Naturally Healthy First Foods for Baby: The Best Nutrition for the First Year and Beyond

By Jacqueline Rubin

Give Your Baby Nature's Best Food

How and what you feed your baby today will impact Baby's health for a lifetime. Naturally Healthy First Foods for Baby is an informative, innovative and easy-to-use guide that shows you how to prepare wholesome, homemade baby foods.

Beginning with conception and continuing into the toddler years, this book explains how natural foods can reduce the potential for food allergies, help babies develop strong digestive and immune systems, and encourage healthy eating for life. With recommendations that are parent-tested and physician-approved, this book also includes:

More than 180 delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes (cereals, vegetables, fruits, meats and dairy), some for the whole familyWhen and how to introduce solidsFeeding schedules and healthy menu ideas for the first 18 monthsNutrition information for optimal brain developmentHints and tips for food shoppingPreparation and storage guidelines to minimize time, mess and expense

Crafted with busy parents in mind, Naturally Healthy First Foods for Baby will help you create healthy independent eaters who love to eat the best foods.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402211244
• ISBN13: 9781402211249
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

PKP mother of 6 month old Addison

In order to keep this as short and sweet as possible I'll say that I totally agree with all the 5 star reviews already posted. Although I haven't yet started my baby on solids, we'll be starting in another two weeks. After reading this book I feel much more prepared than after reading 3 other books on the subject. The author is much more conservative and slow to introduce foods but with food alergies hitting an all time high in our country I'd rather take it slow than risk my daughter developing allergies. After following J. Rubin's recomendations I'll know that I did everything possible to avoid allergies. Also, the book is right in line with my philosophies of how we should eat; organic and as much local produce as possible. I love the fact that she explains, with fantastic information, why we should eat organic and local. After reading this book, I can't imagine any parent would disregard the information on organic foods or worse feed their child store bought baby food all the time. In short, fantastic book! ALL PARENTS OF AN INFANT SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!!

Great ideas and recipes

We had decided from the beginning that we would be making our own baby food. It just fit in with our lifestyle and parenting ideals. Plus, we could control exactly what was going in our little one's body. Buying organic and local when possible makes things even more healthful and good for the earth. This book guides you through the different nutritional developmental stages and provides recipes for each. Of course anyone can make mashed bananas without a recipe, but there are some other tasty things to try. Great overall resource and helps you decide when and how you'll feed your child.

Informative and Useful

I had decided a long time before having a baby to make my own food. I have been doing internet research and talking to a lot of moms about what they did (including my own!), and finally went to the store and randomly bought this book to get started. What a surprise - this book had literally everything I needed. I was very impressed with all the information besides recipes. It really gives a lot of information about starting solids, allergies and what foods to wait on. Every stage first has a summary of what you can introduce into your child's diet and then an additional chapter of just recipes. Being new to the whole baby food world, this information was great and also very up to date. I have been comparing this book's recommendations to other book's recipes as a guideline. The recipes provided are simple and easy. The book also has a lot of international ideas and recipes using items I wouldn't think of buying, but am really glad I did after. Now I do have a few minor complaints. One is that some recipes call for items that are hard to find. For example, when I decided to make rice cereal it called for adding "kombu" which is a type of seaweed. I was able to find some at a local asian grocery store, but I would think in other areas this might be difficult to find. The book does include a list of websites where these unusual items can be bought. Also some of the directions for the recipes can be a little too general for a noncook like myself. For example when I started cooking my first recipe (rice cereal) it said for it to simmer for 90 minutes. Well I didn't realize that I should be stirring this occasionally and a lot got stuck to the bottom. Afterwards I was like, "duh" but I guess when I follow I recipe I appreciate all the details. Overall this book was great and I know I am going to totally wear mine out as I try more and more recipes from it. If you are just beginning the solids experience and want a comprehensive book that includes recipes and other important information, look no further!

GREAT first foods book!

I was searching relentlessly for a book about making your own baby food since that's what I've always wanted to do. I always try to get everything organic for my little girl. I've been just buying the gerber organic first foods and that's a good second choice for me, but I would love to make my own. I am a stay at home mom for the most part, but I do not cook at all! (Strange, I know!) Making baby food is going to be a big thing for me! :o) The recipes in other books were overwhelming to me as they were quite complicated and required a lot of what I would call more advanced cooking skills and of course, ingredients that I've never even eaten before. Almost a little too extravagant of a gourmet for a baby, I would think! The recipes in this book are very simple, yet there are a some with a higher level of difficulty with rarer ingredients that would entice more advanced cooks to try. Jam-packed with up to date information - it was the newest book I could find out there published in 2008!!! Gives information such as what foods should be avoided and until what age. (For instance, did you know they raised the age at which you can introduce chocolate to 3 years of age?) The book is smaller than I thought, which makes it very manageable. It also lays/falls open very well naturally, which will come in handy when I want to try some recipes. I won't have to keep opening the book with possibly messy hands. I saw a quick recipe for babies 16 months and older called "Egg Pizza" which was just some beaten eggs cooked into an omelet shape, then sliced up like pizza with cheese on top. I just thought how cute and what fun for a toddler to get "pizza" for breakfast. Even would be a cute idea for pre-schoolers/early elemetery students and at those ages, you can add more toppings to keep it interesting and nutritious for them! It's the cute little things like this, that really make the book special. Very easy and fun to read! The colors are pleasant which always makes it easier to get excited to dive in and read it! So far, I just love this book. I can't wait to share it with friends and family so we can all educate ourselves and make the healthiest food we can for our babies!

Excellent Resource for Baby Food and Eating

I really like this book because it offers a comprehensive guide to eating and appropriate foods for the the first year. It is well organized and has chapters geared toward various ages. The recipes are helpful and gave me new ideas. The book is easy to read and follow. She doesn't reference science or medicine too much but seems to know the topic. Great value for the price.