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Raw Veggies for 12 month olds or younger?

vesper

vesper

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It's been awhile since I had a little one or even a grandchild one year or less.

I was at a birthday party for a cute little tot who just turned 1 yesterday. The mother was feeding her child raw cucumber and broccoli. She would give just little slivers of the raw veggies to the child who feeds itself. But is their little stomachs even developed enough to digest raw veggies? The child doesn't even have a set of teeth to break down the veggies which is the first stage of digestion.


To me it just seemed wrong. When my kids were at that age I giving them table food but cooked usually mashed and would feed them bites while their little hands would dig in and during mealtime feed themselves. I would also use the junior baby foods that had some chunks of food but it was all cooked.



I would be interested in some feedback if feeding kids raw veggies at 12 months is the norm now. Thank you.
 
vesper said:
It's been awhile since I had a little one or even a grandchild one year or less.

I was at a birthday party for a cute little tot who just turned 1 yesterday. The mother was feeding her child raw cucumber and broccoli. She would give just little slivers of the raw veggies to the child who feeds itself. But is their little stomachs even developed enough to digest raw veggies? The child doesn't even have a set of teeth to break down the veggies which is the first stage of digestion.


To me it just seemed wrong. When my kids were at that age I giving them table food but cooked usually mashed and would feed them bites while their little hands would dig in and during mealtime feed themselves. I would also use the junior baby foods that had some chunks of food but it was all cooked.



I would be interested in some feedback if feeding kids raw veggies at 12 months is the norm now. Thank you.
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I dont know the answer but this brings up all those years that parents fed their very small kids skim milk because they had the idea that it was the healthy thing to do, because they had been encouraged to believe that by so called experts who were not experts at all. Skim milk is a bad idea for almost everyone but the younger the human the worse it is.
 
Never a problem in my house. Mom never liked veggies and doesn't to this day. Raw veggies came in the form of a salad and babies didn't get salad.

Baby veggies were cooked carrots, cooked peas, cooked beans, cooked beets, squash, maybe some mushrooms. As soon as teeth started to become a thing we added broccoli, brussels sprouts, zucchini, eggplant, cannellini beans, etc.

By 18 months we were on chicken, pork, veal, ground beef, stewed beef, etc.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I dont know the answer but this brings up all those years that parents fed their very small kids skim milk because they had the idea that it was the healthy thing to do, because they had been encouraged to believe that by so called experts who were not experts at all. Skim milk is a bad idea for almost everyone but the younger the human the worse it is.
Click to expand...

Skim milk? We got nothing but whole milk. If we were in Cooperstown we got raw milk.
 
Lutherf said:
Skim milk? We got nothing but whole milk. If we were in Cooperstown we got raw milk.
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My mom till the day she died insisted that raw milk is fine, that is about all she ever had growing up on the farm.

She called the claims against raw milk a hoax perpetrated by health fanatics.

Also 2% was the lowest quality milk that she allowed into the house.
 
Xelor said:
Food to Grow On -- The concern is choking, not digestion. Stomach acids -- one-year-olds and adults -- are more than up to the task of breaking down vegetable matter. A small number of veggies are somewhat difficult to digest, but most aren't.
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Thank you for your response and links. Yes I could see choking being a real concern with raw veggies. Also there seems to be a lot of difference in opinions out there about how safe certain raw veggies are for everyone. Some studies claim cruciferous vegetables that you do not want to be eating raw are arugula, broccoli, kale, maca root, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, collard greens, bok choy, brussels sprouts, radish, rutabaga, and watercress. Not just baby but everyone because these foods in raw state can effect glands like the thyroid. While other veggies like tomatoes, mushrooms and bean sprouts should be cooked in order for the body to absorb their nutrients. Of course you can eat them all raw but it may not be the best thing.

At the age of 12 months putting little bits of food on the tray of the highchair for baby to learn to feed itself is important. But personally at that age I think it would be wise to give those veggies a steaming. For example if the family was having stir fry one night, take say some carrots snow peas, mushrooms and the florets of broccoli and steam them and then mash them up in a consistency of already been chewed along with some mashed rice or noodles not adding any seasonings like soy sauce.
 
vesper said:
Thank you for your response and links. Yes I could see choking being a real concern with raw veggies. Also there seems to be a lot of difference in opinions out there about how safe certain raw veggies are for everyone. Some studies claim cruciferous vegetables that you do not want to be eating raw are arugula, broccoli, kale, maca root, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, collard greens, bok choy, brussels sprouts, radish, rutabaga, and watercress. Not just baby but everyone because these foods in raw state can effect glands like the thyroid. While other veggies like tomatoes, mushrooms and bean sprouts should be cooked in order for the body to absorb their nutrients. Of course you can eat them all raw but it may not be the best thing.

At the age of 12 months putting little bits of food on the tray of the highchair for baby to learn to feed itself is important. But personally at that age I think it would be wise to give those veggies a steaming. For example if the family was having stir fry one night, take say some carrots snow peas, mushrooms and the florets of broccoli and steam them and then mash them up in a consistency of already been chewed along with some mashed rice or noodles not adding any seasonings like soy sauce.
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Like you, the last time I had a one-year-old to feed was 19 years ago. Like you, my recollections of feeding practices aren't crystal clear.

What I recall about infant feeding was breast milk and pureed foods -- raw food and cooked foods, the latter entailed pureeing whatever the rest of us were having for dinner, adding homemade liquid (breast milk, fruit juices, veggie, chicken or beef broth) and letting the baby mostly drink his meal -- and sometimes heating the pureed food item and, once teething started, freezing the pureed food to make teething-sickles.
 
vesper said:
Thank you for your response and links. Yes I could see choking being a real concern with raw veggies. Also there seems to be a lot of difference in opinions out there about how safe certain raw veggies are for everyone. Some studies claim cruciferous vegetables that you do not want to be eating raw are arugula, broccoli, kale, maca root, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, collard greens, bok choy, brussels sprouts, radish, rutabaga, and watercress. Not just baby but everyone because these foods in raw state can effect glands like the thyroid. While other veggies like tomatoes, mushrooms and bean sprouts should be cooked in order for the body to absorb their nutrients. Of course you can eat them all raw but it may not be the best thing.

At the age of 12 months putting little bits of food on the tray of the highchair for baby to learn to feed itself is important. But personally at that age I think it would be wise to give those veggies a steaming. For example if the family was having stir fry one night, take say some carrots snow peas, mushrooms and the florets of broccoli and steam them and then mash them up in a consistency of already been chewed along with some mashed rice or noodles not adding any seasonings like soy sauce.
Click to expand...

You're welcome.
 
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