Katie Ferraro (0s):

All right. Quick pulse check. Are you feeling okay about baby Led Weaning, a little nervous about this transition? Are you maybe interested in BLW but not entirely sure if this is the approach for you or maybe you started baby Led Weaning, but you're feeling stuck or you're gonna give up, cuz you're not sure if you're doing this right. Don't give up. I have a brand new one hour comprehensive online video training for you called BABYLED Weaning for BEGINNERS. It's totally free. And I think it it's gonna ease a lot of anxiety for you. I just redid this free training. It's packed with videos and visuals on how to safely prepare BLW Foods and what the first few days looks like and how to reduce choking risk. Plus everyone on this free workshop gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS LIST.

Katie Ferraro (41s):

So you'll never run out of ideas about what to feed your baby next. You can get signed up for this weeks video workshop times at BABYLEDWeaning.co. If you you've got one hour to dedicate to learning about BLW, this is the training for you. BABYLEDWeaning.Co has this weeks workshop times, and don't forget you also get that hundred FIRST FOODS list from this free training. And I hope to see you there. So there are definitely tools in your kitchen that you already have, that you can utilize to cut the Foods in the strips about the size of your adult pinky finger that are then safe to offer your baby. During this first eight week phase of BABYLED Weaning. Hey there I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietician, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby led weaning here on the BABYLED Weaning made easy podcast.

Katie Ferraro (1m 24s):

I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leading you with the competence and knowledge You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby Led Weaning. Hey guys, welcome back today. We're talking about some kitchen tools to help make Foods safe for BABYLED weening. And this is an episode I've been wanting to do for a while. I put together a while ago, I was working with a baby and the mom was like, you have the weirdest stuff in your kitchen. I was like, this is not weird stuff. This is totally like normal stuff that everyone has in their kitchen. And she's like, no, it's not. And we had this discussion about like, what's a normal kitchen tool. And I realized it's I just kind of use a lot of random things to cut the Foods down, to make them safe for BABYLED Weaning.

Katie Ferraro (2m 7s):

So we made a reel about it for Instagram and we're doing a YouTube video. And I was like, well, I wanna do a podcast episode as well because I know people who listen to the podcast, aren't always watching YouTube or on Instagram, but you guys have some stuff in your kitchen that might actually be helpful for making the Foods safe for BABYLED Weaning. Now, when we talk about making the size of Foods safe for BABYLED Weaning, what does that mean? Okay. In my programs phase, one of BABYLED Weaning is the first eight weeks where we stick to the single pieces of food that are shaped about the size of your adult pinky finger. So in order to get the Foods that shape, yes, you could use a knife for most of this, but there's a few other tools. So I just wanna share a couple things that you probably have on hand in your kitchen.

Katie Ferraro (2m 48s):

I don't want you to have to run out and buy these, but If you did, they're also like pretty affordable. That might kind of also be useful for you for making the food safe for BABYLED Weaning. The first one is a Crinkle cutter. Okay. I got this idea from Dawn Winkleman, miss Dawn SLP. She has been cutting tofu with a Crinkle cutter forever. I'm like, why are you doing that? You just cut tofu with a knife. And she's like, oh, but it makes this like really cool jagged edge. And then it's kind of easier for the baby to pick up. And it's a different texture. And I was like, okay, like, I love tofu as a way to introduce babies to the potentially Allergenic food Soy. I have a whole episode.Ironically, we are not sure why, but like the Soy shownotes page is one of our like most heavily trafficked website pages.

Katie Ferraro (3m 29s):

I don't know why people are so interested in feeding their baby Soy, but tofu is the best way to do it and cutting it with a Crinkle cutter. It also works for doing like zucchini or other soft vegetables when you're cooking them again, makes it a little bit easier for your baby to pick it up with their whole hand or their Palmer grasp, cuz right. They don't have their pincer grasp when they just start out with BABYLED Weaning. So If you have a Crinkle cutter, get it out for some of those Foods for BABYLED Weaning. And If you don't have one, they're like a dollar at the dollar store or on Amazon. So Crinkle cutter is one, a Pineapple corer. Okay. So I used to think the people use who used a Pineapple corer were like so lazy, like why can't you just cut a Pineapple? Okay. And a lot of parents are like, why Don don't you just buy the Pineapple that's already pre-cut? Well, Pineapple that's cut into tidbits or to chunks is not the right size for BABYLED Weaning cuz baby can't pick it up and they get stuck in their fat little baby hands.

Katie Ferraro (4m 12s):

So we want to make pineapple about the size of your adult pinky finger. And I'm totally down with cutting a pineapple myself. However, we have au pairs who live with us to help us with our kids. We have one au pair at a time, but multiple au pairs over the course of years is what I'm trying to say. And our very first au pair Julia, she was from Germany and she helped me when my quadruplets were doing BABYLED Weaning. And she bought me on her very limited au pair income, a pineapple corer. And she's like, I am so tired of watching you hack pineapples to death. Like you've got to use this tool. And I was like, this tool is dumb. Cuz I have a knife. She's like, let me show you how it works. You cut off the top, you cut off the bottom, you stick the Pineapple core in the middle. You twist it. It pulls out the core and then you're left with these perfect concentric circles.

Katie Ferraro (4m 53s):

Which you can then cut down into pieces, the size of your adult pinky finger. Or if you're comfortable doing like cut in half and do half moons, your baby can pick the pineapple up and eat it. And I was like, this is genius because then you take the core. And what I do with it is I work it back into a smoothie. Okay. So you don't even have to throw the core out, put it into a smoothie that the baby can then practice drinking out of an open cup. So Julia, our German au pair changed my life with the pineapple core. Thank you, Julia. She's actually coming back to visit us this summer. We haven't seen her for three years. I'm so excited. Our current au pair is from the Netherlands. And If you guys ever wanna talk about au pair stuff, I will talk your ear off. It's like, I absolutely love hosting au pairs. I love the cultural exchange. I am so grateful for these young women. We had a, a guy one time didn't work out as I had planned, but we mostly have women who come from a different country and live with you for one to two years and are just amazing and help you with your kids.

Katie Ferraro (5m 41s):

And it's the only way I can work is having an au pair. And if you're curious, I use the company called cultural care. Sorry, I didn't mean for this to turn into an au pair commercial, but I know a lot of you are working parents. And I used to think, au pairs were only for like super duper fancy people. And then one of my normal friends who like, I think I'm normal in the sense that I'm a, full-time working mom and don't have millions of dollars to spend on childcare. She was like, no aupairs are totally affordable way to have full-time childcare. Plus the cultural exchange you have someone live with you. Absolutely love it. We use a company called cultural care and I actually have a code with them. This is an affiliate code PCKatie75. So If you go to cultural care.com, that code PCKatie75 waves, a $75 fee, it's this like one time discount that they offer to new families who join the program.

Katie Ferraro (6m 25s):

So you can start picking out your au pair today. Again, that's cultural care and I cannot say enough good things about them. So thank you Julia, for the pineapple corer, back to the kitchen tools, egg slicer. Okay. Hard boiled eggs are awesome for BABYLED Weaning because hard boiled egg white is like such a cool rubbery texture. And then the yolk is such a cool mealy texture, but cutting them so that the babies can actually eat them is really hard to do. It falls apart an egg slicer will change your life. I love the egg slicer and I love doing hard boiled eggs. I do my hard boiled eggs in the instant pot also because I'm lazy. One cup of water, put the eggs on the little tray. It's 5-5-5. You pressure cook it on high for five minutes. You let it natural release for five minutes and then you run it under cold water for five minutes.

Katie Ferraro (7m 9s):

But I live in California and I feel bad running water for five minutes. So I just put it in cold water. Ice bath for five minutes makes perfect hard boiled eggs. And I do like 15 or 18 of them at a time in my XL, instant pot. So hard boiled egg cutter is also an awesome tool. Grape cutter also thought this one was dumb. Like why can't people just cut grapes into quarters? So we cut grapes into quarters for baby six to 12 months of age, but babies who are six and seven and sometimes even eight months of age, they cannot pick up the quarters of grapes. So I don't do grapes for babies until they're older and have their pincer grasp. And when you do cutting them into quarters, I also learned this with the quadruplets was super pain in the neck. Like they were eating them faster than I could cut them. So having a grape cutter that like you just, you push it. The brand I like is OXO, O-X-O. I think OXO tot makes the grape cutter.

Katie Ferraro (7m 50s):

It's on Amazon. It's like $7 of like 12 of them. They're pretty, pretty like reliable, but my kids find them and it take the spring out and somehow they're always broken, but it's basically you push it with your thumb and it cuts their grape into quarters. And you can process like a bunch of grapes or cherry tomatoes really quickly. So I think having a grape cutter is another cool tool. Last one I love is a pizza slicer. I make a lot of pancakes, especially for a lot of whole grain products. We make either pancakes or we make fritters for BABYLED Weaning and I make a whole batch of them just cutting 'em into strips. Using a pizza cutter is like the fastest way I think, to get them into the safe strips also, cuz I have pretty have very bad knife skills. I'm a dietician. And you know, you learn like basic culinary skills in dietician school. But one time I went to the culinary Institute of America.

Katie Ferraro (8m 31s):

I went to the healthy kitchens, healthy. I forget what the conference is called, healthy kitchens, healthy lives or something. It's basically where all the doctors go to learn about nutrition too. And we were there. One of my friends was running it. So I went to the knife skills class and the person who was teaching the knife skills was like, you literally failed this class. Like you have the absolute worst knife skills that I've ever seen. And I, I mean, I have a good sense of humor. I was like, I totally agree. Like I'm terrible at cutting. So any other cutting tool I could use, it does not involve knives I'm totally down for. And the best thing about babies is they don't really care what the end product looks like. We just wanna get it in the strips about the size of the adult picky finger for those first eight weeks of BABYLED Weaning. So I hope you guys found some value. Maybe you have some of those tools in your kitchen. I've got more tips on how to make foods safe for BABYLED Weaning inside of my free weekly workshop called BABYLED Weaning for BEGINNERS.

Katie Ferraro (9m 16s):

If you haven't taken this yet, it's a free one hour online video training where I walk you through the beginning stages of BABYLED Weaning show you what sort of foods you can make safe, show you how to make them, show you 10 foods that you can start with for BABYLED Weaning. And everybody on that workshop gets a copy of my 100 FIRST FOODS LIST. So you'll never run out of ideas of what Foods your baby can eat. Next. You can sign up for that free workshop and get your a hundred FIRST FOODS LIST for free at BABYLEDWeaning.Co again that's BABYLED Weaning.co Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.