Are We Raising Picky Eaters?

I am sure, if you are a first-time mom, you have always had this perfect picture in your head about your family sitting down for dinner. Everyone was happy and smiling while eating every bite of food without one single complaint. But it turns into a toddler’s

“food-fight”

every single time you sit down for dinner. Can a change in solid food introduction change the way our toddlers eat?

Although there are so many factors that lead up to this picky phase, we have seen a few challenges with flavour and texture introduction over the last few years. The first thousand days play a vital role in health, growth, and neurodevelopment, as studies done by UNICEF in 2017. From contraception up until 2 years of age is the perfect window of opportunity to lay down a healthy eating foundation.

Baby’s pallets do not have any food reference when solids are introduced, so it can take a few times introduction to get used to this new flavour, texture, and even temperature. At first easy palatable foods are introduced such as sweet potato, butternut, or rice cereal. The perception out there is that baby food tastes bland and tasteless, but it does not have to be. Homemade purees, or

“homemade style”

company’s products will differ quite a lot from shelved stable products or products with added stabilizers and starches.

From birth to 12 months of age milk is the main source of food intake. From 12months it is very important to transition over to table foods, and milk intake will decrease. Homemade style baby food’s flavour and texture replicate true fruits, vegetables, and proteins. These flavours are the ones that you as a mom will be serving once your baby moves over to family table foods. Your baby won’t be eating mashed apple with their butternut every night, or a veggie medley where you can’t even recognize one of the veggies in the medley introduced. Texture introduction and finger foods from the age of 8 months will also contribute to the success of your toddler eating family meals. Lack of texture and only serving super smooth foods can have an impact on sensory and speech development, so you must adapt to your baby’s fast-growing needs.

It’s important to eat a colourful plate of food, for example, broccoli, pumpkin, and chicken. So, if your baby has been eating mixed flavoured shelf-stable products for the first year, how will they respond to individual flavours? We expect a one-year-old to eat broccoli, but they have never been introduced to broccoli as a separate flavour, so they have no reference or building blocks for individual flavours.

From 7 months it’s time to tickle those taste buds with lots of different flavours. Herbs, spices like cinnamon and even garlic in small amounts can be introduced into your baby’s diet. You can start with a minimal number of herbs and spices because your baby’s pallet will be very sensitive as they start to build up their food referencing.

With the Tummies Full of Love range, we allow moms to create and combine meals with individual flavours. This helps your baby to taste each flavour on its own to create those food building blocks and recognize flavours later in life. The range is frozen for convivence and provides meal plans as part of its mission to help moms introduce solids. Let’s build a healthy food reference and raise healthy little eaters.