Blog
The Difference Between 1st and 2nd Foods
Healthy Child
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
You ask, we answer. This Q&A is from our friend and Healthy Child Board Member, Dr. Alan Greene, renowned pediatrician and expert on environmental health.
Question: What is the difference between 1st Foods and 2nd Foods? Can I skip 1st Foods all together?
Dr. Greene Answers: The baby food months are a fleeting window for teaching your baby to enjoy a variety of tastes, textures, and combinations. Soon that window will slam shut, and your toddler will be suspicious of foods that don’t seem familiar. This is as it should be: historically you wouldn’t want a child to toddle away from his parents into the wild and pick a berry to eat – it might make him sick. Or to pick a leaf – it could be poison oak. It’s normal for children not to like new fruits or vegetables by then.
I favor using the baby food window to introduce as many delicious tastes and textures as practical. For this reason, I no longer agree with the idea of staged foods, and especially not with introducing one new food every 3 to 5 days.
1st Foods are bland, single ingredient foods that have a very smooth texture. 2nd Foods have greater variety, combined ingredients, and more texture, 1st foods do naturally lead to 2nd foods, to 3rd foods – but I’m concerned they may all lead naturally to convenience foods and kids’ meals.
It can be fine to skip straight to 2nd foods – or even to skip 2nd foods altogether. Feeding Baby Green describes a variety of wonderful ways to feed your baby – perhaps with fresh tasting commercially prepared foods (Including some 2nd foods), and/or perhaps with tastes of food your family is already enjoying. It’s easier than you think.
Try one of our simple and healthy baby food recipes:
Image Courtesy of mightyb / CC BY-SA 2.0
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of Healthy Child Healthy World.
