hi Cara from health home and happiness here today we're talking about baby food
and the first foods that I give my children are going to surprise you but
probably what will surprise you even more is that they absolutely love that
so while we talk today I want you to I want to encourage you to put away your
biases about what babies will like they don't need bland rice cereal and we're
going to look into the different nutrients that babies especially need
and how to get those from foods that will make such an impact in their lives
to come as you know our babies are so tiny and they're growing so rapidly
especially around the time that you're introducing the first foods so their
brains are learning tons and tons of new things their guts are becoming better
able to digest food and they're going through so many milestones so today
we're going to talk about baby food that is most optimal for gut health is most
optimal for brain development and most optimal for those quickly growing baby
bodies so the first thing I want to talk about is liver and this is the first
food that I give my babies this is just a little bit of chicken liver that I
have sauteed and a little bit of butter if your baby is sensitive to milk then
you might want to saute it in a little bit of tallow or coconut oil I'll show
you in another video exactly how I prepared this for my babies and how I
store it just in these little just little pieces of liver for the babies
and then I just pull out about a tablespoon at a time and thaw that and
let my baby kind of gum it it's liver is something if you haven't had it before
the texture is really soft it's not like muscle meat or even ground beef where
there's big chunks that aren't going to be digested well and baby can't really
gum to get them soft enough so liver is something that is soft enough that maybe
can chew it is high in vitamin b12 it's high in an iron it's high in D and it's
high in folic acid and especially the iron and D or something that your
pediatrician might recommend your baby supplement my doctor was perfectly
shefter giving me a funny look my doctor was perfectly okay with me giving my
baby liver on a three time weekly basis or so instead of supplementing him so
liver is a great first food for babies it has all the nutrients that
you need it's just really a powerhouse and plus it's so soft that it's really
easily easy for them to digest because we don't want to have them because we
don't really want them to be eating food like raisins or something they might
like them because they're sweet but you'll see you see them come right back
out and so we know that they're not getting a lot of nutrition from them but
liver is something that my babies have all been able to gum even if they didn't
get their first teeth until later on they've been able to gum and digest
really well you might be thinking how do I get my baby to eat liver I think your
baby doesn't have the strong bias that you do so I have found that babies a lot
of times will even like drink salsa like you put out chips and salsa and suddenly
you see your toddler and this is a pretty common I hear about this in lots
of families so that suddenly you see your toddler going up to the table and
just like drinking this also out of the bowl where it might even be like a
medium or a hot salsa and the toddler just doesn't care like babies aren't
tasting things the same way that we are and so we might have that preconceived
notion that they need everything bland and sweet and barely tasting like
anything no seasonings and no salt but actually liver and salt salt we'll talk
about a little bit later but liver is something that yes it tastes strong ties
but to our babies babies love it it's almost like they inherently know that
they need it cod liver oil is another strong tasting food that babies tend to
just crave like if they need it they're craving it I feel like it around
preschool age a lot of babies are losing that where they're not craving the foods
that are so good for them anymore but usually when you're starting solids
between six months and a year babies are going to crave and they are going to
accept the foods they need and that includes liver so I would definitely
encourage you to start with liver sauerkraut is another strong tasting
food that babies tend to love they love the salty and they love the sour your
baby you can just put it on a little bit of sauerkraut on a plate or some juice
put a few liver chunks on a plate and then sprinkle liberally sprinkle the
real sea salt the salt that still has all those vitamins and minerals and
hasn't been cleaned from the sea and that's going to give the trace iodine
the trace minerals and the sodium that babies do need to further about their
electrolytes and the third thing I recommend you feed your babies is fish
roe and this is salmon eggs which is fish roe
I buy my not vital choice it comes in a box like this frozen with dry ice you
can see those and then I keep them in the freezer and then I'll pull them out
to thaw in the fridge for about a day before I'm gonna serve them and I try to
use them up within a couple days of getting them out into the freezer but
this is fish roe and these are salty they taste a little fishy like we talked
about with the cod liver oil babies enjoy this it's almost like they into
intuitively know what they need just like you can usually let babies
breastfeed on demand and your milk will change according to what the babies need
babies are just incredibly intuitive they're not using really the thinking
part of their brain yet they are operating on instinct which then we
outgrow sadly and things take a lot more thinking but babies are but babies end
up loving these salmon tanks and again they are nice and soft there are little
tiny finger food you can put like three or four of these and we just start so
little and that's actually another misconception as people think oh well my
baby only eats a couple tablespoons of food a day so why does it matter what it
is well that matters even more like your baby's growing so much they're only
eating a couple tablespoons we want to make sure that those tablespoons have
the most amount possible so if you can get over your bias you can see that my
children absolutely loved all these things like Levi is eating Levi's eating
some steamed green beans and some liver which for the liver I just tend to take
a couple chunks out of the freezer let it thaw on a plate and then give that to
him once it's thawed and he's eating some green beans and he thinks it's the
greatest thing so as long as we can get over our biases that babies don't like
liver that salmon tanks are gonna be too fishy tasting for them that this is
weird your baby doesn't know that any of this is weird your baby just kind of has
this intuitive sense of what nutrition they need they need the vitamin b9
the natural folate the iron the b12 the protein all of that stuff that's in
liver or the omega-3 fatty acids which is so important for brain health which
is in the fish eggs the activator X that dr. Weston price talked about in his
book nutrition and physical degeneration is now it's referred to as k2 which is
if you know the the babies are naturally low in vitamin k2 and some people think
that that might be a Western from for nomina and some people think that might
be a Western phenomenon because we actually don't include fish eggs in our
diet where in traditional cultures they knew that they needed to get the eggs
from the fish the liver and all that stuff that natural and the grass-fed
butter that naturally has the vitamin k2 in it and so your baby it's almost your
baby will benefit from all of these foods they're amazing for their gut
health they're building their gut lining right now it's not quite ready like they
can't really digest grains but the hope is that when we prepare their gut well
and we give them all the nourishing foods that help develop a healthy body a
healthy gut a healthy brain then they will able be able to avoid so many of
the chronic diseases that are going around lots of people think that it's
the vitamin k2 deficiency that's causing so many of the chronic diseases it's
also the lack of natural folate which I talked about in another video that we
are choosing natural folate that's found in liver instead of artificial folate
folic acid that's found in so many supplements and fortified food and then
next is probiotics and that's where our sauerkraut can come in naturally
fermented pickles any natural fermented food babies love that sour taste they
just they really love those strong tastes so if you can kind of forget
everything everyone ever told you about babies need to start with bland rice
cereal and think like my baby naturally has these cravings for these very
healthy foods that are needed for their digestive system and if you don't
believe me go ahead and buy you can buy naturally fermented sauerkraut at a lot
of health food stores now bobbies brand is great just make sure there's no added
sugar some of the pickles there's added sugar
which we don't want to introduce yet that does not promote a healthy guy but
the naturally fermented sauerkraut that sour taste just put a couple of these
little cabbage pieces or some of the juice on your babies highchair tray and
see what he does and my guess is that he's gonna love him he's gonna suck on
him he's going to he's gonna smile he's going to enjoy this whole process and my
guess is that he's going to love it so just go ahead and give it a try see what
you think if we're the liver if you don't want to make that baby lover and
you just want to give it a little try goat again to your health food store and
see if there's a liver pate and so if there's liver pate just check the
ingredients and make sure there's nothing that you want to avoid for your
baby but a lot of it is a lot of them has just really simple ingredients and
sea salt is good the herbs and spices are just fine they're not gonna hurt
your baby I would probably avoid milk if there's
butter in it if you haven't introduced milk or you know your child has problems
with milk protein you might want to avoid that but just give them a little
bit on a spoon and see what he thinks and then for the fish if you don't want
to start with the salmon eggs just a little bit of salmon puree that up like
in a blender with a little bit if you're nursing a little bit of breast milk or a
little bit of water just to make that a nice paste and see what your baby thinks
about salmon I'm you want to choose wild-caught salmon for that with that
again is available at most health food stores and even most regular grocery
stores have that those are the three things that I introduced first for my
babies it's a little bit unconventional oh and then these jars when you're done
with these from the salmon eggs they are perfect baby food jars so I tend to just
fill this up for my little ones and if I know we're going to be eating while
we're out I'll put in some liver usually some steamed like green beans or peas or
something that's easy for them to pick up and a little bit of sauerkraut for
the probiotics and that's a great portable solution for when you're out
and about because I know they're so everybody wants to feed the baby
everybody loves babies and babies they're just they have that like
everybody has this drive don't want to take care of them and so many people
don't think of food as being thing that they need a nutrient they
think of oh well it's okay take a baby ice cream because it's soft and they're
not going to choke on it's okay to get baby french fries baby's gonna love
french fries it's easy for them to hold and grasp and chew even without and chew
even without teeth and so this is just people's thought process you have to
sometimes you have to be it feels almost rude or a little bit assertive and say
no my baby doesn't eat that or if you just say food allergies usually or the
doctor say usually people will let off a little bit but that's common and don't
mistake it for somebody trying to give your your infant obesity or trying to
give them cancer that's not what it is at all these people everybody has this
drive in them to take care of babies and that's just how they are doing it based
on their own life experiences so yes we choose differently but it doesn't mean
that other people have a malicious intent at all and along those lines
though people forget and they don't really usually understand why you're
feeding your baby what it helps to only leave your baby with people that you do
trust to follow your their food protocols just because they are building
their brains are developing their guts are sealing up this is just a really
sensitive time so it's worth it to maybe offend a couple people unfortunately and
put in the extra work now so that your baby can have a healthy start without
having like sugar that we know harms ambien system grains can really because
babies aren't ready to digest them yet grains can be really hard on their
digestive system and prevent that gut from healing and sealing up how it
should feed diets obviously we want to avoid those food additives a lot of
those haven't been studied or if they have been studied they show that they
cause neurological issues we definitely don't want that for a very very highly
sensitive babies as they're growing but really the hope is that with this good
start now that they're first of all going to avoid the chronic diseases as
much as possible they're going to be able to have a healthy gut and when you
have a healthy gut you have healthy digestion and you can extract foods and
process out toxins that's another part of our gut that's so important and so
the hope is that by the time your baby is a little bit older if they get
cake at a birthday party or they're eating unhealthy fats at a restaurant
occasionally that it's not going to give them those health problems that so many
of our families and our children are experiencing right now so that good
start is so worth it that I wanted to just talk about my three favorite food
for babies and then I also want to tell you about nourish beginnings baby food
nourish beginnings is by my friend Renee Coley and she this is just a beautiful
book and because what I love about this book is not only the beautiful pictures
but Renee really gets us excited about like the simple veggie purees and so I
personally and I'll go in another video telling you about how when I know my
baby is developmentally ready for solids and how I start without purees but a lot
of people want to do purees for their babies and just kind of looks like the
traditional baby food and this is using all natural ingredients it's all stuff
that you can trust like Gerber baby food we don't know what's in that even though
organic brands we don't and especially the pouches that you can't even see into
we don't know what's in that stuff and yes I have given my children pouches I
tend to buy pouches still on my oldest is 11 for when we do car trips they're
just a great way I know they're getting veggies in and it's something they're
going to accept because it's sweet it's usually mixed with apple sauce or
peaches or something but when we're starting with our really little babies
and we really care about the nutrient density of every single bite they're
taking and we also want to make sure we're avoiding any of the bad stuff like
who knows what's going into all of these little purees that are sold in the
grocery store shelves and plus they're not fresh I mean their shelf stable so
they have been pasteurized they're not fresh we can do it fresh with organic
local fresh vegetables that we trust and then this is something that she has a
lot of these that you serve to baby and it's a perfect food for baby but it's
also a great side dish for the rest of the family so like there's roasted beets
so if you are looking for more ideas if you're kind of like me and with your
first child you're switching from eating way too much junk food but not wanting
your child to take on your habits but you need some ideas get this book by
Renee is a beautiful book tons of great ideas
and she's a mom of three girls the August they're just adorable she's a mom
of three girls they do lots of outside activities and so she's kind of like me
where her recipes aren't super complicated they're easy enough for you
to do with a baby in the sling and then maybe a toddler's helping you with
dinner which we all know how much help toddlers are when they're helping us
with dinner so her recipes are simple they're absolutely gorgeous there's
something that you're gonna love feeding your baby if you need a little bit more
guidance on ideas and flavors to combine and how to combine them this book is
perfect for you again just absolutely beautiful pictures you can see all the
beautiful children in here and it's just the recipes are really attainable doable
for the average mom so I encourage you to check out nourish beginnings baby
food by Renee Kohli if you want to click on over I'll leave the link below this
video she's at raising generation nourish calm she does a lot of gut
friendly gluten free and even gaps legal paleo foods that the whole family will
enjoy and mom won't be stuck all day in the kitchen so I encourage you to go
check her out and go on to Amazon click down below on the link below and check
out her book nourished beginnings baby food I hope you found that helpful I
love sharing tips with you so if you could comment below if you have any
questions I try to apply to all of my comments and if you could subscribe by
clicking over there I always love to bring you new content so thanks and bye
for now