Vegetarian Baby-Led Weaning: A Practical Guide for Plant-Based Families

Ezpz (0s):

So I have a Baby-Led Weaning cabinet in my kitchen. It's where I store all of the feeding gear that we use for work. It's a hundred percent ezpz and actually some of the ezpz suction mats and bowls in there are more than seven years old at this point. Still going strong. I know you guys already have a lot of baby gear in your house, but when it comes to feeding gear, the ezpz products are beyond Compare. Everything ezpz makes is designed by their infant feeding expert. She also happens to be my good friend and colleague, Dawn Winkelmann. She specializes in Baby-Led Weaning and we were just chatting that the tiny cup that she designed for EZPZ, which was the first ever Baby-Led Weaning cup, it's now five years old. She sent us a prototype to try out with our twins when they were doing their 100 First Foods and now it's won all sorts of awards and their feeding line has expanded so much. I love that when we start babies on the tiny line of ezpz feeding gear, they're getting developmentally appropriate tools to help them succeed at self feeding. So when your baby turns one you size up to the mini line for toddlers, then it's into their happy line. For bigger kids, ezpz has a new basics line. I mean like their, their website's so big now, like we've been using that one for our own kids right now. Dawn designed all of those products and it's been so fun to see our family grow kind of in line with the growth of the ezpz feeding line. They're also going backwards though because they are revolutionizing the pre feeding space. So even if your baby hasn't started Solid Foods yet, there are some great pre feeding tools that ezpz is now making. You can check it all out at ezpzfun.com. My affiliate discount code for ezpz is Katie10. I think that code is like seven years old too. At this point. I love using the ezpz products in my house for my own kids as well as the babies that I work with in my infant feeding practice and that I hope the ezpz gear is as helpful to your family as it has been to mine. That code, again is Katie10 for all of the fabulous feeding gear over at ezpzfun.com.

KiwiCo (1m 49s):

Learning how to eat is a full sensory experience and we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about the benefits and the sensory aspects of starting solid foods and the importance of those sensory experiences. And as your baby is growing and becoming more curious, you might be interested in other ways to expand those experiences. And Kiwi co clubs is the perfect gift for curious minds. Kiwi co develops hands-on projects and activities for kids of all ages. So I recently got the Kiwi Co grow with me sensory play mat for my friend's baby. We've been doing Baby-Led Weaning with her baby together and it was so cool watching him explore sensory play with all of the different textured shapes that encourage fine motor movements and plus it was way cleaner to do the sensory play on the play mat than the finger foods at the table. Kiwi Co Panda crate is the name of the program that they have for kids age zero to three, so for babies and toddlers. And you can join Kiwi Cos Panda Crate Plus and get deliveries of projects and age appropriate toys every other month. They're all thoughtfully designed for your child's age and developmental milestones. So if you are ready to tinker, create and innovate with some awesome gifts from Kiwi Co. You can get up to 50% off your first crate@kiwico.com with the promo code weaning. That's up to 50% off your first crate at K-I-W-I-Co.com promo code weaning. And that's W-E-A-N-I-N-G.

Katie Ferraro (3m 20s):

And for our families who don't eat meat, they sometimes stress about iron. You know, how's my baby gonna get enough iron if I'm not doing baby food meats or I'm definitely not doing the white rice cereal that's fortified with iron. And the reality is, if you look closely at whole grain foods and plant-based protein, there's a really impressive amount of iron in those foods that's a naturally occurring source of iron. Oh yeah. But then how do you make those little legumes and those little pieces of whole grain safe for Baby-Led Weaning? Well, it's actually really quite easy to modify those foods to make them into safe finger foods that your baby can learn how to eat even if your family doesn't eat meat. 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 with Katie Ferraro podcast.

Katie Ferraro (4m 9s):

I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to Solid Foods using Baby-Led Weaning. What if your family is vegetarian? Can you do Baby-Led Weaning 100%. Today we're gonna dive into everything you need to know about how to raise a confident adventurous eater without relying on meat. I wanna cover some of the key nutrients that your baby will need, like iron and protein omega threes. And I've got some simple practical tips for preparing vegetarian foods safely for Baby-Led Weaning. So no matter what you call it, whether you're fully plant-based or vegetarian or you're just trying to introduce more meat-free meals into your family's routine, I've got the tips you need to make Baby-Led Weaning work for vegetarian families.

Katie Ferraro (5m 4s):

I like to start each of these mini training episodes with a Baby-Led Weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is you do not have to eat meat in order to help your baby maximize nutrition from foods. And when we talk about, you know, the spectrum of nutrients that babies get from foods iron, I'm looking at you families freak out about iron. Oh my gosh, if my baby doesn't eat meat, they're not gonna get any iron. That is not true. I have tons of vegetarian families who are in my program, Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. They're following the 100 FIRST FOODS Daily Meal Plan. They're inside of our 100 First Foods content library, making all the plant-based foods and the whole grains and the different plant-based proteins that are naturally good sources of iron.

Katie Ferraro (5m 44s):

So even if you don't eat meat, your baby can get enough nutrition from food. 'cause here's the goal, right? You're starting at six months of age when 100% of your baby's nutrition is coming from infant milk. Now, fast forward six months later around the one year mark, most of your baby's nutrition can be coming from food. And if your family eats animal foods, great, good for you, do it. I'll show you how to make all those meats safe for your baby. But if you don't, there are many plant-based ways where you can achieve iron and other important nutrients that will help your baby thrive and get most of their nutrition by the time they turn one and hang tight. Because In this episode I'm gonna show you how to make those foods safe and how you can actually start increasing the amount of iron rich plant foods your baby is eating.

Katie Ferraro (6m 27s):

'cause there are a lot of plant foods out there that have a significant amount of iron. Now, I always feel a little bit weird doing vegetarian issues because I do not identify as a vegetarian. Actually, sometimes my kids ask me like, are we vegetarian? We never eat meat. I was like, no, I'm just lazy and cheap. And like it's way cheaper sometimes to make plant-based foods and, and I don't always have, you know, animal proteins defrosted and ready to go. I always have a couple of containers of tofu though. I got a lot of garbanzo beans, a lot of other lentils, legumes. I cook a lot of food for a lot of people every day in my house. And sorry, but sometimes meat's not top of mind, which my husband does not always enjoy because he's from Texas. He loves meat. But he is also increasingly well he's just happy if someone else is making him food is all, I'll say he's down with the vegetarian meals too.

Katie Ferraro (7m 11s):

But I've noticed lately I've just been having like this rash of interns and families that I've been working with who are certainly more focused on being plant-based. So I have a mom that I'm working with right now, she's a former vegan. She was vegan for I think 11 years. And she slowly started getting back into meat. A lot of moms do this, like when they're pregnant, they're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm missing something. And they start eating more animal-based foods. And you know, if that's you, that's fine. You do you. But she's like, oh my gosh, I actually forgot how much I love meat. But she's not really confident in cooking those meats. So I was helping her by showing her how to make, you know, lamb and pork and beef safe for her baby. And she doesn't eat a ton of the meat, but she's like, oh my gosh, I absolutely love my baby. Like watching him eat meat. And I will say, not to be gender stereotypical, but we do have a lot of dads who like only get interested in Baby-Led Weaning if they eat meat when they're like, oh my gosh, my baby can eat barbecue meat now I love this.

Katie Ferraro (7m 59s):

Okay, so I have another intern that I'm working with right now. I have, I'm a registered dietitian. I take dietetic interns through their community nutrition rotation. So they have to do supervised practice under the tutelage of a credentialed expert in their space. So if they're doing their community rotation every single week of the year, well most of the weeks of the year we have a dietetic intern who's helping us as like a very, very important part of our team that come for four or five or six week rotations. And our most recent intern, Kylie, she's also formerly vegan. Again, I don't know what it is about the formerly vegan, I'm not calling them quitters if they're not vegan anymore, but a lot of 'em do it for a while and then like, Hey, that's not for me forever. Or it helped me, you know, kind of recenter and get more focused on plants.

Katie Ferraro (8m 39s):

But I do now occasionally have animal foods. That's the cool thing about being a vegetarian. It's like you can make it whatever you want it. This intern, she was so helpful in designing some updated versions of recipes for our 100 First Foods content library. So I have a content library inside of my program for all of the foods on my 100 First Foods list. And it has videos and recipes and instructions on how to make all of the different foods safe for your baby at their different ages and stages. And we do try to include a lot of vegetarian options. We do not build this as a vegetarian program. In fact, if you are vegan, this is not the Baby-Led Weaning program for you because there are definitely animal foods in the program. Because if you look at the top nine allergenic foods, just under half of them are animal foods.

Katie Ferraro (9m 20s):

So if you look at cow's, milk, protein, fish, shellfish, and eggs, those are animal foods. And we do know that introducing those proteins to your baby early and often can help lower the risk of food allergy down the road. So actually did a whole episode all about how vegan families introduce those allergenic foods. I did that with two dietitians who specialize in plant-based nutrition. And I'll link that where you're listening 'cause in case you are vegan, you'd be interested in that. But we do have animal foods in our program. But this intern, she was so good at helping me with a lot of our egg substitute recipes. 'cause I recently did an episode on egg substitutes for Baby-Led Weaning that actually work. And unlike a lot of other infant feeding programs, actually make all the recipes and design all the recipes in my own program.

Katie Ferraro (10m 3s):

And sometimes the egg substitute that we put in there, it parents will write back and be like, this one really doesn't work for these fritters. It doesn't bind the different whole grains or hold it together. So we're always constantly tweaking it. And she had so many great ideas from her vegan background on how to incorporate just naturally vegetarian ingredients that helped make a lot of our existing recipes just a lot better. So we do have variations of the recipes, especially egg free. 'cause we do have a lot of babies who either haven't tried egg yet, or if they have an egg allergy, we do want to provide alternatives because I want you to keep trying new foods even if your baby has been diagnosed. So I got a lot of vegetarians in the mix helping to make these recipes a lot stronger. And if you wanna check out our program, it's called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro.

Katie Ferraro (10m 45s):

You can get registered and start offering your baby five new foods a week today. That's at babyledweaning.co/program. So today I wanna get deep on, you know, the practical things that vegetarian families can do when they're starting solid foods. So when it comes to the basics of Baby-Led Weaning for vegetarians, a vegetarian diet, it naturally aligns with the Baby-Led Weaning philosophy. Okay? Because the point of this approach is to offer your baby a wide variety of foods, including fruits and vegetables. We have starchy foods, protein foods, and allergenic foods. And if you look closely at the starchy foods, particularly the whole grains and the majority of the starchy foods part of our 100 First Foods list, those are whole grains and they're naturally high iron, high protein, high fiber foods.

Katie Ferraro (11m 31s):

Again, we're not trying to pump your baby full of those nutrients, okay? But they need to be getting a variety of foods that have a variety of nutrients. And when you include a lot of plant-based foods, you're gonna cover your bases with protein, with fiber, with iron. And also we have 10 different plant-based proteins in the program and show you how to make those safely as well. So when it comes to the key nutrients for babies, iron certainly is one that parents get concerned about. Oh my gosh, if I'm not force feeding my baby pureed baby food meat from a spoon, they're never gonna get enough iron. Okay, well that's certainly not true. We know we don't need to rely on iron fortified baby foods like white rice cereal. There's a lot of drawbacks to that food, which used to be a traditional first food in that right now we know that every major health body recommends against the regular use of rice foods for starting solid foods because of the potential for arsenic toxicity from rice foods.

Katie Ferraro (12m 20s):

Now, rice is a plant-based food, but there are some certain plant-based foods that preferentially take up arsenic, which is a heavy metal, which can be toxic to babies. So the way you reduce the risk of toxicity is to increase the variety of foods that your baby is eating. So with this baby-led approach where you're trying five different foods a week from five different food groups, you're naturally going to be achieving that really important nutrient mix. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Airdoctor (12m 52s):

Okay, I wish this were not true, but as someone who works in front of a computer or a phone all day, I know that of the average 20,000 breaths that Americans take a day, 90% of those and 90% of our time is being spent indoors. And the indoor air that we breathe can be up to a hundred times more polluted than outdoor air according to the EPA. And indoor air pollutants can lead to respiratory symptoms like sneezing, congestion, scratchy throat, or even more serious health problems like lung and heart disease. So what can we do about it? Well, air doctor has thought a lot about this and they've put their technology to work for you. The air doctor is an air purifier that filters out 99.99% of dangerous contaminants so that your lungs don't have to. So this includes allergens, pollen, pet dander, which is a huge problem in my house, as well as dust mites, mold spores, and even bacteria and viruses. Air doctor comes with a 30 day money backed guarantee. So if you don't love this product, you can just send it back for a refund minus shipping. If you head to air doctor pro.com and you use the promo code weaning, you can get up to $300 off air purifiers. And this is exclusive to podcast listeners, but you will also receive a free three year warranty on any unit, which is an additional $84 value. You can lock up this special offer by going to A-I-R-D-O-C-T-O-R-P-R-O.com. That's airdrpro.com, and use the code weaning W-E-A-N-I-N-G To get started today.

Katie Ferraro (14m 33s):

So when it comes to iron, there are a lot of foods there. Our 100 First Foods program for families in the program who are following our 100 First Foods Daily Meal Plan. I space them out day by day, week by week, you're naturally working those foods in, but there's a lot of families who pick the five foods each week. And by choosing five foods from five different food groups, they're naturally selecting higher iron foods like lentils, they're going through tofu, they're going through the different plant-based legumes in the program. There's different whole grains, there's different leafy greens. 'cause we don't, you can't just offer your baby, you know, raw spinach. Okay, that's a huge choking hazard. But we show you how to make the different bitter vegetables and the leafy greens in particular, which are high in iron, how to make those safe for your early eater.

Katie Ferraro (15m 14s):

When it comes to protein, sometimes families worry, oh my gosh, if you're just eating, you know, no meat, you're not gonna get enough protein. You know, anyone who has studied basic nutrition knows that most Americans eat too much protein. There's no storage form of protein in the human body. We're all eating too much protein and storing it as fat. And we don't want to start that out with your baby and tell your baby, oh, they need to eat more protein. Okay, I did a whole episode on, you know, how much protein does your baby really need? I'll link that in the description, but it's like really not that much. So we have a lot of plant-based proteins and if you can rely on foods like legumes, like the dried peas and the beans, I know we, I just spent a lot of time working on our lupini beans recipe. Lupini beans are kind of a random food in our program because, sorry, but you try to come up with 10 plant-based proteins.

Katie Ferraro (15m 57s):

It's a little bit challenging, but actually found some really cool ways to use lupin flour and jarred lower sodium lupini beans to make really fun recipes that have great iron and protein and fiber that your baby actually can pick up and feed to themselves as well. When it comes to Omega-3 fatty acids for families that don't eat animal foods, if they're not doing egg, we do do a lot of egg substitutes with flax seeded and chia seed. Those are great sources of Omega-3 fatty acids. We've got the tree nuts in the program, which not only introduces your baby to tree nut protein, which is one of the potentially allergenic foods, but those also have omega threes. As far as vitamin B12 goes. For families that are vegan, we do recommend an external vitamin B12 supplement because there's no appreciable amount of vitamin B12 found in non-animal foods.

Katie Ferraro (16m 40s):

So in some cases, if you're completely eliminating those, you do need to be very conscientious about making sure that your baby is getting that important vitamin B12 from other sources. When it comes to preparing vegetarian foods safely for baby lead weaning, it's important for all foods that we cook them properly to reduce the choking risk. So we do a lot of lentils and legumes, but you know your baby when they're just starting out with Solid Foods, sorry, but they don't have their pinch or grasp and they can't pick up small lentils or little pieces of kidney beans or garbanzo beans. And even if they could, those small pieces of food are the exact size that could potentially occlude the airway for an early eater. So instead we show you how to modify them. One of my favorites is kidney bean, which I do not do kidney beans for early eaters because they don't have their pinch or grasp to pick up the kidney bean.

Katie Ferraro (17m 26s):

But I love to make kidney bean pie. It's this really great recipe in our program where you, you saute the kidney beans with tomatoes and some other seasoning and spices and then you puree it and then you bake it off in a mini loaf pan and it turns into this perfect rectangular sized finger food that you can cut into little pieces that are about the size of your adult pinky finger. The baby can pick it up and feed it to themselves. So instead of offering a dangerous potential choking hazard like a kidney bean that your baby can't even pick up and feed themselves, you're offering this nice longer finger food that has kidney beans in it, plus it's got that vitamin C from the tomatoes. And that vitamin C is gonna help your baby's body absorb the iron from the other protein foods like the kidney beans.

Katie Ferraro (18m 8s):

Now, as far as common concerns go for vegetarian families, a lot of families are concerned, as I already mentioned about, oh my gosh, my baby won't get enough protein or they won't get enough iron. And the reality is, if you offer a variety of foods from a number of different sources, so we do a new fruit on Monday, we do a new vegetable on Tuesday, we do a new starchy food on Wednesday, a new protein food on Thursday, a new allergenic food on Friday, and you can choose those foods so that the majority of them are plant-based. It gets a little more challenging with the allergenic foods for reasons that I already mentioned. But for the most part, the vast majority of those foods are plant-based foods. Your baby's going to naturally be achieving that important nutrient mix.

Katie Ferraro (18m 48s):

Now when it comes to the potential for reducing food allergy risk, one of the benefits of Baby-Led Weaning is that you can make food-based versions of all of the top nine allergenic foods that your baby can feed to themselves safely. So by introducing that food protein early and often you're lowering the risk of food allergy. But foods like egg cow's, milk, shellfish, and finfish, four of the top nine allergenic foods, those are animal foods. And so many families in our program decide even if they're vegan and they don't eat those foods themselves, you know, that's your own personal food decision. But your child may someday want to eat those foods. And so the best thing that you can do for them is to allow them the opportunity to introduce that protein into their system to help lower the risk that they'll be allergic to it later down the road if they do decide to eat those foods.

Katie Ferraro (19m 37s):

So as far as preparing all of these vegetarian foods, I know everybody says they want to eat more plant-based foods and we as adults would certainly be better off eating a lot more plant foods and less animal foods. And and the rationale behind that kind of hearkening back to my days when I was in adult nutrition, I used to work in cardiovascular nutrition and and preventative nutrition in the past. And one of the most important things you can do to lower the risk of heart disease, cardiovascular disease, the number one killer of Americans is to lower the amount of saturated fat in the diet. Okay? And I don't really care at all about your baby saturated fat intake, but for us as adults, we don't wanna rely on a lot of animal fats, okay? Especially the saturated fats. We know that those are the heart unhealthy fats, the ones that raise the LDL or the bad cholesterol levels in our body.

Katie Ferraro (20m 23s):

And so by shifting the fats in our diet to unsaturated fats, and you find those predominantly in plant-based foods, we're doing our body a service and we're doing our hearts a service. You can also do your family a service by offering your baby a lot of these plant-based foods, okay? No one's advocating for a low fat diet for your baby. There's a lot of plant-based fats that are very healthy for babies as well. So again, this idea of focusing on variety and choosing foods from different food groups and continuing to do that when your baby has got that all important flavor window open where they will like and accept a wide variety of foods and flavors and taste and textures, that is so important. And this approach where you offer five new foods a week, one from each of the different five food groups, it really does help your baby achieve diet diversity.

Katie Ferraro (21m 10s):

So in conclusion, I would say that Baby-Led Weaning is very closely aligned with many of the reasons why you as a family might be choosing this dietary approach. As long as you focus on safe nutrient dense foods and you prepare them properly, your baby certainly can work to a point where at age one, they're getting most of their nutrition from food, even if the majority of those foods or even all of them are plant-based foods. So if you'd like To get started learning how to make all of these foods safe for your baby, My program Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro is a step-by-step blueprint to helping your baby become an independent eater and achieve diet diversity and take the stress of meal planning out of your daily routine.

Katie Ferraro (21m 52s):

You can sign up at babyledweaning.co/program, and if you don't yet have a copy of my 100 First Foods list, I give it away to everybody on my free introductory online workshop called Baby-Led Weaning FOR BEGINNERS. This is a very concise video training where I show you everything you need to know about starting solid foods safely with Baby-Led Weaning, including a lot of meal prep tips that you can start practicing today. Plus, you'll walk away from that training with my original 100 First Foods list for free. You can sign up and take this workshop right now, later today, tomorrow, when your baby's napping, whatever's convenient for you, you can sign up at babyledweaning.co/workshop.

Katie Ferraro (22m 32s):

Thank you so much for listening. I'll put the links to all of the resources that I mentioned In this episode. It'll be in the description right where you're listening to this, or if you go to the show notes, that's at blwpodcast.com/493. It'll be there for you. And a special thank you to our partners at AirWave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of the podcasts from AirWave. We are online at blwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.

AccuWeather (23m 8s):

From the terrifying power of tornadoes to sizzling summer temperatures, AccuWeather Daily brings you the top trending weather related story of the day, seven days a week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes with stories about impending hurricanes, winter storms, or even what not to miss in the night sky. So listen and subscribe to AccuWeather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts. That's AccuWeather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts.