is peanut butter ok for under ones?

[HeadFairy]

DS is 9 months and I was thinking that peanut butter would be nice for him, it's very nutritious and it might encourage him to eat toast and chew a bit more. Is there anything that says he shouldn't have it? Should I stick to smooth varieties?

don't know, db, sorry.

i always liked Nigella Lawson's advice, she gave her kids their first peanut butter sandwich while they were in the GP's waiting room on another appointment.

Sighs.It's a minefield isn't it.?

headfairy, there's no reason not to give anotehr nut butter. holland and barrett et all sell cashew nut butter. i've seen people talk about adding it to foods to up the calorific value when their kids are a bit on the skinny side.

oh frigging nigella lawson.
she's like some sort of genius.
i hate her.
no, i love her
no, i hate her grrrrrrrrrrrr
see what she does to me!!!

she is good, isn't she? and so clever of her to have married a berzillionaire. her victoria sponge is shit, though, comfort yourself with that.

Is it? I've just ordered her Domestic Goddess book, guess I'll be looking elsewhere for a Victoria sponge recipe.

i think i'd like nigella better if i was nigella.
then i'd just be very smug with myself.

as it is, i want her to go away and stop making me feel so inferior.
(or to make me that snickers sauce for ice cream)
--see and now we're back to peanuts

the dom goddess book is good otherwise, imo. trying to think what i make from it. the easy chocolate cake is great. ldc, obv. muffins etc. but she always imo uses too much vanilla. half the amounts at least.

when i was pg i followed all the guidelines on eating etc... and developed a huge craving for snickers. oh well, i thought, it's my one indulgence. ate them for yonks before someone pointed out that they're pretty peanutty.

I don't think I could last 9 months without nut products, I'd find myself lunging at complete strangers in the hope of finding a half eaten snickers complete with pocket fluff hidden somewhere.

I used to make little peanut butter balls and flick them into her mouth.

It is very woolly and, as with many other things, not an exact science. Some books say wait a year, some say from 9mo is OK. The rules are different everywhere you go but it doesn't mean someone has got it 100% right and someone else totally wrong. For instance, where I live we're advised against giving cow's milk in any form (except for mature cheese or yogurt) before a year, ditto egg, especially egg white - a bit extreme compared to UK advice maybe. Yet there is no mention of restricting peanut or other nut intake and I have yet to hear of someone with a nut allergy. In fact, there are a lot fewer food allergies here in general compared to the UK, so I decided to draw my own conclusions.

sure thing. i think it must also make a difference the environment you're living in. let's face it, in the UK we're half-poisoned with pesticides, cleaning products and car fumes before we're even off milk.

where's here brangelina?

I might have a hunt for some cashew nut butter aitch... isn't it wierd how some nuts cause such problems and others don't?

Nigella? oh don't get me started. Can't stand her and her smugness. And her flickety tossy head action.

Don't talk to me about car fumes, I live in urban Italy. You can't get more toxic than that!

Italy, so not the other side of the world.

You can even make your own cashew nut butter if you're so inclined, probably a bit cheaper than the Holland and Barret variety, especially if you use Lidl cashews....

ahhhh ok thanks Brangelina. I know a lot of the advice about what you can and can't eat in pregnancy varies from area to area because of built up resistance, for example pregnant women in France aren't advised against blue cheese because it's much more common in their diet so they have a natural resistance to the bacterium in it. I guess the same applies to things like peanuts, like in the far east where it's a diet staple as you said earlier.

ah well, italy. that's an interesting one. i was just in rome last month, and talking to my roman mates about pregnancy stuff i thought they'd be much less neurotic about food guidelines than we are here. MUCH to my surprise, they were worse than here... no wine, no soft cheeses (my god, no fresh ricotta) and their docs told them to wash salad in bicarbonate of soda!

very very surprised, i was. they were scandalised at my lax attitudes.

tell you what i did notice, though... you buy veg, even in a supermarket, and it's fit for eating that day or the next. whatever weird shit is on our veggies it keeps much longer...

oh yes, our irradiated food does last so much longer aitch! Did you ever see the movie 28 days later? there's a scene in that when the survivors of zombie hell are rummaging through a supermarket looking for some food supplies, passing aisles of rotten food until they stumble upon some bright green fresh looking apples that have been there for weeks and are still perfect. The guy mutters something about irradiation then.

Lol at the bicarbonate, that's so true. We do get terrorised about toxoplasmosis here and end up not eating any salad for 9 months unless drowned in a bicarb solution. No one told me about the ricotta though, must be a Roman thing. we were just told to avoid Gorgonzola....

True also about the veg going off quickly. I expect that's because Italian supermarkets tend to stock a lot of in season fruit and veg than UK supermarkets. For instance, it's extremely hard to find grapes here in, say, February, whereas in tesco's it seems to be year round. Fruit also tastes better here and apparently fewer pesticides are used, although I have my doubts about that having wtched too much scandal TV.

my pal was told to avoid a lot of things in restaurants, she said, because you couldn't be sure of the provenance etc. ricotta was one of them. poor dd is heartbroken to be home, she keeps saying 'we're going on a plane to rome tomorrow, i want to see my friends' and i say 'no'.

Oh yes, it was you with the apartment query last month or so. You obv found one in the end. Did you have a good time? Can't remember if we were already in the monsoon period in late May. It's scorching here now, 38° yesterday.

I think maybe your friend might have been a tad paranoid a lot of Italian women are, especially for 1st pg. We were just told to avoid the usual salami, prosciutto crudo, rare steak etc. (not a problem for me as veggie) and a few cheeses, like Brie and Gorgonzola. Plus the toxoplasmosis lurking in the salad. Oh, and the usual not to smoke and drink only a glass of wine max a day.

no, really, she's not paranoid. just wealthy, lol. she's got three kids and did the same with all three pregs. prosciutto crudo and salami, avoiding them would be AWFUL imo.

got a cracking apartment in trastevere, thanks. loved it. we were there for the rain, although it was fine, just the mornings on a couple of days. we were supremely Not Bothered, all the italians were horrified.

I have an acquaintance a bit like that, she's had 2 dcs and both pregnancies she spent entirely at her mountain house so as not to poison her baby with milanese air (understandable) or even water. She even stopped eating beetroot because she's been told it could provoke a wine stain birthmark.

no really, you have to believe me, she's not a neurotic woman at all. she just does what she's told by her v expensive obstetrician. and no booze, no sirree.

no, as far as the risk of allegies.