I love food. I love cooking for my family and friends. I love talking about it, reading about it and writing about it. I love Indian food, deep dish pizza, long dinners at Michelin star restaurants and everything in between. Of course it is not sustainable to eat at French Laundry every day (tragic) so for me, the next best thing is preparing and eating (mostly) healthful, seasonal food.  I focus my cooking on a plant-based diet, avoiding red meat and processed food (excepting olive bread, chocolate or candy corn, which I happen to be consuming as I write because it is October and therefore in season), however I am not vegetarian, vegan, grain, dairy or refined sugar-free. For me, food is too much fun to cut out a whole category. That would just depress me.

I unfortunately carry around food and body image issues so as much as I would like to be a free food spirit, this isn’t happening for me right now. I worry a lot about my weight, carb consumption and sufficient exercise. My eating issues aren’t extreme, but they hang out in the wings, whispering in my ear such that I am always mildly (if not acutely) unhappy with body.  I can also get obsessive about organic seasonal ingredients, home-cooked food, elaborate recipes and salad for lunch. In other words, I can be a pain in the ass to live with when it comes to food.

Mrs S is also a food lover (and apparently very tolerant) so it’s only natural that this topic would be a centerpiece of discussion for us when it came to nourishing our child. Mrs S and I talked extensively (and fought a little) about how we would pass along our love for food while avoiding also passing along my food issues. We hoped to create an environment where The Beast learns to make healthy choices about food without developing an unhealthy relationship to it (like her mother).

At odds with this desire to teach our daughter heathy eating habits is the current “kid food” trend which assumes that kids will only eat and/or like carbohydrates, sugar and processed corn products (think chicken nuggets and crackers).*

As parents, the question became: Can we help our daughter establish healthy eating habits without being crazy about it?

We started our quest for the answer with a book my mom gifted us called First Bite. I loved it and give it four and a half stars (remember that Queer Tribe Rating system?) The author argues that all tastes are acquired and this begins at a very young age. According to the author’s research, “baby food” is a relatively new concept.  Toddlers can actually learn to like a wide range of foods and flavors if you introduce them to a diversity of options early (i.e. as soon as they are interested in food) and often. The book was helpful for us in terms of reinforcing our sense of what a healthy relationship to food might look like and how you can get there.

We also read Bringing Up Bébé, a memoir written by an American woman who raised her children in France. I give it two and a half stars (it was fun to read but after The Beast was born, I quickly realized that much of the book was impractical and left me feeling mildly depressed and incompetent). However, the chapter on food aligned with what we had gathered from First Bite. In essence: French toddlers eat stinky cheese so your American toddler can too.

Using these two books as a jumping off point, Mrs S did more research (as she does) and discovered Baby Led Weaning (BLW), which is essentially an approach to introducing solid foods that encourages parents to let babies feed themselves. BLW suggests that at mealtime, you should offer a variety of finger foods to your baby and allow her to feed herself as much or as little as she likes from these options. According to the BLW folks, this offers babies agency at mealtimes, thereby encouraging them to tune into what their bodies need, and to learn when they are full. It also helps them develop fine motor skills because it’s the only instance when it’s safe for them to pick up small things and put them in their mouths. It can also help parents avoid battles at the dinner table because kids feel like they have some control over their food. Sounds good, right?

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Avocado was The Beast’s first food because it is (a) perfect baby food and (b) my favorite food. She couldn’t really pick it up for lack of coordination and she hated the taste.

The first time she tried hard boiled eggs she cried, and she spit out banana every time I tried to feed it to her for the first three months. And yet, She is now obsessed with avocado toast, eats eggs almost every day for breakfast and banana was her first word. Not necessarily scientific, but something worked. She now happily feeds herself (and the dog) at every meal.

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It has been hard relinquishing control at mealtime and putting it into the hands of a small child.  For one, this creates a huge mess and it’s all I can do to keep from freaking out as my ivory curtains are splattered with beet juice. It’s also frustrating when she barely eats what I cook and feeds it to the dog instead.

To keep myself sane I regularly whisper the mantra, “food before 1 is just for fun” and remember that she should get messy because eating is a fun, sensory experience.  I mean, who hasn’t been known to lick a plate?  As she has gotten older and eats more food for calories, I also have to remember to avoid food battles.  She gets a choice of a diverse mix of veggies, grains, fruits and proteins, so if she doesn’t eat anything for lunch, she will not starve and will have a chance for more delicious, seasonal, organic, healthful food at her next meal.  Overall, BLW has been a wonderful journey and I’m pleased with how the food situation in our household has evolved.  I mean, my kid started saying tofu today, I think my job here is done.

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For folks who are interested, our general approach for age 4-12 months was to introduce a variety of foods, mostly veggies, fruits and proteins, and a diversity of spices including (but not limited to) cumin, garlic, paprika, cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, turmeric and ginger.  She wasn’t eating much but she tasted lots! Wait until you get the green light from your pediatrician to introduce solids and remember that tiny babies don’t have teeth (duh) so they need very soft mashed foods.  A tiny food processor was super helpful.  Hello Bee is a great blog that I highly recommend with a bunch of information about BLW (written by “real” moms), and any other parenting question you’ve ever had.  Don’t forget a splat mat, bib and easy to clean high chair.

The Beast is now (13 months) up to 3 meals a day and 2 snacks, supplemented with breastmilk. We still feed her mostly whole veggies, fruits, grains and proteins. Now that she has teeth, I give her very soft steamed whole veggies because they are easy to grab and chew, but I still mash or cut anything that is “throat” shaped (like peas or blueberries).  She hasn’t had any refined sugar (oh except that time Mrs S gave her a taste of her ice cream cone and she went bonkers and I died a little bit inside) and very little white flour.  The end result is that our toddler happily eats vegetables. I’m satisfied, for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugs,
Mrs T

P.S. In case you’re curious (and actually I just want to share), right now my most heavily used cookbooks are:
Green Kitchen Stories’ Vegetarian Everyday
Ottolenghi’s Plenty
Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers

My winning food blogs are:
Green Kitchen Stories
The First Mess
What’s Cooking Good Looking
Orangette
My New Roots

What are yours!?

*This is not to pass judgement about others’ food choices but rather to point out a prevailing trend that assumes that children are incapable of liking fruits and veggies.  I acknowledge that access to healthy food is a challenge for many families and I am well aware how fortunate my family is to be able to have the food choices that we have.