Bitter Vegetables: How to Safely Offer Bitter Vegetables for Baby-Led Weaning

Katie Ferraro (0s):

So bitter vegetables are hugely important for babies, for taste exposure and nutrition opportunities. But we know that babies who are offered bitter vegetables early and often they're more likely to actually eat them. But parents don't know anything about bitter vegetables, then they're not going to offer them. Right. 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 competence and knowledge. You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning You guys.

Katie Ferraro (42s):

Welcome back today. You were talking about bitter vegetables and how to safely offer bitter vegetables for baby led weaning. And you might be like, this is a super random topic, Katie. It is a little bit weird, but actually do get quite a lot of questions about bitter vegetables. So hence the reason for today's episode and as I do with all of these mini baby led weaning training episodes, I want to start with the BLW tip of the day. And today's tip is try to offer your baby as many vegetable exposures as you do fruits, right? Don't get into the habit of just offering fruit. I work with parents all the time where like my baby only eats fruit now. Well, your baby only eats the foods that you're offering.

Katie Ferraro (1m 24s):

If you make a point of offering as many vegetables as you do fruit exposures, this will help increase your baby's repertoire of vegetables that they like and accept and want to eat as they become older infants and toddlers who notoriously struggle with vegetables. I think oftentimes it's the parents who struggle with the vegetable ideas. So from the outset of baby led weaning, if you do a fruit, then the next meal do a vegetable and vice versa. So that we're getting one for one, as far as the vegetable and fruit exposures go, and I want you to hang tight because today I'll be sharing some examples of bitter vegetables that babies can safely eat to help you offset the fruits, which I know, you know, are really easy to feed babies.

Katie Ferraro (2m 6s):

So before we dive in about the bitter vegetables, I want to share a quick story about bitter melon also called bitter gourd, which if you guys are familiar with this certain food cultures use it, it's related to zucchini, pumpkin squash, cucumber, but it sure as heck does not taste like it. So after college, I was a peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. And if you're familiar with Nepalese cuisine, it's mostly doll bot, which is lentils and rice. And you eat that twice a day. And occasionally there's another vegetable in the meal, depending upon what time of year it is or where you live or what, you know, if there's any vegetables in your market. But one of the first vegetables that I had when I moved to my village and was living with my host family was bitter melon.

Katie Ferraro (2m 47s):

So in Nepal they call it Tito quesadilla, which basically means bitter melon, bitter gourd. And the first time I had it, I remember looking at my AMO, who was my host mom. And I was like, are you trying to poison me? Because the taste of bitter melon was so unusual for me, it looked like a bumpy cucumber. And I was like, oh, it was gonna be easy. Cause they have really good cucumber, a char like the cucumber pickles. And so I just kinda thought it was the same and whoa, it was not, it literally tasted like poison, but realize if you put a lot of salt on it and you fry it when a lot of oil is actually pretty good. And then after eating it regularly for two and a half years in Nepal, it actually became one of my favorite vegetables. I still love it today. Every time I see it, I buy it.

Katie Ferraro (3m 28s):

I make it. My kids absolutely hate it too. My husband thinks it's weird and poison, but I mean, it's probably because we don't have it regularly, but I still love it. So back to the whole poison part, though, we, as humans, babies included are biologically predisposed to dislike or to react negatively or to reject bitter vegetables at the outset. And that's because poisonous plants, which our bodies are designed to help protect us from taste bitter. And so the bitter melon and some of the bitter vegetable I've been talking about today, they're not poisonous per se, even though I felt like the bitter melon was a poison, but we do have a different visceral or initial reaction. And not to say that we need to fight against biology, but we do know that babies may need to see a food 10 to 15 times before they liked or accepted.

Katie Ferraro (4m 15s):

So if your baby quote, unquote rejects a bitter vegetable at your first offering, please don't say, well, that's it. I'm giving up on all the green vegetables because repeated exposures will help your baby become more familiar with it. And like it, because there are so many benefits to these foods. Now I want to tell you guys about an interesting study that was recently published and it was called infant and toddler responses to bitter tasting novel vegetables. And it's from this study, it's called the good taste study, which must be mentioned is funded by the sugar association. Like they actually pay for studies, ones like this, which was published in a reputable journal. But the researchers looked at initially whether adding small amounts of sugar to a bitter food, like kale would increase the palatability for infants and toddlers.

Katie Ferraro (5m 2s):

And you might be like, that's weird. But you know, think about what pouches are parents say, oh, I'm feeding my baby. This kale pouch. There's hardly any kale in that. It's mostly applesauce, which is a sweet food with a tiny bit of kale. So you're really feeding like green colored applesauce now adding sugar to anything. Of course it makes it taste better. But our goal with baby led weaning is to help babies safely taste and learn to become familiar with the flavors of foods and not just make them palatable because we've added additives like sugar and salt. So back to this particular study, the infant and toddler responses to bitter tasting novel vegetables. This was just published in the journal of nutrition.

Katie Ferraro (5m 42s):

And the findings were that the most consistent factor for acceptance of kale was age. So the researchers thought, oh, it doesn't matter how old the baby is. If we add sugar, it will help cut the bitterness or mask it so that it will increase across different age spans. But that's not what they found. It was the feeding age that mattered. So they found that babies who were six to 12 months of age, were more likely to accept the dark green vegetable. In this case, it was kale than were older infants. And I kind of read the whole study and I was like, duh, everybody knows that like the earlier you introduced when babies are safe to eat at six to 12 months of age, you're taking advantage of this flavor window, which is this period where babies will like and accept a wide variety of foods and flavors and tastes textures.

Katie Ferraro (6m 29s):

And that definitely drops off a cliff in toddlerhood. But if your baby's never been exposed to those foods as a baby, there's no chance of them eating them as a toddler. So just driving home. Another reason why you guys are doing baby led weaning and doing this variety of foods is because it will help your children accept a wider variety of foods, including dark green, leafy vegetables, and other bitter vegetables. So what are some examples of bitter vegetables? I have a hundred first foods list that I give to all of them. 10 days on my free weekly workshop called baby led weaning for beginners. And the point of the workshop is to show you how to get your baby, to eat a hundred different foods before turning one, without you having to spoonfeed period or buy pouches.

Katie Ferraro (7m 10s):

And if you go through the a hundred first foods list in the vegetable category, there are some bitter vegetables there. Some vegetables have more bitter tastes. They tend to be the dark green ones. So if we think about things like artichoke or a rugal up that bitter melon, I was mentioning, broccoli can be bitter, certain parts of the lettuce families like radicchio and end dive. Certainly brussel sprouts are a bitter vegetable, asparagus, kale, eggplant. So these are examples of foods that babies can safely eat. Now, how much of these vegetables should babies be eating? I know parents sometimes ask me, are there toxic levels of any of these foods that baby shouldn't eat? And as mentioned, you know, initially babies reject bitter taste it's in order to prevent them from ingesting poisonous foods.

Katie Ferraro (7m 55s):

And there are bitter compounds in vegetables that could be toxic in large amounts, but they are not concentrated enough to harm your baby. And especially in the portion sizes that babies are eating. So no, you are not poisoning your baby. If you're offering a bitter vegetable. Now, occasionally in the bitter vegetable conversation, parents will also ask about nitrates, oh, I've heard that bitter vegetables have high levels of nitrates, actually a mom on a live Q and a I was doing yesterday was asking me, oh, I got a handout from my doctor that said, I shouldn't feed my baby. Any of these nitrate containing veggies, the bulls, if they're fresh vegetables, they should only be out of a package. And I was like, I would love to see that that handout from your doctor's office, because I guarantee you, it was produced by and published by some sort of an interest or a company who wants you to think that babies can only eat out of pouches.

Katie Ferraro (8m 44s):

And that's certainly not the case. Yeah. Babies can eat real whole food varieties of these bitter vegetables. But back to the nitrates, they can react with other protein type compounds in the stomach and form nitrosamines, which are disease and then cancer causing. So nitrates can be a bad thing, but they're also now thought to have some beneficial effects, especially with regards to reducing blood pressure. And then when they're combined with other components that we find in vegetables and fruits like vitamin C, they can actually be preventative for other health issues. So nitrates aren't all bad, but in high levels they can be problematic. And the most common source of nitrates is not root or bitter vegetables. It's actually drinking water, especially rural areas where there's a shallow drinking water, Wells and nitrogen based fertilizers get in there.

Katie Ferraro (9m 30s):

If the infant from that area is bottle fed and the water used to dilute the formula is contaminated with nitrates and there is risk for nitrate poisoning. So it can be a concern for babies, but also research shows us that babies who are at the highest risk from nitrate exposure are those four months of age and younger, which as you know, we don't feed any foods to babies at four months of age or younger. We wait until six months of age to do anything except breast milk and or formula. So don't feed concentrated nitrate, rich purees to your four month old and obviously only offer water if you're reconstituting formula, that's from a safe source. Now, sometimes in the nitrate, sorry, I'm kind of getting off on a nitrate tangent here, but to kind of wrap this up, if parents are interested in reducing nitrate exposure, yes.

Katie Ferraro (10m 18s):

Eating organic foods is one way to help lower nitrate exposure. It's thought that there's about 30% less nitrates in organic produce than in conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, and actually have a whole separate podcast episode, episode 99, it's called our organic foods better for my baby. And if you want to check that out to learn more about the difference between organic and conventional that's at BLW podcast.com/ 99. So now why would we feed a bitter vegetable, which I've described as poisonous and nitrate containing, which I did not mean to scare you off of the bitter vegetables, but just kind of to address some of the occasional concerns about these foods, but then why would we do it? And sometimes parents say, gosh, when in doubt, leave it out.

Katie Ferraro (10m 59s):

I'm just not going to do these foods when you do want to do bitter that vegetables, because a, a lot of the vegetables out there have bitter tasting compounds compared to a lot of the fruits, sweet tasting compounds. And we want babies to have that variety of taste exposure. So we also need to think of the bitter vegetables in the greater context of what they contain from a texture standpoint, from a taste and flavor standpoint, which we've covered. But also from a nutrition standpoint, we look at those dark green leafy vegetables. They're very nutrient dense, which early on in baby led weaning. I don't want you to be overly concerned with how much quote, unquote nutrition your baby is eating, but we certainly want to make sure that the foods we are offering as baby weans off of milk for the primary source of nutrition and onto food that we're picking good nutrient dense foods, including dark green, leafy vegetables with iron and fiber and minerals and vitamin C.

Katie Ferraro (11m 50s):

So we also have to remember that there are a multitude of benefits to offering foods like butter, vegetables that do include nutrition, texture opportunities, and different flavor and taste experiences for your baby. So when is it safe for babies to eat better vegetables? As I mentioned, we don't want to do it at four months. We don't want to do it at five months. And I know sometimes the parents will be like, what's the big deal. If I start early, it's one or two months, but in the context of your baby's getting ready to eat babies at four months of age, a do not need foods other than breast milk or formula, and B are not physiologically safe to swallow those foods. So wait until six months of age also keeping in mind that yeah, one thing you can do ahead of time. I know we've got some pregnant moms listening, but there are some studies that show that moms or pregnant moms who eat bitter vegetables during pregnancy, and while they're breastfeeding, their babies learn to enjoy better flavors, more readily than babies who are fed with formula.

Katie Ferraro (12m 42s):

Or if the mom didn't eat any bitter vegetables during pregnancy, because remember we're transferring those flavor compounds from mom to baby via the amniotic fluid pregnancy and also via the breast milk. So we all know we should eat our vegetables, but just another check mark there for adults increasing their variety of vegetables and foods in their diet as well. So now how can we safely feed these types of foods for baby led weaning? Just as a reminder, we don't do any raw or crunchy or crispy foods. So sometimes people think, gosh, well I'll do asparagus and make it Aila my asparagus nice and crispy. I don't want it to shred apart with a fork when I touch it with a fork, but for babies, it needs to be soft.

Katie Ferraro (13m 23s):

So some of the bitter vegetables, you may need to cook them a little bit more than you might for yourself in order to make them the appropriate texture to be soft. So I want to use the example of Brussels sprouts because Brussels sprouts to me are one of those foods that if cooked poorly, they really taste disgusting. Like if you just take frozen Brussels sprouts and put them in boiling water, my mom who is also a dietitian who eats pretty much everything. I remember as a kid being like, you guys don't have to eat Brussels sprouts. And as we got older and Brussels sprouts got trendy, I was like, mom, brussel sprouts are so good. She was like, yeah, but growing up the way I had Brussels sprouts, my mom boiled them. And then if we were lucky, put salt on them like that doesn't taste good, but even Brussels sprouts can be hard for babies to eat depending upon the thickness of the brussel sprout. If you cut it in half or not, parts of it can be appropriate, but then parts in the core can actually be really tough and Woody and not safe for babies to eat.

Katie Ferraro (14m 10s):

So the way that I make Brussels sprouts have a safe for babies to eat is to shred the brussel sprouts and then to combine the raw shredded Brussels sprout with an egg. I usually do some panko bread crumbs that my babies already been exposed to wheat because that's the potentially allergenic food. And I'll make up a little Patty or a fritter that I'll then fry, adding some extra fat, which is great for your baby's brain development. And then I'll cut it into strips about the size of my adult pinky finger or for older babies home. Just let them pick the whole thing up and feed themselves. Even younger. Babies can pick that up and feed themselves, but the point is I've cooked the Brussels sprouts. So it's soft frying and into the fritter. And then I've put it into a form that the baby can safely eat and have a whole other episode all about fritters.

Katie Ferraro (14m 54s):

If you want to learn more about how to make certain foods like Brussels sprouts, safer babies to eat that episode is called BLW basics. How to make Freres for self feeding babies and that's episode number 143 at blwpodcast.com/slash143. When it comes to the leafy green vegetables, let's take spinach for an example, which you guys are probably aware spinach has iron. Certainly the type of iron in spinach is not as readily absorbed by the human body as is the iron we find in animal foods. But spinach has a lot of other benefits, but we don't like serve a raw spinach salad to a baby. Okay. So raw leafy greens certainly can be choking hazard early on for babies, even for toddlers salad can be a little bit challenging.

Katie Ferraro (15m 40s):

Could saute spinach. If your baby's already been exposed to cow's milk proteins, you could do it in butter, or you could do it in oil, but even then it can be long and stringy really hard for the baby to choose. Especially before they have teeth, no babies can chew with their gums. However, we can make spinach a little bit safer by incorporating it and making it a bit of a thicker texture that we can put on a preloaded spoon. So one of my favorite dishes for baby led weaning is a recipe called Pollock pioneer. So if you familiar with Indian cuisine, it's a spinach dish that also has pioneer in it, which is a type of, you can actually find really low sodium pioneer. You got to read your labels, locus, some pioneers, really high end, but I love palak paneer for baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (16m 23s):

You're combining the spinach with a variety of other different flavors and seasonings and spices. It gets to this nice thick consistency that you can puree if you wanted to, or if you just cook it down, it kind of purees by itself. You can serve at a top rice. I can make little rice balls and sometimes I'll roll it in the Pollock veneer, or just put it on a preloaded spoon for the baby or the baby can just pick it up and eat it with their hands. And I'm going to share my recipe for baby led weaning palak paneer on the show notes page for this episode. So if you guys go to BLWpodcast.com/155, I'll share that recipe because it's one of my most downloaded recipes. And it's a great, easy way to make spinach safe for your baby to eat.

Katie Ferraro (17m 5s):

And spinach is an example of a bitter vegetable. For many of the other bitter vegetables. Let's take broccoli. You don't have to get fancy early on. And baby led weaning. We don't want your baby having combination food and different recipes. Just do the single isolated foods. Broccoli is a great one. I like to buy broccoli on the stock and I do that versus buying like the pre-cut or frozen bagged broccoli, because they've generally cut the stock off. I like the stock for baby led weaning the stock acts as a handle that the baby can scoop or rake pick up before they have their pincer grasp early on in self feeding with broccoli. You as an adult might like it a little Al Dante, or when it's, you know, still a little bit crunchy, we do to cook it beyond that point in order to, to make it safe for baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (17m 55s):

So with a lot of the vegetables, you might fish some out for you yourself. When is that the doneness that you want, but then let it cook a little bit longer for babies. Now with broccoli, I love to do roasted broccoli. You could just do boiled broccoli or steamed broccoli if you want to. But roasting vegetables like broccoli really helps release the flavors and the flavor compounds that kind of make it, I think personally a much more enjoyable eating experience. And you can season that broccoli as much as you want. We just don't do salt or sugar, but it's fine to add. I like to do lemon garlic powder on roasted broccoli and that kind of sweetness from the lemon cuts the bitterness a little bit in the broccoli, but you certainly don't have to do that.

Katie Ferraro (18m 39s):

You could do soft stalks of cooked broccoli and just let your baby eat it. And I think it's always fascinating to watch a baby pick up a stock of broccoli and put it in their mouth. A one-year-old going to do that if they've never seen it as a six month old. So you might as well start when your baby is six months old and you can make these bitter vegetables. You can roast them. You can boil them. You can add seasoning. If you want, if two seasoning tips for you. I have a quick start guide to baby led weaning. It's an e-book. That's packed with a whole bunch of information for getting started with baby led weaning, but I've also got my no salt seasoning the P in there that we use for baby led weaning. I've also got a seasoning guide in there for ideas of different spices to use with different baby led weaning foods.

Katie Ferraro (19m 22s):

A lot of which are proteins and vegetables that you might want to check out. So I'll link to that in the show notes for this episode at blwpodcast.com/slash155. And if the whole spices thing is new to you, a lot of parents are like, wait, what? I can add spices to my baby's food. Absolutely. You can. Babies do not have to eat bland, boring food. I actually have an episode all about how to season your baby's food with spices. It's called how to flavor season and spice your baby's food. That's an interview I did with Kunshan Khoi. She's on Instagram at chief spice mama that's episode 48. If you guys want to learn more about seasoning all of these bitter tasting foods, but don't be shy or scared about seasoning your baby's food.

Katie Ferraro (20m 9s):

If you're like the only seasonings I know about our salt, that's my husband. Definitely. He doesn't care about any seasoning. He just loves salt, but since we're not supposed to offer added salt to babies, if you're looking for some ideas of different seasonings to put on the different vegetables that you're making for your baby, I use the spices from spice house. This is such a cool company they've been around forever. They make these amazing hikes quality spices, and they have this really awesome salt-free spices, deluxe gift set. Like I buy it for everybody. Who's starting baby led weaning because there's such a great variety of flavors in there. And you can kind of use them liberally because you know, there's no added salt in them. So I have a discount code for spice house.

Katie Ferraro (20m 49s):

It's BLWT10, you can get 10% off with a $25 minimum purchase. That is an affiliate code. And if you head to spice house.com, BLWT10 works for 10% off and check out that salt free spices, the deluxe gifts that it's eight jars, it's a great place to get started. And then my quick start guide also has more seasoning ideas in there. So you've got no shortage of ways that you can safely offer your baby bitter vegetables. If you want to grab the a hundred first foods list, that's on my free workshop. Baby led weaning for beginners, and I will link to that as well as all the other research studies in the different episodes I talked about, plus the codes and the Pollock paneer recipe. There's a lot of stuff lined up in the show notes page for this episode at blwpodcast.com forward slash155.

Katie Ferraro (21m 36s):

Thanks for listening guys. Bye now.