Preventing Food Allergies

From The Mayo Clinic:

Can food allergies be prevented?

Although there is no surefire way to prevent your child from developing a food allergy, introducing foods at the right age may help. Experts still need to do more studies to find out exactly what works best, but here are some steps you can take:

• Avoid peanuts during pregnancy and while nursing. Eating peanuts during pregnancy and while breast feeding may increase your child’s risk for developing a peanut allergy and other allergies — especially if you have a family history of allergies.
• Give your child only breast milk for the first 6 months, if possible. This is the best source of nutrition for your infant — and it may help prevent your child from developing food allergies that can last well into childhood or even adulthood.
• Wait until your child is 6 months old to introduce solid foods. Especially if you have a family history of food allergies, taking steps to prevent early exposure to foods that can cause allergies is a good idea. As a child grows older and the digestive system matures, the body is less likely to absorb food or food components that trigger allergies. Experts believe that waiting to introduce solid foods until your child is 6 months old may help prevent allergies to those foods.
• Introduce cow’s milk after one year. Studies show that waiting to introduce cow’s milk until your child reaches age 1 reduces the chance your child will develop a milk allergy.
• Introduce eggs at age 2. This may help prevent your child from developing an egg allergy.
• Introduce nuts and seafood at age 3. This may help prevent your child from developing an allergy to these foods. (Do not give your child whole nuts until he or she has molars and can chew them well.)
• Introduce all new foods gradually and one at a time. Before introducing mixed foods that could cause an allergic reaction, introduce each new food on its own. Don’t mix foods until you’re sure each individual food is tolerated.
• Give your child cooked or homogenized foods. Many foods are less likely to cause an allergic reaction after they are cooked. (However, be careful. A few foods — such as cod and celery — still contain allergy-causing proteins after cooking.)

Chefs Describe How To Get Children To Eat Well

From the New York Times:

“Historically, there was no such thing as children’s food,” said Andrew F. Smith, who teaches culinary history at the New School in New York. “Babies would eat what adults ate, chopped up, until Gerber created baby food in 1927.” “Children’s meals” didn’t exist until the McDonald’s Happy Meal came along in the late 1970’s, Smith said, and only when snack-food producers concluded that their real market was children did they start sponsoring events and advertising in the 1950’s.

The Chef’s Advice:

1. Make your children eat at the table from a very young age. Jody Adams, the chef at Rialto in Cambridge, Mass., said that her children – Oliver and Roxanne – never had highchairs. “It was really hard, because 2-year-olds throw food. But I saw the benefit in treating the dinner table as something that was important and that everyone had to participate in.”

2. Make them eat what you do, even if you have to purée it. “If we ate butternut squash and carrots, so did they,” Matheson said, “and sometimes with fish. I just really thinned it with cooking water.” Grant Achatz, the chef and owner of Alinea in Chicago, treated his 4-year-old to a 10-course dinner. “He didn’t finish everything, but he tried every course, which included white truffles, crab, bison,” he said. Do not feel compelled to top this.

3. Pack lunches fashioned from leftovers. “If we go for Thai food,” said Naomi Hebberoy, a chef and owner of the Gotham Building Tavern in Portland, Ore., her daughter, August, “takes pad Thai the next day.”

4. Eschew Baggies filled with Goldfish. (Car rides are exempt.) “If kids are hungry, they’re going to eat,” Dolich said. “If you fill them up on Bugles, they won’t.”

5. Buy them the most expensive chocolate you can afford. Who craves Ho Hos when they’ve had Scharffen Berger? I do. But I wasn’t raised on the good stuff.

Toddlers With High-Class Palates

Via DCist, The Washington Post sits down with some upper-crust children and examines their gourmet dining preferences.  Later, a D.C. mother obsesses about her desire to expose her unborn baby to food from all inhabited continents, and scores an Aussie resturant recommendation.

Solid Feeding

Magic Trainer Cup Twin Pack by Avent
$7.99

Take & Toss 7 oz. Spill Proof Cup by First Years
$3.99

2 Pack Fresh Food Feeder by Munchkin

Jar Holder and Bendi Spoon

$6.99
Take & Toss Infant Spoon by First Years
$2.19

TreBimbi Puppets Flatware

Snack-Trap by Moss World Ent.
$4.99

Take and Toss Bowls with Lids by First Years

$3.99

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kipiis Bib Clips

 

 

 

 

French Bull Kid’s Dinner Set

Deluxe Dishwasher Basket by Munchkin
$4.99

Sam and Belli Chalk Mats

 
ANTILOP
high chair with safety belt
$18.99

What NOT To Feed Your Kids

BabyCenter has an extensive list of foods unsafe for children, mostly for their allergenic potential:

Foods to avoid: Newborn to 4 to 6 months
All solid food: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you feed your baby only breast milk or formula for the first four to six months.

Foods to avoid: 4 to 12 months
Citrus: (because of allergies)

Egg whites: Yolks are fine, whites can be allergens, if your child is allergy prone, wait until age 2.

Honey: Honey can harbor spores of Clostridium botulinum, which causes botulism.

Peanut butter: Highly allergenic, wait at least until 1 year old, 3 if there’s a bigger risk of allergies or if you or the other parent has peanut allergies.

Wheat or wheat products: Most babies can handle wheat — found in many cereals and breads — when they’re about 6 to 8 months old. Wheat is the most common grain allergen, though, so if you’re concerned about allergies, it might be a good idea to wait until your baby is 1.

Shellfish: Because it can be highly allergenic, experts recommend excluding shellfish from your baby’s diet until his first birthday. (If you suspect he’s susceptible to allergies, wait until he’s between 3 and 4 years old.)

Tree nuts (like pecans and walnuts): If you think your baby is at risk for allergies, you might want to wait until he’s 3 or 4 before giving him nuts. Otherwise he can probably handle them when he’s 1, as long as they’re pureed in food or in nut butters. (Whole nuts and pieces of nuts pose a choking hazard.)

Other potential allergens: If you’re concerned that your baby may be prone to allergies because of your own allergies or your mate’s, you might choose to delay the introduction of other commonly allergenic foods — like corn, soy, chocolate, or anything else you’re allergic to — until your baby’s at least 1. Depending on the severity of your allergy and other factors, you may want to wait even longer. For help making this decision, talk to your child’s doctor.

If you’re breastfeeding, avoiding all nuts and possibly eggs and milk in your own diet may help in delaying or preventing allergies in your baby.

Cow’s milk: Stick with breast milk or formula until your child’s first birthday. Why? Your baby can’t digest the protein in cow’s milk for the first year, it doesn’t have all the nutrients he needs, and it contains minerals in amounts that can damage his kidneys.

Avoid large chunks and small, hard foods. Also avoid feeding a small child in the car, where it’s hard to monitor them, and be extra watchful if the child has used a numbing medication in their mouth.

Foods to avoid: 12 to 36 months
Low-fat milk: Your toddler needs the fat and calories of whole milk for growth and development.

Choking hazards: Continue to avoid all the choking hazards listed above, as your child might still have trouble getting them down safely.

Highly allergenic foods: Most kids can handle common allergens by their first birthday. If you’re concerned about allergies, experts suggest delaying the introduction of egg whites until age 2, and holding off on shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts (including peanut butter) until your child is at least 3.

The Good News:

A University of Portsmouth [uk] study tested 1,000 or so babies for food sensitivity. 54% of them were reported by their parents to have a sensitivity, but when they were double secret blind tested, between 2.2% and 5.5% of infants actually have food hypersensitivity in the first year of life. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: In the first year of life, the rate of parentally perceived food hypersensitivity is considerably higher than objectively assessed food hypersensitivity.

Good Taste

Baby food that (supposedly) doesn’t taste like pig swill: Evie’s Organic Edibles, avaliable at Whole Foods.

The Wall Street Journal reviewed other baby foods here.

Meanwhile, Italian babies are eating baby food in proscuitto, latte, biscotti, and penne flavors.

Also: After reviewing existing research on the health effects of processed soy in Western diets, the British government’s Commitee on Toxicity [CoT] and the Food Standards Agency has recommended that infants not be given soy-based formula except on the advice of a physician.

And if your child is a picky eater, your cupability may have begun even earlier than you think: the tastes your child is exposed to in last trimester of pregnancy and the first 3-5 months of life (via breastmilk) may determine what taste preferences your child will have later in life.