Thag Eat Like Baby

So I was feeding my 7 month old the other day, with commercial baby food. Spinach and rice was the dish of the afternoon. He is just learning how to eat solids, and the process is far from efficient yet. Fully two thirds of what goes into his mouth comes back out, but with diligent chin scraping, eventually he can consume the whole jar.

Since I spend so much time thinking about nutrition and what food goes into my body, I decided to have a look at the ingredient list of the baby food in between bites. Keep in mind this is spinach and rice. The ingredient list was as follows:

Spinach
Rice
Water

That's it! Three ingredients, and exactly the ones advertized on the front label. I was shocked to discover that there were no preservatives, chemicals, or other nasty items. For a "processed" food, this was pretty awesome. It seemed that the only processing that went into the food was putting it through a blender, and putting it into a jar.

Why is it that we know what good nutrition is when giving it to a baby, but not when we give it to ourselves? Obviously the makers of this baby food (I will not say the name, but it is a mainstream brand) know that salt, preservatives, sugar, and artificial flavors are not good for us. If they truly thought that these things were OK, they would have no qualms with putting them into baby food. Yet they don't, because we all know that these food additives are no good. This same company makes food for adults as well, and those foods are full of added sodium, sugar, coloring, flavoring, and other miscellaneous chemicals.

I am not singling out this one company. Virtually all of the food companies offer processed foods that are very poor nutritionally. Yet we seem to be able to get it right when it comes to babies. I know that we adults have more complex tastes than babies, but if you have read my earlier posts, then you know as well as I that our tastes only serve to mislead us when it comes to food choices here in the 21st century. In short, we should all eat like babies.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that you go and buy hundreds of jars of baby food. Economically that would not be very feasible. Also, think what your next dinner party would be like. Actually, that might be kind of funny. Instead, the very same ingredients in that baby food are offered for purchase at your local supermarket. Seriously. You don't even need to be a VIP or celebrity to get them.

Kidding aside, the fact of the matter is that fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts are what we were designed to eat in the first place. I don't know about you, but I've never seen aspartame growing in nature. I have seen spinach and rice, however. We should all take cues from the types of food we choose to introduce to our youngest children once they begin to eat solids, and like our younger versions, we would probably be less plagued by heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity.

M. Jacob Ott, M.D.