Starting solids and TF

[treehugginhippie]

DD just turned a year and has been eating veggies and a few fruits now. I want to step up her fat and protein intake (my supply seems to take a big dip around 1 yr). My thoughts were avacado, bone broth, egg yolk, salmon. Also, tell me about your experiences with starting solids and TF.

[farmerjess]

Umm...why not just feed her meat? My ds is 10 months and loves his grassfed lamb, stewed for a really long time till it's in strips, ground turkey, and wild salmon. He also LOVES lamb bone broth. He eats little chunks of it like jello.

I started out feeding him egg yolks because he was oh so hungry at 6 months when I was not making enough milk, and it turns out he had a sensitivity, so that's one bit of TF advice I wish I had not taken.

But he seems to like meat the best and digests it better than any other solids he eats.

[Holiztic]

I agree about the meat, I think one of the many reasons I have a 2.5 year old that has TOTALLY different "tastes" than his peers is because we started with bone broth, meat (pot roast and fall-apart roast chicken mostly, oh, and lamb too) as well as some yogurt (plain!!!!) and egg yolk.

Today (he's 28 months) his snack offering was a bowl of farm-made cottage cheese, a glass of plain kefir and a slice of watermelon. You know what the average toddler would do with that--eat the watermelon and beg for more! Maybe some cottage cheese. Pucker at the kefir.

He killed the cottage cheese and kefir and asked for more, took a few bites of the watermelon (even said "thank you mommy for the watermelon", just didn't want much of it).

We really don't believe that little one's can even digest or utilize the nutrients in veggies--and fruit, well, its so sweet, but we did a little when he was one. But the meat and cultured dairy makes so much sense in terms of their digestion and nutritional needs!

Oh, and he has always loved salmon!!

[treehugginhippie]

Originally Posted by Holiztic

We really don't believe that little one's can even digest or utilize the nutrients in veggies--and fruit, well, its so sweet, but we did a little when he was one. But the meat and cultured dairy makes so much sense in terms of their digestion and nutritional needs!

Oh, and he has always loved salmon!!

Never heard of someone say this, I'd love to know more!

[Holiztic]

Well, this is just a start, a little snippet, of the many years of reading/thinking/experiencing that have gone into my theory.

"But my kid refuses to eat veggies!" In his article Feeding Our Children, Tom Cowan, M.D., explains "...because children have a relative paucity of the enzyme that converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, children younger than five years generally do not do well with vegetables. I tell all my parents not to worry about their children not liking vegetables, as this is normal in this stage of life. In fact, because they are slow in this enzymatic conversion, perhaps it is best left to the cow to do this conversion and for the child to eat butter and cream. This is actually probably more as nature intended it anyway." Well, well, that sure helps alleviate some dinner time battles!"

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More thoughts later when DS isn't crying "Mommy come now"

[CrunchyChristianMama]

My DD's favorite foods are ground beef (when we grill hamburgers especially or out of our pasta sauce) and chicken from chicken soup. She also loves slurping broth off a spoon. She also often eats some of my green smoothie each day so she's getting yogurt and some fruits and veggies. For breakfast each morning she eats some of our scrambled eggs.

My advice: feed baby what you're eating.

[Holiztic]

So continuing on... It really makes sense to me that as part of the "food chain" we have forgotten that what our food eats--we eat (after some beneficial processing!). So when someone is horrified that we eat more cow (meat, milk, butter, kefir, etc)--or chicken (eggs, meat) etc--than veggies, I say "yes, but my cow ate veggies (grasses), did yours?"

The more I hear about what grass-fed meat, dairy, eggs, etc. has in it (CLA, vitamin C, etc) that CAFO, grain-fed, etc doesn't have (or barely has) the more I think this theory makes sense.

I should mention that DS has been eating fermented veggies since he was 1, so he does eat some veggies, but it still fits with the theory above--the veggies are pre-digested through fermentation.

[mom61508]

Originally Posted by Holiztic

So continuing on... It really makes sense to me that as part of the "food chain" we have forgotten that what our food eats--we eat (after some beneficial processing!). So when someone is horrified that we eat more cow (meat, milk, butter, kefir, etc)--or chicken (eggs, meat) etc--than veggies, I say "yes, but my cow ate veggies (grasses), did yours?"

The more I hear about what grass-fed meat, dairy, eggs, etc. has in it (CLA, vitamin C, etc) that CAFO, grain-fed, etc doesn't have (or barely has) the more I think this theory makes sense.

I should mention that DS has been eating fermented veggies since he was 1, so he does eat some veggies, but it still fits with the theory above--the veggies are pre-digested through fermentation.

So are fruits harder for babes to digest too? DD eats mainly fruits and veggies and is always reall constipated. Even when she eats meat I have the same problem : Shes 14 m.o

[treehugginhippie]

Thanks for the info! I wanted to give an update. I've since given her salmon, chicken, veggies w/ butter, chicken bone and goat milk kefir. She didn't like any of it but LOVED the kefir.