Katie Ferraro (0s):

So Sesame's is not one of the big eight allergenic foods, but it's number nine and Sesame is a food we want to introduce to babies early and often, I like to use tahini, which is Sesame seed paste. Most of you guys know that's in hummus. We don't do commercial hummus for babies, way too much salt. Hey, there I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietician, college nutrition, professor and mama seven specializing in baby led weaning you're 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 (44s):

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the baby led weaning made easy podcast. Today's episode is about Sesame and how to introduce your baby to this potentially allergenic food. Now assess me might be one that you're like, hang on, wait a second. It says any allergy. Now it's not one of the big eight allergenic foods. Those are the eight foods that account for about 90% of food allergy in north America, but it's number nine. All right. So that's a bee allergy is on the rise. There's no data to suggest that delaying Sesame introduction to babies has any benefit. So like we do with the other allergenic foods, it's one that we want to introduce early and often, but as I like to do in every episode, I want to start you out with a baby led weaning tip of the day and serving Sesame seeds or crunchy hard Sesame seeds, snacks to babies, not safe.

Katie Ferraro (1m 30s):

That could be a potential choking hazard. Now hang tight. Cause I am going to show you two easy ways that you can offer your baby Sesame as a potentially allergenic food, but in a form that your baby can self feed. That's also safe. So let's go ahead and dive in talking a little bit about Sesame. Now, the food allergy research and education website is food allergy dot Oregon. It's a wonderful resource for checking out info about food allergy. They are advocating for the inclusion of assessing me on food, labeling and packaging in the United States so that people who are allergic to Sesame would know very clearly and easily. If there is Sesame in the food that they're eating now, Sesame is a flowering plant that produces edible seeds.

Katie Ferraro (2m 16s):

And it's pretty common in certain cuisines around the world. We'll talk about where we find it, but currently in the United States, the federal law doesn't require that food manufacturers have to disclose if Sesame is in there. So the food allergy advocates and the group fair, they support this idea of adding Sesame to that list of major food allergens that have to appear on ingredient labels of processed foods and that's to help families that have established Sesame allergy know, gosh, is this food I'm about to eat potentially going to be harmful to me and even potentially fatal, right? Because true food allergy very serious can result in anaphylaxis reaction.

Katie Ferraro (3m 3s):

But how common is that? There's somewhere between 0.1 and 0.2% of the population in north America is thought be allergic to Sesame. So it's a major cause of anaphylaxis, certainly in the middle east. And it's actually in Israel. It's the third, most common food allergen. So in the United States, it's number nine, but in Israel, it's number three. And there was a 19 study that found that Sesame allergy is thought to affect 17% of children who already have an IgE mediated food allergy. So they were studying an already high risk population because of course, if you have one food allergy, you at higher risk for having the other ones, it's not certain that you will, but in this particular study, they looked at kids who already had one or more IgE mediated food allergies and found that 17% of them would also react to Sesame. And that in that particular case, in that study, the Sesame allergy often co occurred with peanut or tree nut, sensitization and allergy.

Katie Ferraro (3m 48s):

So what if your baby doesn't have any food allergies or even if you do okay, and you've been advised to start Sesame, what's a safe way to do that. Parents often say, well, first of all, how much Sesame should I be offering? And just so you guys know, there's no established guideline on how many grams of Sesame protein you would want to introduce X number of times or over Y number of days, we just don't have that level of detail. And so as with the other allergenic foods, you advise, introduce Sesame early and often. Okay? So in my hundred first foods approach to starting solid foods, I teach a five-step feeding framework. And every week you introduce four new foods, low risk foods on Monday to Thursday, and then Friday, we do a challenge food.

Katie Ferraro (4m 28s):

So Monday we'll do a new fruit, Tuesday, a new vegetable, Wednesday, a new starch, Thursday, a new protein. And then on Friday I take a food from the challenge category, which includes the big eight allergenic foods plus Sesame number nine, and then some of the trickier textures and more complex flavor profiles. And I'll introduce that twice to the baby on Friday, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday, that allergenic food that is Sesame in this case with no other new foods in that period of time so that you can observe for any potential reaction, right? So it's perfectly safe to introduce one new low-risk or non-allergenic food per day. But when I get to Friday, I like to do it five or six times over the course of that weekend, observe for any reaction and then go right back to introducing a new, low risk food on Monday.

Katie Ferraro (5m 11s):

If you want to check out more about this five-step feeding framework and the a hundred first foods approach, you can sign up for my free weekly workshop, which is called baby led weaning for beginners. How to get your baby to try 100 foods before turning one, without you having to spoonfeed periods or buy pouches inside of that workshop. I go through some tips on how to introduce the allergenic foods. Plus I give everyone on the workshop, my hundred first foods list. So you can start knocking these foods out with your baby, including sesame. If you want to sign up for this week's workshop times, you can go to the show notes for this episode@blwpodcast.com slash 43. Now here's the way that I like to do Sesame. A lot of parents will say, okay, Sesame seeds, not safe to feed the baby's hard, crunchy Sesame seed snacks.

Katie Ferraro (5m 54s):

Also not ideal because hard crunchy foods are a potential choking hazard. And when we're feeding a six, seven or eight month old baby, who's just starting out on solid foods. They can't tolerate those textures. I like to use tahini. Now, tahini, you may be familiar with is a Sesame seed paste. Most of you have probably had to Heeney as an ingredient in hummus. So some parents like, well, I'll just feed and go to the store, buy some hummus, slap it on some crackers and feed it to my baby. Commercially prepared hummus is way too high in sodium for babies. We do want to minimize the amount of added sodium in babies. But if you look at tahini by itself, it's just Sesame seed paste mixed. Oftentimes with olive oil, that's perfectly safe for babies to have. Now the texture of tahini, if you were to buy it by itself is similar to that of peanut butter.

Katie Ferraro (6m 37s):

And if you put it in the refrigerator, it can get really, really hard. It gets sticky. And we don't like to give babies, especially early eaters that sticky texture, similar to peanut butter, it can get lodged on the roof of their mouth and present a choking hazard. So I like to tahini from a nutrition standpoint because it's just the Sesame seed, no added sodium, but I do want you to thin it out so that it's less sticky and less of a choking hazard for the baby. So the way I like to do that is by mixing the tahini with plain full fat whole milk yogurt. Now of course, yogurt is cow's milk. Another potential allergenic food, the most common pediatric food allergy. So that's the first one I like to introduce. If you're doing this method, you need to make sure your baby's already been exposed to cow's milk protein, which by the time you get to Sesame, most babies have had a fair amount of dairy.

Katie Ferraro (7m 23s):

And if you mix the tahini with the yogurt, thin it out, you can put it on a low sodium cracker, a piece of bread. Remember dry crackers and dry bread products are a choking hazard for babies. So we want to soften them up. A tahini yogurt combo sauce is a great way to do that. You can also just serve it to your baby on a preloaded spoon. If you want to offer it to the baby, allow the baby to sell feed. We never want to put the spoon or any other object directly in the baby's mouth as that could be a choking hazard. So I like to use the Sesame seed paste. You can also mix it with olive oil. You know, you yourself could go and make your own hummus at home. It's very easy to do. Just don't add the salt that you normally would take out the portion for the baby that doesn't have the salt, and then you go and put some more sodium or salt in it for yourself.

Katie Ferraro (8m 5s):

If that's how you like it. Another mom that I know through Instagram, her name is Peggy she's emergency room physician, but she's doing baby led weaning with her baby. And she's shared some really cool recipes on her Instagram, she's Chinese. So she has a highlight on her Instagram. That's about Chinese baby led weaning food ideas, and she used black Sesame seed powder as the way she introduced me to her baby. So I'm going to link up the highlights from Peggy. Her Instagram is pegs for days, right? I'm going to link that up in the show notes for this particular podcast so that you guys can go check out how she did Sesame seed. And she shows you what the Sesame seed powder container that she got at the Chinese grocery store, where she shops and then how she used that for her baby.

Katie Ferraro (8m 48s):

It's so cute. Again, the podcast show notes for this episode, if you want to find the link both to the free workshop or I'll share my highlights from Instagram, with how I did Sesame, I'll share pegs as well. Go to B L w podcast.com/ 43. So there you have it, a couple of easy ideas on how you can introduce Sesame, a potentially allergenic food to your baby. Bye now!