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Bitter Foods For Babies: Is It Healthy? How To Get Your Baby To Eat Bitter Foods? List Of Safe Foods

You cannot replace the nutrition your baby receives from breast milk. However, there is a time when the baby must be weaned off breast milk as they become more independent. According to some health experts, it is solely up to the mother to decide when to wean her baby.

The majority of mothers stop breastfeeding their babies by the age of three to four months. Others wean the baby at six months. However, some mothers breastfeed for the entire first or second year.

Is It Safe For My Baby To Consume Bitter Foods?

Is It Safe For My Baby To Consume Bitter Foods?

It is possible to observe babies' preferences and dislikes of food quite clearly from their facial expressions when they are introduced to food. A healthy eating habit should be developed from the beginning itself. Eating healthy food should be a habit that lasts lifetime [1].

Introduce sweet, sour, salty and bitter foods to your baby from an early age. Having a variety of flavours, textures and tastes from the beginning will enable them to enjoy a variety of foods and flavours in the future.

Sweet and salt remain the all-time favourites of babies - it is difficult to get a grown-up to eat bitter food - let alone a baby.

10 Healthy And Safe Baby Food Recipes With Carrots10 Healthy And Safe Baby Food Recipes With Carrots

During the early stages of baby life, nutritional foods can provide them with energy and help them to grow, so food should be chosen accordingly. In addition, parents should introduce all flavours of food at the beginning itself to make the baby more comfortable with the tastes.

Teach your baby to enjoy a variety of foods and make weaning enjoyable. Bitter foods are always beneficial to their health and development as well [2].

Ensure that your child develops a positive relationship with food by introducing all flavours into their diet.

How To Get Your Baby To Eat Bitter Foods?

How To Get Your Baby To Eat Bitter Foods?

Incorporating bitter foods into your baby's daily diet is now easy with these simple tips. Babies are born with a biological predisposition to reject bitter foods [3].

Are you wondering how to get your baby to eat bitter foods and how to develop good eating habits for your child? Let us discuss these issues here.

1. Plan a schedule

In order to make your baby's diet balanced, you must plan a schedule so that you can give them food at the right time. This will allow you to try different bitter vegetables and fruits, and it will also help you make a balanced diet for your growing baby.

2. Be patient

The majority of babies will refuse their food, but if you try to give it to them on another day, at least you will have a better chance of getting them to eat it. You should develop a positive relationship with flavours and tastes; only then can babies start taking their food happily.

3. Don't force

Don't compel your baby to eat food. Forcing your baby to eat food can sometimes result in making a negative association with food. Forcing your baby to eat food only leads to their dislike of food in the future. Make your baby's eating habits different so you won't have to coerce them to eat [4].

4. Try different foods

Introducing new foods to your toddler should be done in a gradual manner. There are a lot of vegetables and fruits that have a bitter taste. You can introduce all these different vegetables and fruits slowly to your toddler's diet. Children enjoy experimenting with and different foods.

5. Have fun with the foods

You should create some fun ingredients when you are giving food to your baby. It is imperative that your baby develops healthy eating habits through such elements. Create meals with different shapes, names, and stories to encourage your baby to eat.

6. Try home-cooked food

Depending on your baby's taste, you can add flavours to make them eat bitter food. Check out some tasty recipes and try them out for your baby. Commercially prepared food does not contain the right amount of seasoning and it is not as healthy as home-made food.

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If you include bitter foods in your baby's eating habits, you will be creating healthy eating habits in the future. Therefore, think of creative and innovative ways to make your baby eat bitter foods in the future [5].

Are Bitter Foods Healthy For Babies?

Are Bitter Foods Healthy For Babies?

Does it harm your baby to eat bitter vegetables? Do babies benefit from a variety of taste and flavour exposures, including bitter vegetables?

Instead of sweet or bland flavours such as rusks, baby rice and fruit, experts advise parents to choose bitter vegetables like broccoli, spinach and cauliflower as their baby's first solid food [6].

According to experts, bitter vegetables should be offered to babies at approximately six months of age, since they are often disliked by children. Offering bitter vegetables first may encourage a child to develop a taste for these foods [7].

Bitter Foods Good For Babies

Bitter Foods Good For Babies

Here are some healthy bitter foods that are healthy for babies:

  • Cauliflower
  • Eggplant
  • Spinach
  • Fenugreek leaves
  • Bitter gourd among others
  • When Should You Start Weaning Your Baby?

    Ideally, one should not attempt to wean until the baby is at least one year of age. Six months of exclusive feeding and another six months of breastfeeding in combination with semi-solids. Know that it is not going to be easy to wean your baby off breast milk. Try not to make them stop breastfeeding suddenly [8].

    During the early phase of complementary feeding, there may be a sensitive period for introducing bitter, more difficult-to-like foods.

    The 'sensitive period' refers to a limited period during which the brain is especially receptive to the effects of experience. During these periods, experience is able to instruct neural circuits to process or represent information in a way that is adaptive for the individual.

    As a parent, you will be able to understand when this 'sensitive period' is and hence will be able to introduce new foods.

    On A Final Note...

    Even if it takes a child up to 15 attempts to like a particular vegetable, research suggests that this method is effective in making them less fussy and more open to eating healthier foods.

Story first published: Saturday, January 28, 2023, 10:45 [IST]