Episode 2: Food under one NOT just for fun, with nutritionist Aliya Porter
Audio Podcast
In this episode you will learn from registered Nutritionist Aliya Porter of the Weaning Centre, and mother of three, why the introduction of solid food at six months is very important for your baby. Aliya will share with us why food under one is not "just for fun" and which foods you should be aiming to include in the early stages of weaning. A must listen for anyone weaning their baby or just had a baby and is thinking ahead!
Show Notes
The Weaning Centre: https://weaningcentre.co.uk
Request a list of the first 100 foods here: https://weaningcentre.co.uk/resources/
Article on common allergens: https://weaningcentre.co.uk/2022/05/04/allergens/
The foods babies should avoid: https://weaningcentre.co.uk/the-place-to-learn-about-weaning-on-a-shoestring/foods-babies-should-avoid/
Weaning on a budget Ebook: https://payhip.com/b/INfx7
Transcript
This is "healthy starts early", a podcast about eating healthy as a family, I am your host Sarah Roesink, founder of the Phoebe AI and passionate advocate of healthy eating at home.
A quick disclaimer our content is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as a healthcare advice if you have any concerns over the health and well-being of your child please contact your GP or health visitor, now let's enjoy the next episode
Today I'm joined by Aliya Porter, an experienced and registered nutritionist who runs the weaning Centre and Porter nutrition. Aliya has over 15 years experience working with Charities and businesses and the NHS to help people to improve their health by eating well. She has three children which has helped her to understand firsthand some of the challenges faced by parents when it comes to weaning and healthy eating and in 2021 she published 'Weaning on a budget' an ebook that is designed to help you through the weaning journey without breaking the bank. You can find the link to Aliya's ebook and her websites in the show notes of this episode on our website Phoebe AI.com. Aliya my first question is that lots of listeners will have heard that people say food under one is just for fun is this really true? No it's not it's more complex than that if you just think about weaning under one just being just for fun then you miss out on a window of opportunity to introduce lots of different foods but also to set those really good foundations for later life but we don't want to add pressure to people so there is supposed to be fun in there but it's not just for fun. And could you tell us why awareness of nutrition is so important in those early days? So it's important to lay Good Foundations right from the very start it's not just from the point that we introduce solids that those foundations are laid so it might be through breastfeeding and through flavours passing from mum into the breast milk um but also if you're bottle feeding actually the the patterns that you set around feeding will help them to develop patterns and helpful or not unhelpful patterns in in later life in terms of awareness of nutrition actually knowing what good nutrition is can help us to offer the right foods to our children from those early days so it might be that you're very familiar with what a healthy diet is for an adult but it is different for children so knowing what to offer is helpful those habits are forming right from the beginning so actually the foods that we're offering and the way that we're offering them and will help them to to develop Good Good Foundations there are also lots of vital nutrients that they need to be getting right from the beginning and so for example Iron by the point they're six months their iron stores will have depleted from birth and so actually we need to start getting some iron rich foods into their diet so that awareness of an understanding of nutrition is really important. And what should parents be aiming to include in the first stages of weaning? so lots of different things so there are things that you shouldn't have and there's a whole list of things that you shouldn't have but there is really important to have Variety in those early stages and lots of people like to start with fruit and vegetables and particularly thinking about the bitter vegetables so things like broccoli or cabbage or cauliflower are those bitter vegetables but it's not just vegetables and fruits that you can start off with and we also want to encourage the children to have a range of protein foods so things like meat fish eggs and nuts as long as they're ground or in nut butter form, pulses so things like chickpeas and lentils and then also having that kind of variety of carbohydrate Foods so things like potatoes or rice or pasta bread um really important for variety and some iron rich foods so things like red meat or oily fish or nuts dark green leafy vegetables have some um iron in them and as the Fortified cereals so um breakfast cereals are a good way to get um or iron into babies making sure they're not high salt options obviously and then full fat Dairy so we don't want babies to be having low fat dairy products until they're too um they need to be having those full fat products and they can go onto the the lower fat and then onto skin from five but um initially they need to have full fat dairy products so it's really about having variety avoiding things like honey and avoiding things like um added sugar added salt and foods that are likely to increase risk of food poisoning as well and but they should be aiming for that real variety another common common myth within this though is that um whole grains are really healthy for babies so actually they should be having some whole grains but not at every meal and so like I said um previously the diet for a healthy adult is is slightly different and to a diet for a healthy little one that's really interesting that you're mentioning the whole grain because I remember always having been advised by Health visitors and dietitians actually to opt to to opt for the whole grain version of pasta for example and bread could you maybe just give us a snippet of what happens if babies have too much whole grain is it the fiber or what what is it that is um not so healthy for a small child absolutely for a couple of reasons there because um if you have a whole grain it's likely to fill you up and keep you Fuller for longer which is great for an adult and great for an older child so from two plus they can be having whole grains each meal and should be ideally having that but little babies have very small stomachs that's why they need to eat quite frequently and if you fill their stomach up with something quite heavy like a whole grain or too much in the way of pulses so that let beans lentils things like that then they don't have enough space for all the other things that they need and so they don't actually get enough energy in their their tummies their tiny tummies at each meal also the way that the fiber works in the in the stomach and in the intestine is that it doesn't allow for the absorption of some nutrients in the way that we want want that to be so for example for iron it might reduce the iron absorption and obviously I mentioned we need to have iron rich foods going into babies particularly because they develop new blood as they grow so so yeah it's really important to have some whole grains but not whole grains at every meal just because of that heaviness of the of baby's diet and some parents might find it overwhelming to include all of these Foods in a baby's diet within a day so what would your advice be can we look at a whole week where we look at a healthy balanced diet for us for such a small child absolutely so we can get overwhelmed with nutrition generally and a nutritionist or a dietitian's probably studied for at least three years and a degree level to um to tell you all about it so um we don't want you to feel overwhelmed definitely it can be across the week ideally we are trying to get in five different fruits and vegetables across a day and we're aiming for a variety of proteins and carbohydrates like I talked about when I say a portion of vegetables or five vegetables or five fruits um in total and we're thinking about a handful so it's not masses and masses um but sometimes it can be helpful to write those things down um and plan plan out what you're going to do this is not right from six months so six months we're talking about tiny tastes and if you think about tastes rather than meals it can take the pressure off a bit and so you're just trying to get them used to different flavors different textures and as they build up and probably about eight months they'll be having three different things a day um or three different meal times a day and they'll be adding in more and more as the time goes on but think about five different fruit and vegetables and some carbohydrates at each meal and some protein at each meal and then um across the week a bit like with adults we're saying um two portions of fish a week rather than you know working out per day then that kind of reduces it yeah and really don't I think it's really important to remember that babies are going to be needing you for um lots of different things not just food and if we put too much pressure on food preparation and um making meals look absolutely perfect it's going to be overwhelming so actually thinking about simple things that you can do you know if you're if you're eating carrots um with your meal maybe you could cook some carrot batons to go with with baby's meal and have some extra for the next day um or if you're um able to use the freezer and have those options as well that can kind of um reduce the risk of uh of spending ages in the kitchen let me take a quick break and tell you about our great App Phoebe that gives you all the inspiration for cooking healthy food for your family Phoebe is currently free to use so make sure you get it today the link is in the show notes and if you find this episode helpful please give us a five star review on Apple podcast to help more parents Discover it now let's get back to our episode what is the effect or what can delaying solids mean for a small child I know that you know sometimes you say you know food under one not just for fun then there's also kind of taking off the pressure of the parents and people think that oh it doesn't matter if I don't start solids right away at six months um what kind of effects Can it have on a small child so in in terms of um thinking about kind of what they actually need if we don't give them the um the nutrients that they do need that's going to affect their growth and their development and in more extreme cases things like their bones won't develop properly the growth might be slower and their brain development might be slower obviously those are extreme cases so I don't want to panic you but actually this shouldn't add pressure but it's it's an important reminder that it's not just for fun at this point um they do need that nourishment alongside their milk initially the milk is going to be providing most of their nutrients but things alongside it and like iron um for healthy blood um like iodine certain nutrients are really really important um and if they don't have those things and that's going to delay their development also and there is research that suggests that if you delay the introduction of allergens um Beyond six months so if you kind of don't introduce things like nuts um or wheat um things like that if you don't put those in then that can actually increase your risk of developing an allergy later on um so it's important to try and introduce those Foods initially and it can be a bit nerve-wracking introducing an allergen and food um but try and do that as early as you possibly can so the kind of General recommendation unless um there are allergens in the family which means that the recommendations are slightly different but from general population um is to introduce them from six months so that might be adding a little bit of um peanut butter that's not got added sugar already salt um onto the end of your finger and letting them suck it off your finger or it might be giving us a small piece of bread and trying to help them with that process so definitely don't don't delay textures either um because that will increase fussiness too so there's a whole host of different things about delaying and the problems with delaying because you want to get that kind of acceptance of food going to reduce fussiness he just mentioned allergens so we actually had a parent question that kind of links in a little bit with this um and the parent was asking um to here she's interested in the tension between exposing babies to a wide range of foods and flavours at the beginning but also being cautious if your baby has already some known allergens and how do you get that get it right the tension between offering foods and at the same time being cautious and they this mother also heard that a lot of people have been advised to offer three days in a row the same food to see if there's any um any reactions so in in terms of allergens the advice is slightly different depending on whether you haven't known allergy and allergen or not um as I mentioned before there are details on my website there's a Blog with with links um that will go into more detail around that um but in terms of um the three days in a row it's important to introduce allergens one at a time and if you want to introduce them over three days that's fine and that does give you a bit more of an indication as to whether they've had a reaction um just as a one-off or kind of repeated reaction um but it's really really important that you don't introduce it at the same time as another known allergen and there are any foods could be an allergen but there are 14 common allergens um so it's worth knowing what those are and introducing those one at a time yeah um in terms of getting their variety um yes it's hard to get variety um but it really helps to write it down and so in terms of the kind of 100 Foods idea you know 100 Foods before one it's great to introduce that variety of foods but repeat exposure is also really important and because babies need to to learn which foods are acceptable and safe and you may find um particularly after they get to one they'll fit certain foods that they will only accept if they're cooked a certain way so they might only like carrot buttons rather than carrots cut into small cubes or they might only like um a certain shape of pasta and not another shape of pasta and that's about being familiar with that type of food so that repeat exposure is important for not just allergens it's important for all foods and then variety mixed in with that so yeah by all means write it down what your um what you're having so you can keep track of what you're giving but um the 100 Foods don't necessarily help us in this process a lot of mothers they spent a lot of time on Instagram these days and they see many people posting the hundred fruits that they're the first 100 foods that their little ones has eaten so I think there can be a bit of an artificial pressure almost to introduce loads of different foods before your child turns one year old absolutely yeah and a lot of those hundred Foods lists are not foods that we would necessarily recommend for children um so there'll be things on there like croissants and pizza and chicken nuggets and all sorts and a lot of the foods might be high in salt high in sugar and which is not recommended for for weaning um there is a hundred Foods list on my website and that includes things like 100 different um fruits vegetables and protein foods carbohydrates just so you can actually remember what your what you could include so I think sometimes we get stuck on um or we're always eating broccoli and peas and carrots and actually there's so many different vegetables out there and so it can be helpful to have a prompt um but yeah definitely don't get stuck on I've got to have 100 foods and be really aware of what's on those lists because not all of it is is really acceptable or appropriate should I say to the babies this is I mean it's so so rich in information what you've just shared with us so I'll make sure that I put all the the links for their parents and carers on our show notes site um so thank you so much for making the time to speak to us earlier and obviously if somebody would want more information um they would have to visit the weaning Centre is that the best place um to get in touch with you yes or I'm on Instagram we'll share that in the show notes for our listeners and thank you so much for your time and it was great speaking to you you're very welcome Sarah it's been fun thank you so much for tuning in today make sure you download our app which provides free recipes and weaning tips for families with young children look for Phoebe on the app store that's p-h-o-e-b-e and if you found this episode helpful please give us a five-star review on Apple podcast to help more parents Discover it that's it for today
*Disclaimer: Please be advised that any information is given as general guidance only. Should you have any concerns over the wellbeing of your child such as intolerances, allergies and weight, or your baby was born prematurely or you are unsure if your baby is ready for solids, it is always best to consult with your Health Visitor or GP.*