Little Miss A has officially reached her 6-month milestone and with that has come the start of her culinary experience.
That’s right. We’ve started solids and well, we’ve had a solid start! 🙂
A solid but MESSY start. Our Milk It Baby long sleeve smock has been a great investment!
So far, she seems to enjoy most-all of the foods we’ve tried — apple, pear, mango, kiwi, broccoli, sweet potato, carrots … — although mashed banana took 3 goes and pureed cauliflower was a little on the ‘meh’ side.
Let’s be honest, cauliflower is a little ‘meh’ even when you’re an adult!
J, being French and very much a foodie, is super happy with Miss A’s progress so far. Afterall, are you really French if you’re not a foodie?!
Next up on the food trial are peanuts.
With peanut allergy being one of the most common food allergies, it’s important to expose Miss A to peanuts to assess her reaction — hopefully she’ll have no reaction — and to minimise her risk of peanut allergy as she grows older.
(Click here for more information on introducing allergenic foods)
I don’t have peanut allergy in my family and neither does J, so hopefully this will be a non-issue for Miss A. Also, so far, she hasn’t had any reactions to the foods we’ve trialled, and she doesn’t have eczema, so, again, hopefully there won’t be any issues.
Speaking of the humble yet problematic peanut, King’s College London has recently published research, further pointing to the benefit of “introducing peanuts into babies’ diet early” to provide “long-term protection against peanut allergy”.
Published in NEJM Evidence, the research findings come from the LEAP-Trio study (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) and show that “early introduction of peanut reduced the risk of peanut allergy at age 5 by 81%”.
The results also show that continuing to consume peanuts in childhood can “reduce the risk of peanut allergy in adolescence by 71% compared to early peanut avoidance.”
“Decades of advice to avoid peanuts has made parents fearful of introducing peanuts at an early age. The evidence is clear that early introduction of peanut in infancy induces long term tolerance and protects children from allergy well into adolescence.” – Lead investigator Professor Gideon Lack from King’s College London.
“This is a safe and highly effective intervention which can be implemented as early as 4 months of age. The infant needs to be developmentally ready to start weaning and peanut should be introduced as a soft pureed paste or as peanut puffs.” – Professor George Du Toit, Co-Lead Investigator from King’s College London.
(To read the full study, click here)
So, how are we going to introduce peanuts?
I found this useful guide on ‘Yummy Toddler Food’ which details the 3 best ways to offer baby peanuts – click here.
We’ve bought organic, smooth peanut spread (with no added sugar) and we’ll start with the peanut butter puree option first and go from there!
Suggested steps
- Add smooth peanut spread to water in a bowl.
- Stir together.
- Keep stirring until the water appears cloudy and the mixture becomes a uniform texture and colour.
And obviously we’ll be on the lookout for any reactions.
It’s peanut butter time!
x G.
editor, journalist, digital content creator with a background in nutrition & dietetics.
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