Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Anyone know any vegan-friendly baby food resources either on the web or in book form? I have "The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet" and was really disappointing that the author actually says that a vegan diet is NOT healthy for babies and then recommends recipes with butter in them at like 6 months. (why?)

I would like to find the best recipes to introduce tofu to my baby. I will try asking some Japanese moms here what they do and try to gain some insight. I tried cubing fresh Japanese silken tofu and letting her put it in her mouth but she make icky face. I know their tastes change all the time though.

This morning I am feeding her pureed organic blueberries (from frozen) with breastmilk and baby oatmeal

Lunch will be pureed green beans

Dinner will be HappyBaby MamaGrain unless I can figure something else out by then. I planned on trying to make something with brown rice and chickpeas but I haven't figured out how or what yet.

Lorelei is 7.5 months old, has her 2 bottom front teeth and has started to make chewing gestures (kind of) and can pick things up and put them in her mouth (most of the time) she tries to hold the spoon and guide it into her mouth sometimes while feeding.

i used a book called superbabyfood that was very vegan friendly-i think she may talk about dairy but it was vegan friendly. some recipes are on her blog but they're not super organized, you may have to hunt around. she has a great freeform porridge recipe that can be made with all sorts of awesome stuff: http://www.superbabyfood.com/super-porr ... mment-1176

we started with avocado, and then made our own whole grain food (peas, oats, stuff like that, it was a long time ago), pureed every veg and fruit we could think of and froze it all in ice cube trays. gave her little cube-sized portions and didn't stress it.

I make food in batches too and freeze what she can't eat in a couple days then take them out as needed for daycare the next day to thaw.

Update:

She loved her blueberies and oats.

There is a lot of good info/ideas/recipes to do with feeding vegan babies in Viva le Vegan by Dreena Burton. Even though I did baby led weaning, I found the info in there to be really helpful.

I was sent this one by a friend. It's very vegan-friendly. Simply Natural Baby Food: Easy Recipes for Delicous Meals Your Infant and Toddler Will Love by Cathe Olson. I think that's where I got the idea for avocado and nooch sammiches.

Grey needs to eat iron fortified food, he hates the nasty baby oatmeal and cereal, what do I do? He likes regular grains, but I need something iron fortified.

We had luck with HappyBellies cereals, which are iron-fortified. We mixed in pureed berries (like dragonsister above) or a fruit baby food to make it more palatable, and it worked well.

Also, I second Super Baby Food. Very vegan friendly with ideas for tofu, and there's so much information that you can choose to take or leave some of it (i.e., the sections on dairy and eggs).

A friend of mine said she makes her own food and she just puts iron drops in the food she makes so her son gets enough iron. I felt pretty stupid after she told me that because I honestly never thought of it. I want to avoid the iron fortified baby cereals but was worried about iron.

Violet LOVES kik alicha. The recipe I use is from "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking," but it's out in San Diego with my household goods at the moment and the book is crazy expensive on amazon. In any case, you basically cook a cup or so of dried split red or green lentils, then take a crazy amount of oil (like a cup or so - seriously, the first time I tried the recipe I assumed the amount of oil was an error and quartered it. Bad decision!), sautee a chopped red onion in it, then add 1T garlic and 1T ginger along with the cooked lentils and let it simmer together for 20 minutes or so. Season with salt and pepper. V also loved injera with it and teff was one of the first grains she had.

If you have your shiitake together in advance you can use spiced oil, but I just threw in some chiffonaded basil with the onions and called it a day.

One of her favorite baby food pouches is this: http://www.amazon.com/Sprout-Organic-Bl ... B0044BQXDE This combo would be easy enough to make and pulse in a food processor to the consistency you wanted. Personally I've preferred fork-mashing to mush in Vi's case, and though we've been doing a lot of the fruit-based kind with the tube they can suck the food in from directly lately (it's easier and neater when you're transient :( ) that's the only form that purees work well for us. sporking purees has been just a disaster.

I'm curious what you'll figure out with tofu.. We've avoided soy but I think we'll introduce it soon. I was thinking of giving V some tofu scramble. If I had my food processor with me I think I'd try a baked ziti with quinoa pasta and tofu ricotta (we're delaying treenuts a while, though, so not my usual vcon cashew ricotta. d'oh. Although she's had tahini with no problem and probably coconut as well - I totally spaced on the fact that this is a tree nut until researching sesame seeds and had a "duh" moment.

ETD dupe post.. Sorry!

As for tofu, poopiebaby LOVES the basic baked tofu from AFR, and has since he was really small (like, 10 months?). I just made sure that it wasn't too chewy when he didn't have many teeth. I cut it into tiny pieces when he was first practicing his pincer-grasp, and then graduated to sticks (like thick french-fries).

LittleBodhi enjoyed little cubes of plain tofu. Actually, he's almost four and still does. Baked tofu? No way, it usually has sauce, which is currently on his do-not-like list, but plain uncooked tofu is totally okay by him!

Annak, thanks for mentioning kik alicha - I've never heard of it before, but it sounds like a great food for little ones. I'm going to try it soon!

I am currently using the HappyBaby line of cereals for iron, I just mix in with her food. I got the sampler pack which had rice, oatmeal, and multi-grain and she hasn't had a problem with any of them. She decided she didn't want to eat them plain (with breastmilk) anymore.

I tried the earths best (I think) with pears this morning and I was able to get him to eat some, but not much. I am going to try and find iron drops. I was talking to s nutritionist this morning and she said that babies that are getting breastmilk shouldn't worry too much about iron. So much conflicting information!

Just to add one more data point about iron levels: my kids' pediatrician says that most breastfed babies are fine on iron up until a year old, or until they're mostly eating solids. He likes to do a blood draw (really easy, they get the results back instantly) at 9 months to check levels and then another one later (at 15 months maybe? I forget) just to keep an eye on it. The majority of breastfed babies are fine-- but of course, you want to know if they're not and it's fine to supplement if they're low!

Your idea to mix the drops in with food sounds so smart to me. I would never have thought of that. (Seriously.)

YES!!! My head is spinning!

After our avocado introduction debacle, I've been trying to figure out how to best introduce Leela to solids. Does anyone have a good online source they recommend?

LB, why are you trying to stay away from iron? Is it because of constipation? A friend of mine told me that rice cereal and bananas had her baby very constipated, and I think it was quite painful for the baby.

What drops do you use? I just have the D in coconut oil from Carlson for Kids.

I think I didn't explain correctly. The doctor said to give grey iron fortified cereal, he doesn't like it. I am trying to mix it in with his fruit in the morning and he will eat a little. A nutritionist said I shouldn't worry about iron until he is a year old. He is nine months. The doctor wasn't worried about testing it when. Saw her last week and said she would test it st one year.

These iron drops, what kind should I get?

Iron in breastmilk is very readily absorbed by babies vs iron added to formula and foods, so babies/toddlers shouldn't really have an issue until they are mostly on solids. My own anecdote: L took an antibiotic that, when combined with iron shed by the body, turns poop bright red. The first time L took it, she was mostly breastfed, her dirty diapers were same color as usual, so her body wasn't shedding much iron (and her iron levels had been tested and were nice and high). When she took it again around 15 mos and was on solids and some formula, her diapers were indeed bright red.

Just as a counterpoint, I have a friend who is facing iron issues with her toddler (14mo). At 9 months the iron levels were low-normal, at 12 months they were in the high end of low. She's still BFing, had delayed cord clamping, didn't start solids at all until 6mo, has done baby led weaning and made an effort to feed her iron-rich foods like greens, quinoa, amaranth, stone fruits.. and really wanted to avoid supplementation because of constipation fears, but I think has had to supplement. So bf babies aren't immune to low levels, despite their mothers doing everything they can to ensure a good start.

Some of the foods she's been adding to try to bring up her baby's iron levels have included quinoa-apricot muffins, samosas filled with things like lentil-onion-sweet potato or potatoes, lentils and peas.. spinach would probably make another good filling.

I read this really great book called Feeding Baby Green that I highly recommend. The Dr. basically advocates food introduction as being more about getting baby accustomed to lots of different flavors than really about nutrition (because they're still getting mostly breastmilk or formula). There's a lot of info about the 21 different plant families and charts to help you record how much you eat during pregnancy, bf'ing, and feeding baby, and he has some great baby-friendly recipes that include foods and herbs from various families. I really wish I would have had this book when I was pregnant! There's tons and tons of research in it too, one that stuck out in my head was when given the choice between an almond and a marshmallow, monkeys will always choose the one they've seen their mama eat. A good reminder how important our own food choices are and how much babies are paying attention to everything we do!

We've done rice cereal for breakfast a few times with banana or other fruit mixed in, but I prefer savory stuff so I usually squish up some tofu scramble, roasted potatoes, etc. for breakfast. He seems to like everything we've given him, but eats pretty small amounts (BabyEnchilada is just over 6 months now).

Anyone know where I can get some whole grain alphabet pasta? Not stuff in a jar with tomato sauce, but just the dry pasta noodles?

Eden food makes some vegetable alphabet pasta but they are super tiny. Maybe whole foods or trader joes has some bigger ones?