Katie Ferraro (1s):

And comparing these two cans of garbanzo beans and they're from the same brand, they look the same, but the regular one has three times as much sodium as the low sodium version. And if you rinse the low sodium version, you reduced the salt by another third. That's a great food for your baby to try. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mama 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.

Katie Ferraro (42s):

Hey guys, welcome back in today's episode, we are gonna dive deep on canned foods. Hear me out. You might be like, Ooh, gross canned foods. My baby only eats fresh foods. That's great, except that there are some amazing canned foods that certainly can work for baby led weaning. Especially if you're trying to expose your baby to a wide variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures, he might not always be able to get access to fresh versions of those foods. And there's some really good benefits to certain canned foods. So that's the point of today's episode is to turn you on to canned foods. If you were previously like, Ugh, I only shop the perimeter. We're going to talk a little bit about shopping the perimeter of the grocery store.

Katie Ferraro (1m 25s):

There's good and not so great things in that recommendation. But before we dive into that, I love to start each episode with a baby led weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is if you are serving your baby canned foods, we always look for the lowest sodium version. But if you're not able to find it, if you rinse your canned good underneath the faucet, it reduces the sodium content by about 30%. I'm going to talk a little bit about reading labels for canned foods in today's episode, hang tight. I'm going to give you some tips on how you get those lower sodium ones to begin with. So you can minimize sodium like right off the bat because babies don't need added salt. But again, rinsing canned foods underneath the faucet will reduce the sodium by about 30%.

Katie Ferraro (2m 7s):

Now you got to keep in mind that also washes away the sodium that's acting as a preservative. So you can't like put it back on the shelf or in the fridge for a super long time in store. You want to serve that food to your baby relatively soon. All right. When it comes to selecting canned foods, let's start first with a little sodium sleuthing because sometimes like I'm a college nutrition professor. For example, when we're tight teaching about sodium, we always say these kind of pat lines, like the foods that are highest in sodium include packaged, processed, canned, and fast foods. Well, that's kind of a generalization because there are certainly canned foods that are lower in sodium and some that have no added salt. You just have to know how to read your labels. Now I've done a lot of episodes on sodium, and I'm going to link to a few of those in the show notes for this particular episode, in case you're like, whoa, I don't even know like how much salt my baby should have.

Katie Ferraro (2m 58s):

Check those out at blwpodcast.com forward slash 75. I'll link up previous episodes that relate to salt. But my general rule of thumb, just to give you like the quick and dirty, I love to see less than a hundred milligrams of sodium per serving in a food that I'm serving to my baby. Now that is not like published official guidance because there is none of that for babies, less than one. So we have to kind of use like best practices, which is, yeah, you want to minimize sodium. Most of the foods we're offering your baby are fresh wholesome foods that are not processed, that are not coming from cans. So if you occasionally do feed a process food, try to keep it on the lower side of sodium. Less than a hundred milligrams is like a good benchmark.

Katie Ferraro (3m 38s):

Also knowing that the nutrition facts panel is going to reflect serving sizes that are appropriate for adults. And I don't care like how into eating your baby is they're not going to eat a half a cup of garbanzo beans. So they're actually eating less than the amount of sodium posted in the label, but good rule of thumb, less than a hundred milligrams per serving. Now, when you go to pick canned goods, this is like the easiest place to get super good at reading labels really fast. Okay. I'm going to give you the example of garbanzo beans. I was just working on this pumpkin Curry baby led weaning recipe for my pumpkin episode recently. And I just like told my husband, cause I don't like to go to the store anymore. And sometimes when I ask like Instacart, like I'm like, can you please get three cans of no added salt, garbanzo beans and three that are regular salt and three that are reduced sodium.

Katie Ferraro (4m 21s):

Like they don't get it or listen to Me. My husband also doesn't either. But anyway, comes back from the store. I'm like just buy like three different types of canned garbanzo beans from the same brand. Okay. But as a teaching experiment. So he brings back S and w brand. This is like not brand bashing by any means, certainly not sponsored. But like that was the brand that was at sprouts that day. And sprouts is actually a great store to buy canned goods because they have no added salt versions of almost all canned foods. So for beans, I hope he went to sprouts. I don't know where he went. He's really not allowed to go to the grocery store unattended most of the time. But in this case comes home cans of low sodium and regular garbanzo beans. They cost the same. They look the same, but when you flip the label over and a half a cup serving the low sodium garbanzo beans had 140 milligrams, the regular ones had 420 milligrams.

Katie Ferraro (5m 9s):

So essentially there was three times as much sodium in the regular garbanzo beans as compared to the low sodium. Now in the United States, low sodium means one 40 milligram or less per serving S and w is pushing it to the upper limit, right? They're going to call that low sodium and they're going to max it out at one 40, but it's still three times less than the amount of sodium in the regular garbanzo beans. Again, they cost the same. They look the same and to your baby, they taste the same. We want to err towards the side of the lower sodium foods. And again, if you rinsed the low sodium garbanzo beans, you would take that 140 milligrams down to about 92 milligrams, which falls below the a hundred milligrams per serving threshold. And again, no babies can eat a half a cup of garbanzo beans.

Katie Ferraro (5m 49s):

As an aside, if you are serving your baby canned garbanzo beans, you want to slip them out of the skin and smash them with your thumb. We smashed foods that are about the size of a garbanzo bean or a blueberry smash them with your thumb up until the time your baby is one. And even beyond that, if you want to be extra cautious. So read your labels, no added salt is going to be the lowest one. Low sodium means one 40 milligrams or less a tricky labeling law or rule is about reduced sodium reduced sodium just means 25% less sodium than the regular one. And the regular one can be, have as much sodium as they want to. So good example of this is like, when you look at soy sauce, people will be like, oh, give me the green bottle.

Katie Ferraro (6m 29s):

Give me the low sodium soy sauce, soy sauce, as you likely know, is just liquid salt reduced sodium in the green bottle. That's not low salt. That's reduced. It just means there's 25% less salt in the liquid sodium soy sauce than in the regular one. Okay. So reduce sodium just means 25% less. So read those labels carefully. Look for less than a hundred milligrams for babies and you're in good shape. Let's talk next about canned fruit. Okay. Yeah. Fresh fruit is great and frozen fruit doesn't have any added sugar is a great option too, but there are still foods that you might only be able to get for your baby in a canned version. And they're totally fine provided. We're not concerned about sodium in this case, we're concerned about sugar. So when you're looking at vegetables, you're wanting to reduce the sodium in the canned versions.

Katie Ferraro (7m 12s):

When you're looking at fruits, you're going to want to pay attention to the sugar, the added sugar, anything packed in light syrup or heavy syrup, just stay away from the word. Syrup. Syrup just means added sugar and babies aged two and under should not have added sugar. According to the American academy of pediatrics, right? There's naturally occurring sugars in fruit. They're getting that sweet taste from the fruit sugar, the fructose. We don't need to like add a ton more from added sugars. Okay, your baby doesn't need that. It's not ideal. It may develop increased risk for dental cavities and unwanted weight gain and diabetes down the road and so on and so forth. So just stay away from added sugars where you can look for fruits that are packed in there. Water packed in their own juice, avoiding any canned fruits that have added sugars in them or artificial sweeteners.

Katie Ferraro (7m 57s):

So sometimes it'll say no added sugar. And then when you look at it, it's got a ton of like aspartame or Splenda or just artificial sweeteners. That again, we don't want baby to be having those. So let, let fruit do its own thing. There's a pretty good number of canned fruits. You can find, you might have to spend like a little bit of time in the grocery store looking the first few times, but some good ideas of canned fruits that you can find packed either in their own juice or in water include pineapple. I love canned pineapple. I usually do rings as opposed to the tidbits, like the tidbits of the little chunks, which can be harder for earlier babysitters like early on in baby led weaning. They can sometimes be a little bit on the like grayer side and harder crunchier, which we don't want to feed the baby, but pineapple rings are awesome.

Katie Ferraro (8m 38s):

I cut them in half. It's the perfect size for a baby to scoop up. But look at pineapple rings, you can find impact in light syrup, packed in heavy syrup, stay away from those. Their own juicer packed in water is ideal. Peaches are or another one. They can be like all over the board, but you can find ones packed in their own juice, water, cherries. I was at my Walmart. I live in San Diego and I don't love going to Walmart. But when I do get there, it's like the biggest grocery store in our town. So I will expend as much time in the canned food aisle. And I found a really cool product, which was tart cherries, which were already pitted cause pitting cherries is the pits. And also like the cherry season, at least where I live is like three days long. So like, let's say you want it off your baby cherries. And it wasn't cherry season, canned cherries packed in their own water.

Katie Ferraro (9m 18s):

But the same brand, I found one packed in heavy syrup. They cost the same. The packaging looked almost exactly the same. You just need to read your labels and make sure you're buying the ones that are packed. Eat again, either packed in their own juice or water is ideal. Applesauce is another one you can find canned applesauce, which has no added sugar. It's generally not called no added sugar. It's generally not called unsweetened. You have to read the label and just see that there's apples and then vitamin C and then that's a good option to buy. I remember one time I sent my brother-in-law to the grocery store. I don't send a lot of people in the grocery store. I feel like it sounds like that it would have to tell you these stories, but like, if they're at the grocery store, they text like, Hey, what do you need? I will always write back like you're there and you can bring me stuff. Perfect. So I was like, give you unsweetened apple sauce.

Katie Ferraro (9m 59s):

Like 20 minutes later, he texted me like, there's no such thing. It's like, oh shoot, I'm sorry. What that means is just look at the label. If it doesn't say added sugar, that means it's unsweetened applesauce. Now what about canned vegetables? I love canned vegetables with the caveat. Again, back to minimizing the sodium beets are not one of my favorite foods. I can not stand the smell of them cooking, but anytime I'm feeding a baby beets, I'll either do like, they now have some really cool, like the brand, just beets, which they have a Costco and a lot of grocery stores they're already cooked. They're great for baby led weaning. Cause they did all the work for you, but you can still like canned beans. If you want, just look for the lower sodium options, legumes, like your dried peas and beans. As much as I wish, I had time to be organized enough to like soak and cook black beans and Pinto beans and kidney beans and garbanzo beans.

Katie Ferraro (10m 43s):

I just do canned ones works for us. There's great options for lower sodium versions that your baby can have. Again, just remember your baby will need that pincer grasp, which they generally don't develop until about eight or nine months of age in order to pick up those smaller beans. And you always want to smash them flat with your thumb before serving the baby, just to be safe with regard to choking hazard, a couple other good options when it comes to canned vegetables, canned tomatoes are great. I know tomatoes are technically a fruit, but when you're working on sauces, maybe making your own marinara sauce because you are not going to find a low sodium, no added sugar, commercial marinara sauce. It's super easy to make your own. Just choose the ones that have no added sodium green beans are another one of my colleague, Dawn Winkelmann, who I teach the a hundred first foods feel to guide our digital program with a, when we were going through the hundred first foods list, I did not have green beans on it originally.

Katie Ferraro (11m 31s):

And she wanted green beans. And I was like, she's like, I'm not doing fresh green beans because no matter how well you cook them, they're always too stringy and could be a choking hazard for babies. And I do not do fresh green beans for babies until they're after one. But if you want your baby to try green bean, she was like, why don't you do canned green beans? And I was like, well, I hate canned green beans. Cause they're so high in sodium. And the French cut ones are way too small and babies can't pick them up, but we did a little bit of sleuthing and there certainly are a few brands out there that make canned green beans that are longer like Italian style or longer that babies can pick up on their own that have no added salt. So sometimes it's just a matter of like spending a little more time in the grocery store than you might otherwise finding a few brands, reading your labels, looking for no added sugar and no added salt. Again, they cost the same.

Katie Ferraro (12m 12s):

It's just like bringing home the product. That's actually better for your baby. Artichokes are another great canned vegetable, which like, I like love cooking, but yeah, I am not into cooking fresh artichokes, especially for babies, canned artichokes. You can find lower sodium version ones, which are great. I love the ones also packed in oil. It's fine to have canned products packed in oil. We want our babies to have extra fat, which helps with brain development. So if you are like kind of down with reading labels and comparing foods and you want like feedback on whether or not this is a good yeah. The option to get, I have a free Facebook group community that is kind of massive at this point, but the group is really engaged. So like the parents and the moms and the caregivers who are in there, they'll be like post this picture, Hey, this is the paneer I found at Costco.

Katie Ferraro (12m 55s):

Is this a good brand? Oh yeah. Check it out. There's this much sodium. Now compare that to this other brand. That's at this store. It's an international group too. So if you're listening from countries other than the United States, there's like a good community there for you too, because you know, the foods that you're going to, I find in Albania are different than what you're going to find in Canada. For example, if you want to check out my free Facebook community, it's called baby led weaning team. That's the same name as my Instagram account. I'll go ahead and link it up in the show notes for this episode, if you go to BLW podcast.com forward slash 75, you can check out the Facebook community. Even if you're not like a big Facebook person, this is a super cool group like this is, I don't have any objective way to measure this. But as far as I'm concerned, the least judgy environment in the entire bay weaning space, this is a super supportive community of parents and caregivers.

Katie Ferraro (13m 41s):

I'm there moderating it. My colleague, Katelyn, who is our community manager, who is a registered dietician and knows a ton about baby led weaning she's in there regularly as well. Lots of great content, good ideas about recipes. And we always answered it. Tons of questions about food labels in case you're curious about learning more canned foods that can work for baby led weaning. So check the group out on Facebook to it in the show notes again for this episode, which you can find at blwpodcast.com forward slash 75. So I know you guys hear those recommendations, like shop the perimeter at your grocery store. I love Michael Pollan, the originator of that statement, but I get it a lot of fresh foods in the perimeter of the grocery store. And there's a lot of junky foods in the middle aisles.

Katie Ferraro (14m 24s):

However, the canned food aisle does have some gems in there. I don't think we can discount all packaged and processed foods and say, none of them are good for our families to be eating. I love certain canned foods for baby led weaning, and they're located in the middle aisles, but you do need to search a little bit for them. So give yourself 15 extra minutes at the grocery store or send your partner, whoever else goes to the store for you and be like, Hey, get me a couple of different types of canned foods. You'll be amazed at the variation. And remember for the fruits minimize the added sugar for the canned vegetables, minimize the added sodium more info about canned foods on the show notes for this episode atblwpodcast.com forward slash 75. Thanks so much for listening guys.

Katie Ferraro (15m 4s):

Bye now!