We are sold baby rice as a safe, easy food to start weaning your baby, and many of us were weaned onto this as children, so your family may put pressure on to start with baby rice, it’s the done thing, right?
Well, through research, we now know more about the gut and our microbiome, how childhood eating links to health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease and also nutritional profiles of food.
Here are 5 good reasons why you don’t need baby rice:
- White rice turns to glucose quickly
We all know we eat too many processed grains and simple carbohydrates. When we eat carbohydrates our saliva begins to breakdown the food into glucose. By the time baby rice, which is around 94% starch, hits the intestines it will be mostly all glucose. The more processed foods are broken down to glucose quickly, which sets a cascade of insulin release and blood sugar imbalances. It’s easy to see how we begin to get a preference for simple grains.
- It’s heavily processed
Baby rice is depleted of nutrients, processed white flour. It’s sometimes fortified with synthetic vitamins which are not as easy for the body to absorb or process as natural food based forms of the nutrients. It’s a kind of filler, which displaces other nutrient rich foods with no real value.
- Rice may contain arsenic
Rice is known to be high in arsenic, including in infant rice cereal. Research last year into babies aged 6-12 months found rice cereal can markedly increase arsenic exposure among US infants relative to breast milk and formula.
- It’s outdated
Baby rice was introduced as a low allergen food that is easy to digest (because it’s so processed) which was important when babies were weaned very early on. The NHS advice now strictly advises babies are not fed solids until at least 4 months, with many parents waiting until 6 months to coincide with other physical developments such as sitting up, putting food in their mouth. This means babies are more ready for food at this later stage, and their gut is more developed so they can digest real food.
- It’s not real food!
Part of weaning is all about developing associations and experimenting with foods. If your baby is ready for solid foods they are also ready for flavours, textures and smells – there is no need to disguise food as textured milk and mix it with formula or expressed milk.
Want to know more about baby weaning? To find out more about what foods help your baby develop, when and how to introduce solids and ask any questions to our Nutritional Therapist come to one of our classes on Baby Nutrition and Weaning.
Book online or organise a group for you and some friends at your home – just email info@the-gentle-touch.com