Katie Ferraro (1m 27s):

Don't get a lot of pheasant questions, but a wild bird like pheasant would be shot using shotgun shells. And these are different from bullets. So instead of being one solid chunk of metal, the cartridge is packed with small metal BBs, which are most often led. And then when the shot is fired, some of those BBs will become lodged in the muscle of the bird. So It is very common to bite into these BBs when eating the cooked bird. Even when you try to remove them. There might even be BBs in the bird from other hunters that hit but did not kill that bird. So something unique to take into account if you are considering eating shot pheasant Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (2m 24s):

Hey guys, welcome back. Today I'm doing a slightly different solo baby led weaning training episode. This is five Uncommon questions, About, Starting, Solid Foods. I've done top five baby lead weaning questions answered a number of times. Those episodes always do really well. It's just kind of like random questions that I frequently get and I answer them in a podcast episode. But I feel like the Uncommon questions might be intriguing as well. So if it taking notes of the Uncommon questions that I got recently, the ones that I was like, Hmm, no one has ever asked me that before. And those are the questions that I'm answering in today's episode. So I teach a free online video workshop. It's 75 minutes called Baby-Led Weaning For Beginners, and at the end I answer some of the most frequently asked questions and then there's a chat box on there.

Katie Ferraro (3m 8s):

So anyone who's on the workshop, if the question that you have is not answered, you type it in. I personally answer them all in emails. Sometimes it takes me a couple of days to get back to you, but I answer every single one. So. I, literally see every single question that comes through our webinar, and most of 'em, there's like a hundred frequently asked questions that I see all day every day, but occasionally one jumps out at you and you're like, no one's ever asked me that. Those are the questions that I'm covering in today's episode, which is 5 Uncommon, Questions About Starting Solid Foods. All right, first Uncommon question comes from a mom named Natasha. She wrote in a question on the workshop that said, I've heard an opinion to not introduce Foods rich in sugar, banana, sweet potato, et cetera, to decrease a baby's interest in sweets.

Katie Ferraro (3m 52s):

Is that right? Now, that's an interesting way to format what a common question I usually hear is, which is like I've heard that if you introduce fruit before vegetables that it'll cause your baby to have an affinity for sweets. And is that true? The answer to that question is definitely not. There's no data to support this idea that offering fruit before vegetables will make your baby crave sweet Foods. In our program, we recommend that you do the same or equivalent number of vegetable exposures each day slash week slash month as you do fruit, but we definitely want to encourage and include fruit because there's lots of benefits from that. So I did a whole episode on that topic. Episode 23 is called Will Offering Fruit Before Vegetables Make Your Baby Crave Sweet Foods. But this idea about foods being rich in sugar and she specifically mentioned banana and sweet potato, there's no data to suggest either that that is going to make your baby have an interest in sweets.

Katie Ferraro (4m 42s):

If you think about it, your baby, well, first of all, a, they need naturally occurring sugars. The type of carbohydrate that you would find in fruits, for example, fructose, it's a naturally occurring fruit sugar, totally fine for Babies to have the type of carbohydrate that's in starchy Foods like sweet potato. I mean, these are the types of carbohydrates that we want your baby to have. There's nothing wrong with carbs. In fact, in the second half of infancy your baby's nutrition needs switch a little bit where they actually need slightly more calories from carbohydrate than they do from fat or protein. So it's really important that we're including carbohydrate, just prioritizing the right kind and keeping in mind that milk sugar, lactose, which is the base of human milk or commercial infant formula, that that is also a carbohydrate for your baby, but your baby is already tasted sweet, right? They've already had exposure to these naturally occurring sugars.

Katie Ferraro (5m 24s):

If you think about if you're a tasted breast milk or formula, obviously there's lactose in there, so it's slightly sweet. And we also know that flavor compounds transfer through mom's breast milk and through mom's amniotic fluids. So your baby is getting exposure to different flavors. You don't need to withhold sweet things from them. You do want to offer a variety of tastes because of course it's human nature and even infants from their first bites will have an affinity for sweet foods So. we encourage bitter vegetables and different flavors, whole grains, the different proteins, both animal and plant, to give your baby this, you know, wide flavor profile as part of this overarching desire to help your baby achieve diet diversity. So no, you do not need to withhold foods like banana or sweet potato. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (6m 44s):

Question number two, my doctor said I should feed my baby in the stroller or a car seat if we don't have a highchair. Is that okay at this one? At first I thought it was a joke 'cause I read the first part of it. I'm like a doctor said to feed your baby in a stroller or a car seat. Like the two places where you don't feed your baby, you guys is in a stroller or a car seat. Okay? Think about it. Your baby in a rear facing car seat is at a reclined angle. In order to facilitate a safe swallow, your baby's back needs to be flat, their waist needs to be at a 90 degree angle. Their knees need to be at a 90 degree angle, and ankle should be at a 90 degree angle. If your child is reclined in a rear facing car seat, or if they're in the stroller, that leans them back into the perfect position to open their airway, which could potentially cause choking for a child who's just learning how to eat.

Katie Ferraro (7m 27s):

So sometimes I'm like, are people just pulling one over on me? Or they like trying to get my goat? But then I saw the end of the question was like, if we don't have a high chair, if you don't have a high chair, or let's say we, you know, many families and different food cultures where they don't eat around a table and a baby would not eat in a high chair, right? They eat on the floor together or they eat in a different setting that wouldn't involve high chairs. you can get your baby positioned properly, but you still want their back flat. Sometimes people ask questions about can the baby sit on the lap? Hey, on occasion you're gonna be in a situation where your baby's gonna be sitting on your lap and eating food. One thing I would encourage you there though is don't have the baby facing away from you, right? If your baby is going to choke, it will be silent. You will not hear your baby choke.

Katie Ferraro (8m 8s):

So if you can't see them struggling, 'cause they're facing away from you, that's not ideal. So you would want to position the baby in such a manner where their back is flat. you can get their feet resting, hopefully on the adult seat where your bottom is resting, and then you're observing your baby in the event that they choke. But if you don't have a high chair, the alternative is not to put them in a stroller or a car seat. If you are intending to get a highchair, get a highchair before you start solid foods. It doesn't have to be a fancy highchair. you can get a portable highchair that's very affordable and adjust your adult chair seat or bar stool so that their feet are resting flat. You can also d I y a foot rest for any existing highchair that you might have. So your child's feet can be resting flat on a Solid foot plate. But the alternative is not to feed your baby in a stroller or a car seat.

Katie Ferraro (8m 50s):

That is not a safe place for a baby to eat solid foods. Question number three, does my baby need molars to digest grains? Okay, I have never heard this before in my life. Sometimes parents will ask about digestion of grains like, oh, I heard that like Babies can't eat grains. Is that true? That is not true. Your baby, interestingly enough, their gastrointestinal tract is fully equipped to digest human food as early as three months of age. Now, of course, we don't offer human food as early as three months of age. They only drink infant milk, breast milk or formula because from a nutritional standpoint, that's sufficient to meet their needs for the first six months of life. But of course, they also can't safely swallow Foods at three months of age.

Katie Ferraro (9m 30s):

But there is no indicator that Babies quote unquote, can't digest grains. This question is interesting though, because she's talking about molars in the teeth in the mouth, and while It is true, that digestion begins in the mouth, there are lots of ways to prepare whole grains safely that Babies who do not have their teeth can certainly eat. So your baby can digest grains and there are many wonderful sources of whole grains. My 100 First Foods list has 20 different starchy foods options, many of which are whole grains. I want your baby to be trying a wide variety of whole grains. you know, you probably should be eating more whole grains, right? We don't want to get reliant on soft, multiple white carbohydrate Foods or those easy carbohydrate foods like pasta, rice and potatoes.

Katie Ferraro (10m 11s):

On occasion, those are fine, but there are so many whole grains we do want Babies to be trying and no, they do not need their molars. The more common question that I get is, do babies need teeth to start solid Foods? And the answer is no. Right? Some Babies are born with teeth. It's wild, but most Babies won't get teeth until after they start Solid Foods. And some Babies don't even get teeth until they're one year of age. The point is, having teeth is not a prerequisite for being able to start Solid Foods. And having certain types of teeth does not mean that your baby can or cannot digest certain components of food. Your baby can eat all the foods on the 100 First Foods list. I've actually made a point to feed every food from the 100 First Foods list to a baby in week one of starting solid Foods, just to prove that you can because there's no right or wrong, perfect food to start with.

Katie Ferraro (10m 52s):

And we don't wanna withhold whole groups of foods like whole grains because of some mistaken thing about, you know, whether or not they have molars because of course your baby doesn't have molars when they're starting solid foods question number four. This one was interesting. Can babies have meat that was hunted? We have friends who hunt and they brought us back pheasant. This is a mom who'd asked me a question in our office hours. She said, I had a question about lead last week. So there's a group of parents in our program who get access to weekly office hours, which is live q and a, and they, they send their questions in or they ask them live, and then I answer them, kind of help them in their own individual situation. This particular mom was concerned about her baby's lead level. So she said, I had the question about lead last week. Since the gun was used, I got worried about the lead involved. Any thoughts on this? So I had kind of given like a longer answer to her, but the answer is, is that in some cases, and we did a whole podcast episode on game meat, so How to Offer Game Meat Safely to Baby, that's back in episode 117, that in some cases there may be concern about the remnants from the bullets that were used to kill the animal in hunting.

Katie Ferraro (11m 48s):

And then another mom wrote back to me after she heard that office hours thing, and she said, wild birds like pheasant would be be shot using shotgun shells. These are different from bullets. So instead of one being a Solid chunk of metal, the cartridge is packed with small metals, BBs, which are most often led when the shot is fired. Some of these BBs will become lodged in the muscle of the bird. It is very common to bite into these BBs when you're eating the cook bird, even when you try to move them all, there may even be bebes in the bird from other hunters that hit but did not kill the bird. So the mom Tess wrote in to clarify that with me. So thank you so much. I know absolutely nothing about hunting and I love learning from you guys as well. Everything I know about Game Meat, which I don't think we included pheasant, but again, that's back in episode 117. If you do have the opportunity to offer those foods to your babies, there is just kind of a different level of precaution that you might want to take.

Katie Ferraro (12m 33s):

Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. Question number five. This was from another mom in our office hours group. She said, we live in Florida. And at the time she wrote this, she said, hurricane season is approaching, it's the busiest time of the year. I was thinking about the possibility of being without power. Do you have any suggestions or advice for going about baby lead weaning? If I can't do fresh food and have to resort to canned food for an extended period of time, if we experience a power outage? Thank you for all of the advice. Thank you for this great question. I'm so sorry that you're dealing with everything that you deal with in real life. And then on top of that storms and the potential to be without power and all the other catastrophic things that happen with natural disasters.

Katie Ferraro (13m 20s):

But canned foods are a wonderful option for babies, even when you're not in a natural disaster situation. There are many different canned foods that are totally appropriate for babies, and there are some that are better than others. Certainly. I did a whole canned food episode back in episode number 75. It's called Canned Foods That Can Work for Baby-Led Weaning. And that episode we kind of talked about, okay, a lot of people poo poo Canned Foods, oh, they're from the middle aisles of the grocery store. Well, guess what? There's a lot of very affordable, nutritious options that are safe and soft for your baby to eat in the middle aisles of the grocery store. I'm a huge fan of fresh, wholesome, real Foods, but I'm also like sometimes guys, I don't like cooking beets and I love a can of beets that I can just cut into strips about the size of my adult pinky finger and offer it to a baby.

Katie Ferraro (14m 2s):

So if we kind of go through the different categories of foods, there are some great canned fruits. I love tart cherries packed in water for babies. There are certain fruits that you can find packed in their own juice So, we don't want any syrup. So even light syrup has added sugar and no added sugar for Babies until age two. So I love canned pineapple rings packed in their own juice. I'll cut them in half. So they're like a little half moon shape that the baby can pick up and bring to their mouth. Much easier than cutting up a pineapple by yourself. I loved canned pears. I loved canned peaches. Again, you can find those packed in their own juice, which is totally fine. We just stay away from that syrup. When it comes to the vegetables, some of them can be higher in salt, but you certainly can find no added salt vegetables.

Katie Ferraro (14m 42s):

Sometimes I'll use canned green beans. Green beans are not one of my favorite fresh vegetables for early eaters. 'cause even if you cook them very well, fresh green beans are still very, very stringy and can be hard for a baby without teeth to eat. But there are some varieties of no salt canned beans that I think are great, like green beans. And then when it comes to the protein Foods, oh my gosh, there's so many great sources, especially when it's like the fish and the shellfish and you're trying to go through some of those Allergenic Foods, like I don't do sardines or salmon or the different types of canned. There's canned chicken out there. I don't love canned chicken because a lot of times it's chicken breast and packed in a lot of added salt. But with the fish in the shellfish, you certainly can find no added salt varieties. Now, when you look at the shellfish, like if you're looking at sardines or you're looking at canned salmon and you'll be like, oh my gosh, there's so much salt in there.

Katie Ferraro (15m 26s):

But if you look at the ingredient list and it doesn't say sodium or salt, the sodium that is in that product is naturally occurring, right? Because seafood is naturally high in minerals and sodium is a mineral. So there's going to be naturally occurring sodium in there. But there's a lot of good protein options in the canned food aisle. And then for carbohydrate foods the other day was at Walmart is the biggest grocery store in my town, and I just, I don't love going to the grocery store, but when I do, I love going by myself. 'cause I wanna spend a lot of time in the Canned food aisle just like, oh my gosh, I found frozen pineapple chunks at Walmart the other day, which was kind of cool, but that's not related to the canned food episode. The Canned food question, the carbohydrate food that I found that was cool was canned sweet potatoes, no added sugar, no added salt.

Katie Ferraro (16m 7s):

That was great. you can also find just canned boiled potatoes, which are soft and you can make 'em easily into mashed potatoes. So there's a lot of things you might not recognize in the canned food aisle that would certainly be safe for your baby to eat. Again, always look for the low sodium, no added salt versions, but if you can't find them, just especially like when it comes to legumes, right? We have 20 protein Foods on the 100 First Foods list and 10 of them are plant-based foods. And a lot of 'em are beans like adzuki beans, black beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, those beans. If you can't find no added salt, if you rinse them under the faucet, it reduces the sodium by about 30%. So that's an option for you as well. And if you wanna learn more about canned foods that can work for baby-led weaning, that's episode 75. So thank you for these uncommon questions, you guys.

Katie Ferraro (16m 48s):

I love them. Keep them coming. If you wanna sign up for the free online workshop called Baby-Led Weaning For Beginners, that's at babyledweaning.co. And I will respond to every single one of your questions. It takes me a while, as I said, but I always get back to you. All right, thanks so much for listening. Thank you also to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, AirWave Media has some great podcasts. This podcast episode the Shownotes will be at blwpodcast.com/367. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time. If you're interested in doing Baby-Led Weaning, but you're not exactly sure, like what does that mean? What does it look like? Where do I start?

Katie Ferraro (17m 29s):

My online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro has everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods and get them to eat over a 100 First Foods before they turn one, whether you're terrified of choking or maybe you've started but you feel like you're feeding your baby the same foods over and over 'cause you don't know what to feed next, or you're looking for guidance on how to prepare foods safely for your baby's age and stage. My program has exactly what you need. There's five hours of concise self-paced video training. you can knock this thing out during nap time this week. You also get access to my 100 First Foods content library so you can see and learn exactly how to prep all of the a hundred foods as well as my original a hundred days meal plan. I've been refining this program for the last seven years.

Katie Ferraro (18m 10s):

Just today, a mom wrote to me and told me that the a hundred days meal plan has been a quote game changer for her busy lifestyle. When you join the program, you also get access to over a hundred phase two combination food recipes. So you're gonna try out the trickier textures, push your baby's palate. And what's cool about these recipes is your whole family will enjoy them. So everything you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods is inside of the program. It's created by me, a registered dietitian who specializes in infant feeding. If you're tired of hunting and pecking around the internet trying to piece this stuff together on your own, I put it all in one convenient place for you. I invite you to check out the baby led weaning with Katie Ferraro program that's at babyledweaning.co. Again, that website is babyledweaning.co and click on program to learn more.