The Best First Foods for Baby - Creating Lasting Health From Birth

We have an exciting opportunity as parents to create lasting health and happiness for our children and it starts with what we feed them.

Experts believe that nutrition (the food we eat) is responsible for 80% or more of our health. That means that we can create health and wellness that will endure or we can create illness, chronic conditions and lifestyle diseases that set our kids up for a lifetime of struggle with health, misery and discomfort.

What are you going to choose?

The biggest challenge for parents who choose great health for their kids is sifting through the plethora of misinformation about what constitutes a healthy diet. If we are to rely on the information that is presented to us by government health representatives such as nurses or doctors, we are relying on their level of education, which is minimal or non-existent when it comes to nutrition, as well as other sources of information. These sources all have vested interests and profits stand to be made by someone.

The food pyramid as we know it is not a reference upon which any food decisions should be made. There is now significant research that has shown that grain consumption and sugar contribute to poor health and yet these foods are recommended to be eaten multiple times daily. The reality for good health is significantly different, below is a blueprint to follow in choosing the foods to best nourish your child for optimal development, growth and health both physically and mentally.

The primary nutrients needed by the body to support cellular health are quality fats and protein. These macronutrients support nerve and brain development, healthy bone formation and provide optimal nutrition for digestion and assimilation of nutrition.

The ideal first foods for baby include organic liver (frozen for a minimum of 10 days then finely grated) combined with runny egg yolk that has been separated from the egg white after 3 minutes of cooking. Organic lambs brains are another good option as is quality bone broth. Bone broth contains superior nutrition in a form that is immediately available to the body for use making it very supportive of digestion and optimal development. I suggest bone broth be represented daily in the lives of all infants consuming solid foods and of all children and adults for optimal health.

Vegetables well cooked in bone broth with the quality fats retained are another good option, avoiding the starchy vegetables such as potato until after 10 months or more and only if no health issues exist.

The notion that rice cereal should be the first food is based on misinformation and has only been recommended for a few decades. The health of society over the last number of decades is getting exponentially worse. For a blueprint of great health we need to look to traditional societies and traditional wisdom to discover the secrets of people who enjoyed long lasting health and died of natural causes, something we rarely hear of these days thanks to our own lifestyle choices.

To understand why certain foods should be avoided as first foods we need to understand an infant's digestive development processes which all point to quality fats and proteins as ideal first foods.

A child is born with immature gastrointestinal lining. This is essentially the same thing as leaky gut, a condition of impaired immunity and gut function. The first 12 months of life sees this system evolve and develop and provided with the right support this process will happen optimally or in the face of challenges it can set the child up for poor health and lifetime of immune challenges, the foundations of chronic and fatal conditions.

With the gut as it is in an infant, the ideal scenario is to support that maturation and development, the cells in the gut require fat and protein (as these nutrients are the foundation for every cell in the body and the majority of the cells in the body are found in the gut). This points to the significance and importance of the gut, if 90% of the cells of the body belong to the gut flora and 85% of the body's immune cells reside there, shouldn't the vast majority of the things we do to support our health focus on preserving the health on that environment?

The foods that challenge a less than optimal gut, an infant's gut, are sugars of all kinds including complex carbohydrates. These are foods that should not be introduced first and these comprise all grains and legumes, and all refined and processed foods. I believe there is a place for grains in a healthy diet but only if they are appropriately prepared through soaking or fermentation, and only down the track for a child entirely based on their level of health.

Grain consumption is not appropriate for any child with any acute or chronic health issue.

With first foods that are based on quality fats and proteins, maximum nutrition will be derived from the foods eaten and optimal development will be supported. Minerals need fat to be properly absorbed and healthy fats are crucial to support every cell in the body, as are proteins.

To understand more about what it takes to create lasting health and happiness for your child visit http://www.realhealthykids.com to buy the book and join our weekly newsletter with relevant and current information and research and tasty recipes.

Real Healthy Kids has been founded by Sally Gray ND and is committed to providing the relevant education needed to create improved health outcomes for children from preconception and birth onwards.

Sally has specialised in Natural Child Health and is an experienced and recognised Nutritionist, Naturopath and GAPS Practitioner running a busy clinic and presenting a range of workshops to educate families on all issues relating to child health. Sally also consults privately in her clinic and offers distant consultations via skype.

Sally's book, "Nourishing Your Child for Health & Happiness" provides a blueprint for families to follow to create lasting health and happiness for their children and address underlying health issues that can impact their future potential.

Join her weekly newsletter inspiring families to create healthy choices and rewrite the course of your family's health. Visit http://www.realhealthykids.com to sign up now.

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Is the World Health Organisation's Food Pyramid Flawed?

World Health Organisation's Flawed Eating Recommendations.

I'm quite amazed when I realised that I'm not an overweight adult, who grew up as an overweight kid. And looking at my parents and my brothers, none of us are overweight. Funny. I guess my parents did something right to keep our weight and health good while we were kids.

When I looked at the very well known food pyramid, I saw a couple of things that disturbed me. Our family's diet when I was a child, was mostly based on this food pyramid. For a while I was blinded by the fact that some big 'nutritional' companies also endorse this food pyramid. Most people in the western world saw it, I believe. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the World Health Organisation's Countrywide Noncommunicable Disease Intervention Program (CINDI) each designed a food pyramid. The reason for these pyramids is to give recommendations on how to eat 'healthy'.

To get the picture, go and watch this 30 second video on how Disney's Timon and Pumbaa also jumped on this bandwagon. Find the link to this video at the end of the article. They recommend that grain should be the base of this pyramid, which means that you should eat more grains that anything else. And then the previous USDA pyramid made protein almost an occasional food. As showed in this video clip, you 'need' a bag full of grain and small plates of everything else.

This is a recipe for disaster. I wonder why obesity got out of hand since these food pyramids were published in 1992? Is fat the problem that make people fat? I don't think so, because these food pyramids limit fats and oils in their recommendations.

It is true that we need everything that is listed on their food pyramids, but they got the balance all wrong.

In the early 80's, the USDA employed nutritionist Luise Light to give guidelines to replace and simplify the Basic Four of the time. She submitted the food pyramid, but when she saw the changes made to her pyramid, she was shocked. Despite her objections, they went on and accepted the revised pyramid.

Dr. Light's version placed fruit and vegetables at the base of the pyramid. Something that alarmed her was what they did with refined foods, baked from white flour, such as crackers and white bread. Light's team placed it at the the top, where your should eat it rarely. The USDA placed it right at the base of the pyramid, making it an daily essential!

With all this controversy going on, I went to the oldest handbook for human life that I know of, to find my answers there. In the Bible, right in Genesis 1:29 I found what God said the human race's food will be. There He said that we should eat he seed from plants, fruit and vegetables. Later in Gen 9:2-3 God gave fish, birds and animals as food too.

Where do we find the balance? Here are the broad guidelines that I follow myself and recommend to my clients.

Fruit and vegetables should be at the base of your pyramid. Eat plenty of it. In fact I believe that you cannot possibly eat too much of it. Eat it with as little as possible preparation (processing) and with unprocessed seasoning. Every time food gets processed, it loses nutritional value, which means that the nutrition-calorie ratio gets out of hand.

Next I recommend protein. Most people don't get enough protein in. Make use of a great protein supplement to provide you all the amino acids in the right quantities. In another newsletter I'll show you the importance of protein and how much you need daily.

Carbohydrates are good for you, that is when you eat complex carbs. Refined foods are simple carbs and unprocessed food is complex carbs. Grain falls in my third category. It mostly supplies energy and some other nutrients.

Lastly is junk food. That is not only the fast foods from the street, but also all kinds of snack food. In my opinion it doesn't classify as food. Our reverend once said that all things we eat, but for which we don't pray, is not food. You can eat these foods, and I certainly eat it myself. But moderation is the key. It should be no more that a weekly treat or in very small quantities. When people ask me, I answer that I allow myself to 'cheat' once a week.

Remember water. This is the single component in your diet that you need the most of. You don't drink two litres of milk daily, do you? Two litres of Coke daily will kill you in a short time. But you need about 2 litres of water each and every day.

The 2005 version of the USDA food pyramid added exercise. At least there is something they got right.

To eat healthy, forget about the established food pyramids, it's designed to make people sick and fat.

I grew up on mieliepap (porridge) and bread for two meals. The main meal was a cooked meal with protein, vegetables and some starch. Maybe I got enough of the good stuff in, and moderately of the bad stuff. Snack food and restaurants were a luxury in our house, so that cut most of that problem out for us. And we grew up outside of cities and towns, with lots of room to play outside.

What my parents did right, I'm not completely sure. But I'm grateful that I didn't grow up as an unhealthy, fat kid.

Here is the link to the Disney video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAFAhOTn058 Watch it now.

Copyright: J Francois du Toit, 2009

Maybe feel that you're to busy to live a healthy lifestyle. Maybe you can't find ways to fit a health routine into your schedule. Or you just don't have the time to find out what works best for you to feel end be healthy most of the time.

As a Wellness Coach, I spesialize in designing a personal health plan. We take your goals, schedule and preferences into account and develop a plan spesifically for you. As you implement and continue with this plan, I'm there to assist you. This way we make sure you reach your goals.

[Note: Let me help you to change your eating habits from where you make yourself sick and fat, to living a healthy lifestyle. We'll work out a personal health plan, specifically for you. I'll assist you in making these changes.]

Please find all the reference I used to research this article on my website at http://www.health2u.co.za/Newsletter/flawed_food_pyramid_22122009.html

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