If you think there's a lot of pressure on adults to eat correctly, imagine the pressure on a new parent to feed their child responsibly. As a new parent, I will soon be faced with feeding my daughter solid food for the first time so I was particularly interested in hearing Nina Planck speak at the Astor Center the other evening.
Planck is best known as the founder of the first farmer's market in London. She ran the Greenmarket in NYC for several years and has written two books as well as several articles for the New York Times, including a controversial Op-Ed piece. Her new book, Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods
was the focus of the discussion.
A crusader for "real" food, Planck's second book extols the virtues of
eating a "traditional" diet while pregnant and then feeding these
"whole" foods to your baby. Why all the quotation marks? Nina explained
in her talk last night that "real" foods are foods such as grass fed
beef, pastured poultry and pork, wild fish, eco-friendly produce (no
monocrops, no pesticides...etc). "Traditional" foods are raw milk,
lard, raw cheeses and "whole" foods are well, whole foods like a whole
egg, not just the egg white.
If there was any controversy in her talk, it would probably have been her opinion that delaying the introduction of solid foods doesn't stave off food allergies. The AAP, WHO and UNICEF are a few organizations that beg to differ.
The takeaway from her two hour PowerPoint lecture was, feed your baby fats - good fats. Avoid transfats. Eat fish because even though mercury is really, really bad for you and your baby, the DHA (the fatty Omega 3 found in fish) is really, really important. Hold off feeding too many grains until age one.
It was an interesting evening that concluded with a short question and answer session. I asked Ms. Planck what food I should first introduce to my nearly six month old daughter in the coming weeks. She gave me a general answer of "fruits or vegetables" and then noted that her son, Julian, ate a recipe of vanilla custard mixed with maple syrup.
To learn more about The Astor Center and their upcoming events, visit their website
If there was any controversy in her talk, it would probably have been her opinion that delaying the introduction of solid foods doesn't stave off food allergies. The AAP, WHO and UNICEF are a few organizations that beg to differ.
The takeaway from her two hour PowerPoint lecture was, feed your baby fats - good fats. Avoid transfats. Eat fish because even though mercury is really, really bad for you and your baby, the DHA (the fatty Omega 3 found in fish) is really, really important. Hold off feeding too many grains until age one.
It was an interesting evening that concluded with a short question and answer session. I asked Ms. Planck what food I should first introduce to my nearly six month old daughter in the coming weeks. She gave me a general answer of "fruits or vegetables" and then noted that her son, Julian, ate a recipe of vanilla custard mixed with maple syrup.
To learn more about The Astor Center and their upcoming events, visit their website
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