Friday, July 31, 2009

Can Babies Eat Steak?



Can babies have steak? They can pretty much eat whatever after a year, right? Penny gets insulted when I try to feed her the pureed baby food, and doesn't hold back with her opinion (“NO!”). And I think she's right, she's getting too old for the baby stuff. Breakfast and lunch I can pretty much handle, but by dinner time, I'm out of ammunition. I’m sure she gets tired of eating the same things every day, but I get into food ruts myself and tend to go with what I know she will eat.

We’ve had steak a couple of times recently, and she LOVES it. Is that weird? I give her very small bites, on the more cooked side of things, and she’s been able to eat it without any problems…so far. She's turning into a bit of a carnivore, though. She's really into the bison hot dogs from Whole Foods.


My philosophy from the beginning of our solid food venture has been to give her something orange (or yellow), something green, and something purple (or red) every day, keeping in mind that the healthier foods are the ones that are bright and richly colored. Penny doesn't like leafy greens, and sort of picks over peas. She still tolerates pureed peas, and sometimes will eat pureed spinach. Any other ideas for greens? She’s not a fan of broccoli…yet.

The short list of favorite foods includes Protein: hummus, refried beans, hard boiled eggs, shredded chicken. Carbs: rice, berries (ALL berries), bananas, etc. I should probably be glad she likes to eat as much as she does.



(The artist at work.)

While I was at the store today (buying more hot dogs...), I noticed that Whole Foods is running a campaign for building a "Better Lunch Box." I was glad to see this, because I can always use some inspiration for my own lunches, as well as Penny's. The site has shopping lists and lunch planners, which include some rather advanced foods for Penny, but would be great additions for us, since we get bored so easily with the lunches we bring from home.

One particularly bad thing I’ve been doing is when we are out to eat, I will order something for Penny off of the kids menu, and then I eat whatever she doesn’t want in addition to my food. Bad, bad, bad!
There are some deep-seated psychological reasons for this behavior, including emotional eating, the pure love of food, and not wanting food/money to go to waste. I want Penny to have healthy attitudes toward food, not unhealthy ones. Hopefully, if I am mindful of my behavior, I can start setting a better example.

It's a lot of pressure, though, providing and preparing a variety of healthy foods and setting a good example. It's enough to send me straight for the Ben & Jerry's.

4 comments:

Alisha said...

It sounds like Penny is a good eater though, which is really good. Xavier doesn't really care for food. I think he'd prefer breastmilk for the rest of his days. He flatly refuses jars of baby food. So I make him lunch everyday which comes home every day, mostly uneaten. Here is my list: scrambled eggs, pancakes with banana, boiled egg, brown rice and black beans, frozen peas and carrots, chicken. I usually top whatever I send with cut up pieces of tomato or broccoli. The only time he ate his whole lunch was when I got lazy and sent broken up pieces of pizza hut pizza. So I understand how hard it is! But you're probably doing better than us. :)

Momcat said...

Babies often like beets and carrots, because they are sweet. They only develop their dislike for the jolly red rootcrop when they get older for some reason.

Penny said...

I'm so glad to see our namesake carried on. She'll get teased to death in elementary school but by high school she might ease into it and it stands out in a good way.

April said...

Gray likes steak too! I made a pork tenderloin last night and he was eating it by the fistfuls. I am still confused about how he eats meat with only seven front teeth...

I miss Penny!