Moving on to adult foods

[Max]

My daughter is nearly a year old and I am concerned about moving on to adult foods.When is it safe to give kids tinned beans and spaghetti and soups.I have noticed that they have all got salt and loads of preservatives in them.Is it something I should worry about at a year old?
How strict should you be with additives in there food and to what age?I need some alternative recipes and ideas if all else fails.Can you help???

I don't really know how strict you should be, but one thing to bear in mind is that the brand of prepared food you choose can make a big difference to the number and amount of additives you can expect. Heinz, for example, is famously and publicly against artificial additives, and always has been. This is not to say their products don't contain added salt and sugar of course, they do, and they've been criticised in the past for this. But, try comparing the ingredient list on a tin of Heinz beans with a tin of "value" beans. It can be quite an eye-opener. Actually, the ingredient lists on the "value" versions of foods are often a shocking read.

Sainsburys sell reduced sugar and salt Baked Beans, its a shame the same cant be said for pasta tins and other foods. I heard somewhere that you can get low salt stock but haven't found it anywhere.

I think it's safe to give children all those things you mention around one year, presumably they wouldn't be getting them every day! With regard to additives, sigh it is really hard to avoid them all. You need a big incentive, eg knowing that they make your child ill! My children have mostly additive free food because I think it's better, but they do have shop biscuits and cakes sometimes, also sausages, and sweets. But if I am faced with a whole shelf of different sorts of mayonnaise for example, I always read the labels and buy the one with no additives, on the grounds that it's probably the best quality one, and not necessarily the most expensive.
Here are a few of my findings:

Birds Eye fish fingers have little or no additives.
Heinz baked beans as someone said, are OK.
Safeway own brand Mayonnaise is additive free.
Safeway Savers Tomato Ketchup is additive free.
The only additive free jams are Bonne Maman Blackcurrant, Tesco Blackcurrant preserve, Coop Blackcurrant Preserve, Bonne Mamman Strawberry & Wild Strawberry.
Wilkinson Old Times marmalade is additive free.
Pure orange juice and freshly squeezed apple juices are OK even if bought on the long life shelf. Others aren't.
Golden syrup is additive free.
etc etc etc!
I think if you are really going to avoid additives, your whole food philosophy needs to be based round home cooking as much as possible. This not only ensures that you know what's gone into everything, but it makes it easier to spot stuff that shouldn't be in ingredients lists on ready prepared stuff. Good luck!!

I was looking at additives on adult shepherd's pie in M&S yesterday, and kept seeing salt and sugar, so I thought hmm maybe I shouldn't buy preprepared food for a baby. So off I went to fill up with yoghurts as per normal, but then i looked at the yogurt ingredients and there were antioxidants, preservatives, colouring the works. I was shocked, they were worse than the preprepared food, and I always feed babies yoghurt but thank-goodness I don't normally buy them in M&S. I am steering clear of there from now on. Have you noticed there's no organic anything is there? they just don't care!

trouble with reduced sugar things is that they usually compensate with sweeteners. i would rather go with the normal things with sugar in (esp fruit squashes etc) but make sure they're well diluted...can't do that with beans though!

lil - have you not been able to find a shepherds pie without all that stuff in it? have you tried any of the healthy eating ranges? (i haven't looked myself, i will next time i shop and if i find a baby-friendly one i'll post it!) do any of the organic ranges have anything suitable? tesco have quite a lot of frozen organic things, do they have any?

max - i wouldn't give a baby tinned soup - you can make soup really easily and then you know exactly what's in it. the cranks' cookshop (vegetarian) cookbook has loads of soupy recipes, and i have a hyperactive cookbook and an asthma/eczema cookbook which both have lovely healthy recipes. you can get organic stockcubes to put in them, and if you make them thick (lots of potato, not so much liquid) they are easy to eat. a braun stick-it-in-the-saucepan blender makes it all much less messy!

things like beans and spag are ok for emergencies, and of course you'd only give a few spoonfuls, but they're probably better avoided routinely. and reading labels can be a pain but you can also turn it into a game and get the kids involved - older ones that is! - we were all loudly reading ingredients from chocolate spread labels in tesco's the other day - "water and sugar!" "sugar and fat!" "sugar, fat and fat!" (chocolate in any form came a long way down the list.) (cadbury's used to do a lovely mostly-chocolate spread in a little square jar but seem to have stopped it...)

do you buy tinned fruit at all? if you buy peaches etc canned in juice you can easily whizz them up - with your braun blender! - give her some and you can freeze the rest in an ice cube tray or little dishes (or eat the rest yourself!) apricots, pears - lovely. (they are pretty soft and you can mash them with a fork.) what about scrambled egg? cheese on toast? tuna? pasta with grated cheese? frozen peas are a good finger food - cooked or just thawed or even still frozen when she's a bit bigger. the skins tend to go straight through but the middles are good! smooth peanut butter is a useful standby - lots of protein and not much else (sea salt and cane sugar usually) - as long as she's not allergic. don't get crunchy though, they can choke on the bits.

i found the whole weaning process fraught with problems - mainly the 4 months - 12 months bit - you are over the worst really, and once you get into the swing of it you will be able to think of grown up type things more easily - honest! good luck!

ps - the braun blender is actually much MORE messy unless you have it on low and make sure the whizzer is well under the surface!!!

Max, I wouldnt get too worried about using beans etc for your little one, my ten month old had fish fingers chips, peas and broccoli for tea tonight. Shes my third so if thats what the others are having, she does too at this age, and she loves it. Obviously I dont give this stuff to her every day, but she has pizza and stuff occasionally like the others. My middle one did too and shes fine and healthy at nearly 3. I think you need a happy medium!
And Lil, re M &S - I work for them and our branch does loads of organic stuff but it tends to run out quite quickly, so late in the day its gone. We do soups, meat, all the childrens juice is organic, theres tons of stuff, honest!

Thanks for all you're help and advice.I think that i'll stick to home cooking for a while.I wonder if anyone else had noticed that after you're child has reached that 'magic' age of twelve months that you tend to find it harder to get good quality foods.I think that if a store were to promote low fat,low sugar,salt and additive free products that they would be surprised and the public response.I know a lot of brands and certain supermarkets promote this.I just can't help feeling that if there were a full range of products that could fulfill this promise and at a 'reasonable' price people would buy.

Max, I think you're right to stick to the home cooking as much as possible - at least you know exactly what's in it.

My daughter started eating 'grown up' food far earlier than her big brother, partly because from the time she could sit in the high chair she wanted whatever he was having, and partly because with two kids and a job I couldn't face cooking lots of separate meals. Now, at 3.5 yrs and 17 months, my kids eat what we eat (except for the odd night when they have beans on toast and we eat after they're in bed). We've just adjusted our family menus slightly - for example, we now have veg curry with no chilli in it, rather than Madras-style (I'm sure I would never have considered giving child number one curry at 12 mths old, but my daughter has loved it from the first mashed-up bowlful).

One very positive thing that has come out of our feeding the kids the same food as us is that my husband and I are eating far more healthily too.

My son is 2 years and 3 months old and has a good healthy appetite. He will eat just about anything taste-wise but is rather fussy about the texture of food. Is this quite common in a child of his age and will this attitude change over time? He tends to prefer food to either be totally solid or fairly mushy and soft but not in between. Preferred solid food is in the form of finger foods ie pieces of cheese, dry cereal, sandwiches (with mushy fillings), chips (of course!) biscuits and some veg. He will not eat fruit such as tinned fruit cocktail because of the hard lumps or pieces of apple/orange but will eat any kind of fruit if pureed. He does manage bananas whole and also grapes occasionally. Same with vegetables and most particulalry meat. Pieces of mushroom, pepper, onion and so on are either picked out by hand or chewed and then spat out. Lumps of meat are avoided, even chicken unless practically minced. However he will eat certain vegetables as finger foods such as sweetcorn, peas and broad beans.

I do try to compromise by not pureeing everything except for fruit and I occasionally make smooth soups. I tend to offer things like pasta with tomato sauce which has finely chopped veg, rice/couscous again with small pieces of veg and offer protein in the form of mince, flaked fish, chopped egg or cheese and I make home-made chips. He is sometimes funny about bread too and often scrapes off the topping such as peanut butter with his fingers and licks it off. I don’t mind as he will eat things like oatcakes on their own. He loves pasty things like hummus and even taramosolata.

Am I giving in to him and should I try to offer lumps more often or should I just go with the flow and see if he improves over time? I think some of it is related to his use of cutlery. He tends to like to do things properly and gets frustrated by not being able to spear food. When would he be able to use a knife? Is he using his teeth adequately with the lack of hard food?

Just to add that Heinz do now do organic baked beans which, I assume, does mean that there's no added salt. You can also get organic chipolatas, as an alternative to normal sausages. Also, Harmonie do an organic yogurt range which mine has always loved. I must admit I don't read labels too closely but I think plenty of fresh veg and fruit in the day and using tinned food is pretty OK, I hope!!!

Eulalia,

Sounds pretty normal to me. My daughter is almost 2 (2 in November) and what you say about your son sounds incredibly familiar! She is determined to feed herself all the time, and always demands to be given whatever her 4-year-old brother is having, but doesn't always eat it. Meat, including chicken, is sometimes chewed but almost always spat out, as if it is too much trouble to persevere to the end. Sometimes she eats bread or toast, but often she just tries to lick or suck the topping off (which makes a marvellous mess, as you have probably experienced!). She loves grapes, and mostly swallows them, but sometimes the empty skins are spat out. If it's any consolation, I remember her brother being the same at her age, and he is now a strapping 4-year-old who eats about as well as any child of his age (i.e. he eats everything that is put in front of him at nursery and picks at a lot of what I give him!). My advice would be to keep offering a good variety of stuff, but not get too wound up about what he actually eats. I'm afraid that my daughter, being no. 2, tends to get a chopped-up version of whatever we're eating put in front of her for her to take or leave, and she seems to be thriving on it!

Janus- re the organic baked beans - they still have salt in them, unfortunately.

Midge - re the low salt stock - I got some from Holland and Barrett

Re Organic Foods

Just to confirm that the term 'organic' refers to the fact that the foods are grown without the use of artificial pesticides etc. (Check out the definition of 'organic' in your dictionary). Salt can still be added so it's just as inportant to check the labels!

Jane - moderator

Eulalia and Azzie - Snap! It seems that we are not alone and I'm hoping that dd will eat a better range of food as she gets older (2 in Dec). She won't eat much bread unless I disguise it by rolling it up into little pieces and hiding it in soup, but then she will sometimes quite happily eat a sandwich! Her finger foods are fine, it's just the 'proper dinners' she won't entertain (sometimes rice but never potato) She won't touch bits of meat like you say too, Azzie, or chunks of veg unless disguised well. I don't mind so much if she's getting a good balance in her diet and it seems healthy snacks are her prefered eating pattern. The only time it bugs me is when I slave over a gorgeous home-made cheese, veg and pasta bake that I think she will love and it's greeted with a poke of the fork and a cry for 'soup mummy?' Gah!

I'm sorry I don't know your answers to your questions Eulalia, but I hope you can take heart in knowing it's not unusual.

Thanks for the comments - I am glad I am not alone. I don't mind when I am at home and can faff around but it was sometimes difficult when we were away on holiday recently.

Dd is almost 2, and has been a problem eater since birth. She just has no appetite, and as a result eats a very limited range. She is currently back in her surviving on fresh air and a bowl of dry cheerios phase - again.

Anyway I could go on for ever, but I bore myself going round in the circles as I have been doing since weaning, so I won't bore you all. My one good idea is ice-cream.

Made the traditional way it has eggs and milk/cream in it. Add one ice-cream maker, and different pureed fruit, and you have a very nutritious food, with little sugar (depending on the fruit), and complete knowledge of the ingredients.

Good luck

I've tried the ice cream with pureed fruit too. You can also mix in Ready Brek (or supermarket own brand - it is cheaper) into yoghurts/fromage frais.

Janus... I'd add check for the sugar content - which I think is worst than salt and I can't believe bake beans don't have any ! and I am pretty sure fromage frais has some as well.
What about mixing yogourt with a fruit compote which contains no sugar ?

Maybe this is quite a silly question but ... when did you let your baby eat the skins of food? E.g. we had bacon/leek/potato concoction for dinner last night and would like to feed it to Harry tonight (he is 1) but the potato slices still have the skin on. Is it ok? What about things like apples, pears etc. Does it make a difference if the food is raw or cooked?

Harrysmum, This won't apply to you just yet, but I'd be very careful with grapes. Even with my 2 year old I still halve the larger grapes before giving them to him. If you think about it, a large grape with a tough skin is little different to a small ball - and you wouldn't let a baby or toddler put one of these in their mouths. Every now and again I've seen sad stories in the newspapers of toddlers choking to death on a grape.

I'm really not sure how much food with skin you can give a one year old - it's amazing how much you forget as your children get older. I suppose as long as it is very easily digestable, mashed well in, and you are - obviously - watching, you can give it a try.

Pamina, I don't think there is any salt in marmite. I think it is just pure yeast extract. My son had it from about 8 months and absolutely loved it. You should have seen his little face!

Yes, agree with Tigermoth about grapes. Even when my son had quite a lot of teeth to chew them, I would still cut them in halves or quarters, just in case.
I'm sure I gave my son Marmite very early on, he loves the stuff - takes after daddy.