the iron in them is poorly absorbed making them not exactly the most nutritious or delicious first food. The new research suggests that there is no reason not to introduce meat as a first food.
This information reinforces my instincts that Noah (who has been exclusively breastfed) does not need added, synthetic, iron supplements in this food. It also fits with our goal for our family to eat ‘real’ food, rather than overly processed items. I want the majority of our food to be made from scratch with ingredients that I recognise, rather than coming from a packet with a label full of numbers. So we skipped the cereal and have been giving Noey small amounts of red meat along with other meat, fruits, vegetables (those high in iron and those that are not!) and grains as part of an interesting, varied, balanced diet.
Noey loves to chew and suck on the bone of a lamb cutlet. We give him strips of steak as finger food or in his ‘chewy bag’. When we have meals with a suitable meat component, such as lamb burgers, or meatloaf he gets some of the cooked minced meat fork mashed into some potato or other vegetable that we are eating.
This pdf brochure from Meat and Livestock Australia has some great recipes and practical ideas on how to adapt family meals for all ages. We tired the burgers the other day and everyone loved them, including Noah. My big kids are eyeing off the Beef and vegie skewers, because if you put food on a stick it immediately tastes better, and I’m sure Noey will be just as keen!
Ahh those chewy bags – how do you manage to clean it? I guess it’s a step up from muslin, but that just went through the wash!
We chuck our chewy bag in the washing machine. You can buy replacement bags but we’ve never done that…
oops meant to say we put it in the dish washer!
I’m rather sad Annie has decided to be mostly vegetarian. She is already low in iron and trying to get enough iron rich foods into her no-meat diet is challenging.
Last night we had ‘make your own burgers’ for dinner. I put all the ingredients out on the table in individual bowls – lettuce, tomato, capsicum, cheese, BBQ’d onion rings, bread rolls and BBQ’d beef burgers. Annie ate a plate of lettuce. :: sigh ::
ah sometimes we just can’t win can we?
My girls have developed some really odd food likes and dislikes recently… one would be right there with yours eating lettuce, the other would be scoffing meat meat and only meat!
Love this. A lot of people questioned our decision to give A meat when she was about Noah’s age, but it made nutritional sense to me. She LOVED lamb cutlet bones, soups with meat, slow cooked stews with soft meat, things like that.
Try kangaroo :) – lean, high iron and zinc, good fats, free range.
Do you have any good recipes/ideas on how to cool kanagroo? I’ve only ever had it as ‘steak’ which I didn’t like much, but then I don’t like beef steak much either!
Hi Kate, I’m experimenting lots these days with cooking kangaroo. It is a bit different to cook with – leaner, stronger flavoured – a bit like the difference you get with real free range chicken. It might be that adults are just not used to it – babies might be more open. After all, all flavours are new to them!Kangaroo Recipes
Great post, Kate. As a life-long carnivore I’ve got no problem with kids getting started early on meat. But I do have a question (and it might make for a good future blog post)… what’s your taken on glutens? Is it a good idea to even start a kid on grain-based foods in the first place?
I was paranoid about glutens (wheat) as well as dairy when our twins (first babies) were born. Mostly from an allergy perspective, and back then (7 years ago) we were told not to introduce allergens till later. That advice has changed now and they say delaying can cause more harm than good…
Ironically we withheld gluten, dairy and other allergens from our girls and they both have life threatening allergies (though to nuts not wheat etc) and asthma, and the boys who have eaten pretty much everything from the beginning are so far not allergic to anything. But there are so many other factors to take into consideration who knows if the food they ate as babies really made a difference!
That’s interesting. Having a cousin that’s deathly allergic to peanuts, he was brought up on the allergens early in life. I think it just comes down to how the body decides it wants to process something.
I mainly asked because I’ve been reading a ton of stuff on how our bodies aren’t made to consume grains. I had horrible stomach problems and allergies for years and soon as I eliminated most grains from my diet, they went away. My wife is actually gluten intolerant and suffers a whole slew of other symptoms when she’s had too much wheat.
I think people are becoming much more aware of how their bodies react to certain foods… especially wheat and gluten.
I’ve read a bit lately about how you should ‘ferment’ your grains before eating them which I thought was interesting. But I am not an all or nothing kind of person… so I’m aiming for real food, lots of variety, everything in moderation… and hoping for the best LOL
I love this post Kate, and I think we share similar philosophies to feeding our families. I used rice cereal with my first baby once or twice but soon ditched it for real, pureed vegetables. I just thought the rice cereal was so unappetising, not really food at all.
My second baby was really straight onto finger food after a week of purees. I’ll never forget his eyes lighting up when i gave him mushrooms sauteed with garlic, folded through a little mashed potato. It was as though he was saying “Now that’s flavour!”
And I think there’s no cuter sight than a baby gnawing on a cutlet bone!
Great post. I think people get so worried about the right and wrong things to do for their little ones. Im a firm believer in doing what feels right for us not what the so called experts (who contradict each other constantly) tell us to do. I read and loved a book called “Baby Led Weaning” by Gill Rapley & Tracey Murkett and found it a great way to introduce kids to food (meat, vegies, eggs, seafood, everything!!) My 9 month old slurps spag bol like a pro and the other day stole a prawn off my plate and wouldnt give it up for anything. Both my kids are excellent eaters (my toddler certainly has his bad days but thats toddlers for you) and I have never puree’d a meal for either of them, ever.