A holiday that celebrates chocolate? Who wouldn’t love Valentine’s Day! Americans devour about 11.7 pounds of chocolate per person annually. Today when you want to buy chocolate there are more choices than ever. Everything from Artisan, Organic, Fair Trade and Save the Rainforest chocolate bars are available to American consumers. And in moderate amounts, chocolate can also be good for you! Where do I sign up?

The cocoa beans in chocolate contain flavanols, which have been linked to blood vessel and cardiovascular health. Tannins in chocolate can prevent cavaties from forming (a fact I won’t be sharing with my children) But read the labels, chocolate must contain at least 70% cocoa to have a healthful amount of flavanols. Those that have less than 70% cocoa tend to contain more sugar which can have a negative effect on the teeth and hips.

And not all cocoa is grown the same. Conventional cocoa contain a significant amount of pesticides. Organic cocoa is grown without pesticides and under the natural shade canopy of the rain forest. This enviornmentally sound method of farming maintains bio-diversity and protects the winter habitat of millions of migratory songbirds.

If your organic chocolate also has Fair Trades logo on the wrapper, you’re helping more than the songbirds. Fair Trade guarantees that the cocoa farmers receive fair prices and labor protections. That’s a lot of good news for chocolate lovers. Of course, there are also a list of foods that provide a good deal of flavanols such as purple grapes, apples, cranberries and certain teas. But until they get their own holidays, I’m asking my Valentine for a romantic box of chocolates.

Theresa Kiene
Chief Executive Mommy

One of the coolest things about working in our baby food tasting room is that I get to feed and play with Babies everyday.

As my oldest turned 10 over the weekend (yes, I was a little weepy) working with other parents’ babies is a constant reminder of the joy and fulfillment I get as a mom every time I serve my family a healthy meal. Although every baby that I meet is different, the way they express the joys of eating is always the same. It’s now going on 10 years that I’ve been cooking and feeding fresh, organic baby food – and since I’m in the baby food business – that’s literally thousands of babies. I’ve noticed that when I meet moms most of them have already had the “First Foods” feeding conversation with their pediatricians – but they still have so many unanswered questions. There are so many topics to cover at the doctor’s office and there’s only so much time doctors have to give…

The question that moms always ask me the most often is: which first foods do they begin with, fruits or vegetables?

Some moms worry that if they begin with fruits, their baby won’t love veggies, since fruits are sweet and would spoil their taste buds. And really, what mother doesn’t want their kid to love vegetables?

My personal opinion is that after your baby has been introduced to iron-fortified cereals and you’re ready to introduce other solid foods, it really doesn’t matter what you begin with, either fruits or veggies. If you’ve breast fed your baby then they’ve already experienced the sweetest taste on the planet and no fruit can compete with that! Formula fed babies also experience sweet tastes even if not quite the same as breast milk.

So don’t worry when your child pushes away the broccoli because their first fruit was a banana. A variety of healthy, developmentally appropriate taste experiences are the way to go. If you want more info on appropriate first foods go to the “Nutrition” section of www.homemadebaby.com. Or better yet – bring your baby by our baby food tasting room – I’d love to meet them!

Do you ever wonder how Jello gets its pretty colors? Or how the taste of vanilla can exist in food that doesn’t contain vanilla beans? Additives and chemicals are added to our everyday foods and beverages and most have nothing to do with nutritional value. They exist to fulfill consumer’s expectation of perfection. We know that Mother Nature may not produce a perfect fruit or vegetable so we keep them unblemished with the use of fungicides, pesticides and herbicides. With the continued high demand from consumers for meals that are easy to prepare and taste good, the industry of food additives in the category of flavorings and flavor enhancers is expected to top $1.46 billion this year.

Food additives are not new (originally they were made from coal tar oil) and children have been eating them for decades. So why do we care about them now?

Today our children are exposed to additives and chemicals everyday all day. Instead of the occasional candy, or special occasion pink cupcakes, children growing up in the United States are digesting chemicals from breakfast until bedtime. Multi-colored toothpaste, colored breakfast cereals, artificial whip toppings, bubble gum, liquid medicine and highly processed convenience foods in lunchboxes (can you say Lunchables?) More children are drinking soft drinks with artificial color, flavor, caffeine and aspartame. The more they have the more they crave and for a tired parent, sometimes the path of least resistance becomes the choice.

More importantly, pesticides, hormones and synthetic food additives have been shown to affect brain development, behavior and learning abilities in children. What you put in your shopping cart is more important that ever!

FOOD DYES – Listed on the ingredients label as “Yellow No. 5”, “Red #3”, etc. Dyes are used primarily to make food appear fresher than it is, or in the case of many foods made for children, to attract them with bright colors. They are used in breakfast cereals, drinks, candy, bakery goods, puddings, gelatin desserts, just to name a few. Instead, look for carrots and beets as natural coloring agents on the label.

ARTIFICIAL FLAVORINGS – Are made up of hundreds of combinations of chemicals, both natural and synthetic. A popular flavoring agent is “vanillin” also listed as “vanilla flavoring” This flavoring agent is made from the waste product of paper mills. Instead, look for “pure vanilla” on the label. MSG, salt and sodium containing agents are popular food additives. MSG has been linked to brain damage and infertility in laboratory animals and many people who eat MSG complain of headaches, chest pains and numbness. It’s primarily used to intensify flavor in meats, condiments, pickles, soups, candy and baked goods.

PRESERVATIVES – There are about one hundred preservatives which are used to prevent food from going “bad”. BHA, BHT and TBHQ are three commonly used preservatives. They may also be listed as “anti-oxidants” because they prevent the fats in food from “oxidizing” or spoiling. There are natural and beneficial anti-oxidants but they are more expensive than the synthetic versions that are currently widely used. You can find them in beverages, ice cream, candy, baked goods, soup bases, potatoes, breakfast cereals, dry mixes, enriched rice, animal fats and shortenings containing animal fats. These preservatives can cause allergic reactions and have been known to affect kidney and liver functions, brain function and may also convert other ingested substances into cancer-causing additives.

Nitrates, nitrites and sulfites, sodium benzoate, calcium propionate and citric acid are preservatives that trigger terrible symptoms in allergy sensitive kids, but for some they are deadly. Nitrates and Nitrites are used as a color fixative in cured meats, and studies have linked them to cancer. Sulfites are used for their anti-browning effects and to keep fruits and vegetables crisp longer.

SWEETENERS - Refined starches, high-fructose corn syrup and all artificial sweeteners (NutraSweet, Equal, Sweet’n Low, Sucralose, Acesulfame-K) not only rob your children of their health, but artificial sweeteners have been linked to brain damage, MS, Lupus and other central nervous disorders. Excessive sugar intake in children is also a contributing factor to our current childhood obesity epidemic.

As the primary grocery shopper, you are the most important person in your family’s health. By reading labels and selecting wisely, you can protect your family and affect the sales of more wholesome foods.

Capturing your baby’s cute reactions to a new food experience has to be a primary reason they created Shutterfly and various family websites. But when your baby’s response is a skin rash, respiratory problem or a tummy ache, put away the camera and suspect a food allergy.

What is a food allergy?
When your baby’s immune system reacts to a particular food as an intruder and releases antibodies that produce symptoms.

What is a food intolerance?
Food intolerance is when a food upsets your baby’s intestines but not other commonly known areas where allergies occur. Lactose intolerance is one of the most common known food intolerances.

Who is at risk?
If one or both parents have food allergies; the risk is higher for their baby. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that baby and parent will be allergic to the same kinds of foods.

Feeding babies solid foods before their intestinal lining is mature can increase their chance of developing a food allergy. Delay introducing high allergen foods such as cow’s milk, wheat, peanuts, egg whites, shellfish, tomatoes and soy. Check with your pediatrician to assess if your baby is in a high risk category and when the above mentioned foods should be introduced.

The most common signs of food allergies include but are not limited to:
Tummy trouble/gas and bloating
Rash on the face
Runny nose and watery eyes
Diarrhea or mucus in the stools
A red rash around the anus
Vomiting or excessive spitting up
Fussier than usual
Really colicky
Some food allergies can be so severe that anaphylaxis (cardiovascular system goes into shock) occurs and can become life-threatening.

Be a food Detective
Although skin tests are available through your doctor or allergist, parents can help to find the offending food by careful observation and note taking.
1) Keep a record of everything you are feeding your baby and any symptoms.
2) Try to keep food choices to Organic, additive and dye free.
3) Eliminate the most likely offenders for 10 days to 2 weeks. Keep track of any reactions. Also, stick to single ingredient foods while conducting your experiment so that it will be easier to isolate the offending food.
4) Reintroduce suspect foods one at a time to see if the symptoms reappear. If so, avoid that food for a few months. Many food allergies are outgrown, especially those to milk and soy. Shellfish and nuts in some cases turn out to be life long allergens.
5) Some children can tolerate small amounts of high allergen foods or other foods from the same food group. You can find out if your baby’s allergy is portion related by reintroducing food in small amounts once every few days and then increase the amount given until allergic signs reappear.
6) Share your findings with your pediatrician and together devise a feeding plan.

Nursing mothers: Some research suggests that if breastfeeding mothers keep allergenic foods out of their diets the first year, their baby will be less likely to develop allergies.

As busy parents seek convenience, children eat foods that are overly processed and filled with preservatives and additives. It is natural for the body to rebel against these foreign substances added to our food. Make reading ingredient labels a habit and you will make smart and healthy food choices for your entire family.

Sweater weather has arrived, and that means more indoor activities, and the aroma of comfort food wafting through the air. This is the time of year when I feel the most pressure to channel my grandmother’s cooking. As a little girl, I’d watch Grandma summon seemingly hundreds of delicious and comforting homemade meals based on what ever looked the most fresh in the market that day. As a mom, I’ve desperately wanted to give my children those same results – only healthy. After all, my Grandma may have been a great cook but she never read a label!

Fortunately for today’s moms, nutritional information is more available than ever before. Unfortunately, babies grow so much during their first year, it’s almost impossible to keep up with all of their big nutritional changes. Just when I’d get my feeding strategies down, I’d discover that my baby needed yet more nutrients to meet her quickly changing system. Here are some things Grandma probably didn’t know…

Babies 9 to 12 months old require from 750 to 900 calories a day. 1 year olds need about 1,000 calories a day and twice the daily calcium as they did at birth. Calcium helps your baby grow strong bones, teeth and gums. Some good sources of calcium are salmon, blackstrap molasses, legumes and tofu.

Older babies and toddlers require about five times as much iron per pound as a full grown man. Maybe this explains the incessant climbing on everything in sight. And since the word “active” doesn’t even begin to describe the behavior of my babies as they grew older, getting them to eat a well balanced diet seemed about as likely as getting my husband to empty the dishwasher.

Who can keep up? So I changed my strategy.

Instead of obsessively accounting for her nutrients on a daily basis, I recorded a week’s worth of eating and then assessed the progress. Simply switching from a daily to a weekly perspective gave me an enormous sense of freedom – and my baby, sensing that mommy’s less stressed, even seemed to eat more.

It all began with a simple chart…

Down one side, I listed the major food groups. Down the other, I listed the daily feeding schedule. Then, after each feeding, I filled in a slot with only the approximate amount of food I’d fed. By the end of the week, a quick glance told me which fruits and vegetables she’d gotten enough of, and which ones still needed to be incorporated into her feeding plan. As my baby grew, this simple chart helped me track dairy and meat consumption too. It also helped me see which foods I repeated too often, and it forced me to introduce more variety into the whole family’s diet. Because of this chart, I learned there are many more foods that my children will eat when those foods are presented in a positive way.

Grandma had it going on. Simple and fresh is best. But nutritional labels are important too. So now when I see food in the market, I think: “If Grandma couldn’t pronounce the ingredients on that label, then it’s not for me”