Dead birds in baby food

Yes.  That’s what it said.
I find it very peculiar that companies such as Gerber, Beechnut, and others combine things like apples with chicken or sweet potatoes with turkey.  What’s worse is to know that babies are meant to handle easy to digest foods and then someone sneaks meat into the food.  If this meat eating was so “essential” to growth, then why in the world don’t babies eat it during the early stages of development?  Because their under-developed systems cannot handle the hard to digest protein.  Little ones munch on fresh fruits, pureed veggies and the like, and I’ll be darned!  They get enough nutrients to keep growing!  The most critical phase, infanthood, and babies do it meatless.  Amazing.

Infants start by nursing from the mother, and obviously this nourishment is in complete liquid form.  Then fruits and veggies are introduced.  Those foods are relatively easy to digest.  But when an 8 or 9 month old starts being fed animal protein, even if it is pureed, I really have to think about exactly what’s going on here.  The world is “programming” the taste buds of very young infants into eating meat.  And disguising it with something sweet like apples or sweet potatoes.

Essentially what’s being done here is that we have an immature digestive system, in critical development, processing a liquid diet, then soft fruits, then soft veggies—all dense in nutrients, all low in fat (which is good since the bile flow from the gall bladder isn’t too strong yet.  Animal protein also contains fat and if there is not enough bile to digest it, problems occur).  Then somehow people feel it’s necessary to puree the muscle tissue of a bird and put it into the food.  Infants and toddlers would not be naturally inclined to do this.
Do babies really have a desire for meat?
Is it natural? Or is this desire instilled in children?
Stop reading and reflect on yourself for a sec.
What about you?  Remember the first time you ate meat at all?
I hated meat as a baby.  My mom would have to mush it in with vegetable baby food to get me to eat it.  It didn’t stop there.  Even as I got older, my parents would have to coax me into it.  If I was 5 years old, I had to take 5 bites of meat.

As a Nutrition Advisor, I highly suggest that children eat no meat for at least the first two years of life, if at all; I personally do not feel that eating meat is nutritionally appropriate for any age and would not feed my own children meat.  The bottom line is that the animals which humans eat end up getting their nutrients from a plant based source, unless the factory farmers grind up fallen members of the like species into the feed.  So any argument that poses the view that nutrients can be derived from animal protein is incorrect, since these animals build muscle the same ways we do—through the consumption of amino acids found in plants and grains and by getting minimal exercise that creates muscle tissue (that we eat).  If we apply the same theory to our daily lives, it is plain to see that by obtaining an ample supply of daily aminos from plant sources and staying active that our bodies will be lean, fit and healthy.

Encouraging the consumption of meat at a very young age sets the stage for some concerns, which could have been avoided.  Irregular hormone activity, childhood obesity and diabetes, inappropriate behavior disorders, mood swings and more.  Meat is not necessary for growth and function of a human infant. However, getting protein is absolutely vital. Soft pureed split peas, lentils with carrots, small amounts of nut butters when the toddler phase is reached.  There are other ways for babies to get protein.  And it doesn’t have to be dead birds in baby food.