With chic online baby boutiques and trendy stores in nearly every city, new moms are offered limitless choices that include hybrid strollers, baby wipe warmers and baby bling pacifiers. It’s tough to keep straight – especially if you’re like me, and all that nursing has turned your brain to mush. Fortunately, what your baby needs on the inside is pretty straight forward. The essentials for your budding baby are:

FATS
Yes. Fats. Of course I mean the right kind of fats. Most infants receive 40 – 50 percent of calories through fats in breast milk or formula. After one year your baby will drink whole cow’s milk or soy milk. Don’t introduce any low-fat foods until after two years of age. The healthiest fats are unsaturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated which are better absorbed by the body. You can find these fats in avocados, fish oil, peanuts, almonds, soy oil, safflower oil and olive oil. Saturated fats come mostly from meat, eggs and dairy. Never restrict fats in a child under two. You on the other hand have to keep track.

PROTEIN
During periods of rapid growth, infancy and adolescence, the body requires more protein. A one-year-old child requires about two cups of protein food per day. Good sources of protein are fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, meat, poultry and nuts. Vegetarian babies can eat food combinations of grains and beans or grains and diary.

CARBOHYDRATES
A baby’s main source of energy comes from carbohydrates. The best are complex carbohydrates that enter the bloodstream in a slow, steady pace (the opposite of sugars from candy and icings). Good sources of complex carbohydrates are beans and legumes, pasta, fresh fruit, potatoes and whole grains.

VITAMINS
Choosing a variety of healthy foods will supply your baby with enough vitamins to keep their body working well. Our bodies need vitamins: A, C, D, E, K and a series of B vitamins: thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin, folacin, B6, and B12.

MINERALS
Although a baby’s body needs only a small amount of minerals, they are extremely important for good health. The most important minerals for babies are:

Iron:
While babies are born with iron stored from their mother’s blood, these reserves begin to deplete around six months. The body absorbs iron best from animal sources like meat, chicken and lamb. Vegetarian babies can select from iron-rich foods such as beans, fortified cereal, dried peaches and prunes, tofu and peas. Vitamin C, in combination with a good iron source, help your baby’s body absorb more iron. Spaghetti with meat (or lentils) and tomato sauce is a classic combination to get iron into the whole family.

Calcium:
Mother always said “drink your milk” and she was right. The stronger and healthier your bones develop as a child the stronger the bones will be in adult life. Can you say Osteoporosis? Breast milk or formula is all that is needed in the beginning to meet your baby’s calcium needs. Later in life good sources of calcium are dairy, fortified orange juice, salmon, blackstrap molasses, legumes and tofu.

Zinc:
This important trace mineral will help to build a healthy immune system. Zinc rich foods include wheat germ, lentils, beans, peas, corn, soybeans and lean meats.

A balanced diet of a variety of foods will keep your little one growing strong. If you have concerns about your baby’s food intake consult your pediatrician. Together you can design a food plan that’s right for your whole family.

Confucius said a lot of smart things in his day. But I’ll bet if he’d spent any time as a mother, he’d have also said: “A happy baby is a happy mommy.”

Look around any airport or mall, and you can see the relationship between what children eat and how they behave and learn. Chances are, the child dangling from the light fixture ate too many swizzle sticks and malt balls.

Studies show that the relationship between behavior and learning begins with the brain. A baby’s brain triples in size by the first birthday. Since the baby’s bloodstream feeds its nutrients first to the most vital organs, the brain gets the first helpings. Mozart might help, but a developing brain craves three types of foods:

Mood Foods

The brain uses 20% of the body’s carbohydrate supply. That affects behavior and learning. Foods that contain sugars (complex carbohydrates) released into the bloodstream at a slow and steady pace are:

Cereal and grains like oatmeal and brown rice.
Fresh fruits like apples and oranges (fruit juices don’t provide the necessary fiber needed to release sugar over a sustained period of time)
Veggies and Legumes, like sweet potato and lentils.
Dairy products, like milk or yogurt (but beware of the added sugar in many flavored yogurts)

Smart Foods

Proteins are necessary for brain development, because their amino acids help your baby’s brain build neurotransmitters that carry messages from one brain cell to another – literally, the firing pistons in the brain’s engine. From birth to six months, the average baby requires 13 grams of protein daily.

Breast milk and/or formula is the perfect choice.
Older babies can incorporate seafood, soy products (watch for allergies), meat & eggs

Fat is good (really!)

The baby’s brain is 60% fat and it uses 60% of the total energy consumed by the infant. The right kind of fat is important too: Breast milk is rich in brain building fats such as DHA and Omega-3 fats. Other food sources include:

Green leafy veggies
Flax seed oil
Salmon

Your choices in the foods you give your baby have never been more important. Selecting Certified Organic foods to feed to your baby’s brain at this most vulnerable time in its development have immense benefits throughout your child’s life. This includes:

Lowering your baby’s risk of allergies or asthma
Decreasing exposure to toxic chemicals.
Infants’ diets are usually restricted to a small range of foods in concentrated amounts, which puts them at a higher risk for toxic exposure.

Here are some of the foods that help to build your baby’s brain:

Broccoli Avocados Cantaloupe Cheese Brewer’s Yeast
Eggs Peas Spinach Brown rice Asparagus
Legumes Oatmeal Yogurt Bananas

How food affects a baby’s mood and growth varies from child to child, but if you understand how foods affect the body, you can make wise choices for both you and your family.

There’s 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 cavities 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 environmentally sound method of farming maintains bio-diversity and protects the winter habitat of millions of migratory songbirds.

If your organic chocolate also has a 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.

*The Fairtrade certification system guarantees not only fair prices, but also the principles of ethical purchasing. These principles include adherence to ILO agreements such as those banning child and slave labour, guaranteeing a safe workplace and the right to unionise, adherence to the United Nations charter of human rights, a fair price that covers the cost of production and facilitates social development, and protection and conservation of the environment. The Fairtrade certification system also promotes long-term business relationships between buyers and sellers, and greater transparency throughout the supply chain.

Getting a meal on the table is a nightly challenge—throw in the extra commitments that come with the holiday season and it can seem impossible to feed the kids without turning to fast food. Luckily, there are great new options for quick-and-easy meals that are easier than loading up the car and heading to the drive-thru.

First, it’s time to reconsider that old staple: mac ‘n cheese. Today’s boxed, instant options can be found with organic cheese, low sodium and high-fiber pasta, and are incredibly easy to make—after all, who can’t boil water and open a box? Boost the meal’s nutritional impact by replacing saturated fat and whole milk with olive oil and 1% lowfat milk. Add some frozen vegetables such as peas, carrots and green beans. Dinner is served in less time than it takes to call for pizza delivery.

Most parents say that mornings are the most difficult time of all. After assembling backpacks and lunches, brushing teeth and hair, and making sure the shoes are on the right feet, a drive-thru breakfast can seem pretty appealing. A great alternative is a high-protein, high-fiber fruit smoothie. Simply add frozen bananas and strawberries or blueberries into a blender with equal parts organic milk (or soy milk) and organic yogurt, and throw in a tablespoon of organic powdered non-fat milk for an extra calcium boost. It’s a naturally sweet and yummy breakfast that sleepy kids can even take in the car.

Happy holidays!

The holidays are upon us! This is such a joyous season, a time to give thanks for our beautiful families and all the abundance that we can provide for them. However, in between shopping, planning, cooking, and cleaning it can be difficult to take the time to figure out how to integrate new eaters into the holiday meal. But, with just a few quick tips, you can turn your holiday party into a festive and nutritious occasion for every member of the family!

Since tiny tummies can only accept one new flavor at a time, seasonal favorites like root vegetables and winter squashes are perfect beginner foods and an easy way to expand your baby’s palate. While steaming and roasting both retain more nutrients than boiling, roasting vegetables brings out the full flavor and provides a nice flavor change for your entire family table.

Select one or more organic vegetables such as squash, sweet potato, parsnips or pumpkin then peel and cube. All the vegetables will shrink while roasting, so don’t cut them too small. Toss well with one to two tablespoons of good quality organic olive oil and bake on a cookie sheet for about 25 – 35 minutes at 400-degrees turning once during baking. When the cubes are soft and cook thoroughly, pull out six-to-eight cubes per baby eater and set aside, then toss the rest with kosher salt and chopped flat leaf parsley or any other herb your family enjoys. For your baby, serve as a finger food or mash to a consistency appropriate for your child. These vegetables are also easy to freeze. After they have cooled completely, toss them in a plastic freezer bag or freeze the puree in ice cube trays.

Easy for you and your family will enjoy a delicious and nutritious holiday season!