Customer Reviews

Better Baby Food: Your Essential Guide to Nutrition, Feeding & Cooking for Your Baby & Toddler

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this book hoping to get some good advice and/or structure as to what exact foods my son should start eating once he was 4-6 months old. I was very disappointed that there was only one chapter that dealt with this and even there it doesn't give you any advice as to what fruit/veggie you should start with once the time is right. I'll keep it for the recipies I can use later but a more accurate title would be "Better Toddler Food" because it seems to focus on the 1 year old and up food arena with the recipies, etc that take up the vast majority of space in the book.

I am a new mom and purchased this book to help me better understand how to feed my infant daughter. This book is laid out very well and is easy to read. There is a question and answer section for each stage of development as well as information on avoiding allergies, etc. Also, there are some recipes listed for those of you who want to make some of your child's food from scratch. I would definitely recommend this book if you would like a clear cut program for how to feed your child from infancy through toddler years. It is laid out very clearly with step by step guidelines to follow. The authors offer good suggestions and are very knowledgable about childhood nutrition.

I was fascinated by this highly-rated book written by registered dieticians with the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. What I discovered upon reading the book is why the children are so sick. While I was expecting recipes for healthy foods to get my daughter off to a good start, I found instead saturated fat and sugar-laden meals. A recipe for baked beans, recommended for 12 to 18-month-olds, calls for molasses, brown sugar and eight strips of bacon! Better that you should take your child to a fast-food restaurant.

If you are really interested in raising a healthy child, try "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron. Not only are the recipes full of nutrition, but the book also includes tips for making child-friendly cleaning products and other projects.

Having a mother who is an RN, and yet not wanting to be a health-crazed maniac, I struggled with the idea of Gerber/prepacked baby foods versus doing it myself in our own kitchen. My mother recommended "Better Baby Food", as it was used by her hospital's cookstaff for pediatric menus. What an indispensible guide it proved to be and the continuation book "Better Food for Kids" is every bit as wonderful! The recipes produce foods that are easy (if you are tired or juggling multiple children or a full time career) and really great in regard to: variety of taste, color and texture and our whole family enjoys many of the meals in the later sections and the earlier stage recipes make for great side items to meals! Great tips on feeding picky eaters and special dietary concerns for both the healthy and the ill/child with mallady. If you are like me and considering making your own baby food there are great tips like usuing a handblender/food processer/hand chopper to puree or small chunk soft or cooked foods (making sure to add the water left from cooking process to add back in extra nutrients)--then spoon into ice cube trays and freeze--later plop these into little sandwich baggies or tupperware in freezer for quickie meals--we would take an ice blob of peas and another of golden delicious apples and ask for a mug of hot water at a restaurant to thaw it out and warm it, our daughter loved it...and it really was easy...and really did save MONEY! There actually is just 1 chapter devoted to each stage of age and eating, but index in back refers reader to many referenced items that cross apply throughout each stage (i.e. allergies). As for the other review's notation about questioning recipies with butter, sugar, etc...a little, in moderation is what all doctor's or anyone of authority in the medical or nutrional world recommend, unless allergic or there's a known health consideration. My advice, if you are truly concerned about things like sugar, substitute apple juice or apple sauce, which if that is a health/diet concern you would probably already known anyway! Great book---I pair this with the "Better Food for Kids" as a continuation and another little item for all baby showers I attend and so far no complaints, lots of thanks later on actually!!!

I got this book from the library to get fresh ideas on what to feed my 8 month old son. I'm very happy that I didn't buy it. While the title suggests that there are recipes for babies, the majority is really for toddlers. With a few exceptions, the only suggestions for children under 12 months are plain veggie, fruit and meat purees, and even those are mainstream (i.e. the purees you can buy in jars). I found much more interesting combinations in a German cookbook (parsnip with potato and pork, polenta with broccoli, and how does fennel with banana sound?). One of the "exceptions" is a barley vegetable soup that contains dried legumes. In other books, I read that legumes are not suitable at that age because they can make the baby gassy, and I don't want to risk that.

While reading the first part, I liked the fact that the authors say that using canned goods from time to time is ok, but I was not so pleased to see they used LOTS of canned foods (including canned soup that is usually very high sodium). "Baby's first birthday cake" has a whopping 540 calories per slice including the icing, and contains 4 cups of sugar for 12 slices.

Some of the recipes do sound interesting, but the overall quality is rather questionable.

As a Registered Nurse and mother of two small healthy children, I was surprised by the endorsement of this book by Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. The dependence on added salt and sugar and highly salted processed food to enhance the flavour of an infants food is not only unnecessary, it is undesirable. A recipe for an orange smoothie shake has a full tablespoon of white sugar in each serving for a child between 12 and 18 months. The introduction of salt and sugar early in a child's life promotes a dependence on them. In a time where one of the major threats to health is an increase in obesity and related illnesses we would be better served to prepare our children primarily fresh food, low in added fat, salt and sugar.

My 17 month old has enjoyed every recipe I have tried. In fact my husband and I have also enjoyed the recipes. The recipes are designed for small meals so that even if your child does not enjoy them, there is not much food that has been wasted. All the ingredients are easily found in any store. I would very much recommend this book to anyone wanting some fresh ideas on what to feed a toddler.

When I was raising babies I was completely unprepared for what to feed them, how much to feed them, and when to introduce new healthy foods. A few years ago I purchased this book when searching for a baby gift for a friend. Now I buy both the Better Baby Food and Better Food for Kids for all my friends and relatives having babies. Everyone loves this gift!! I even purchased a copy for myself and still find the recipes great for teenagers and just the presentation makes the recipes look so simple. I also like checking the nutritional value and feel better knowing what goes into each recipe. These books are incredible and I will continue to purchase them.

I love this book. I didn't know anything about how to feed a baby past the breast feeding stage and this book was a God sent! It gives you all info you need on when to introduce foods and how to help with special dietary needs - if you have them. The recipes are delicious and fairly easy, my husband and I eat from them all the time and my 15 month old son has loved the food from the start. I bought it at a baby show and it really helped me to keep my son on an appitizing and well-balanced diet. I will definately buy the next book for ages 2-5. Keep up the great work.

As another reviewer has written, this book focuses primarily on food for toddlers. It does have an excellent (though brief) section on beginning foods for infants, as well as information about breastfeeding and formula, and other such informational writing. However, the heart and soul of this book are the recipes for foods that both you (the parent) and your toddler and other children will enjoy eating. Yes, food for the whole family to eat together, that tastes great.

Let me directly address the concerns of other reviewers here. Many have rated this book poorly because the recipes are "unhealthy." But what is healthy for adults is very different than what is healthy for toddlers. Toddlers need the vitamins and nutrients in good nutritious foods. They also need to learn to enjoy food, and develop a good relationship with their meals. They also may need (depending on the toddler) to get a lot of calories... they're both growing quickly and developing their infamously "picky" habits at the same time.

Given those very real criteria, these recipes are the MOST HEALTHY recipes I've encountered for toddlers. The baked beans recipe one previous reviewer mentioned (disparagingly) is a perfect example: it gets toddlers to eat beans (a very nutritious, protein-backed, vitamin-full food) and fills them up with many calories in only a few bites (the usual toddler portion), and is absolutely delicious with the flavors of molasses and bacon, so your toddler will learn to ENJOY eating beans, not see them as a chore. Other highlights of that nature include some surprisingly delicious buttery, carrot-packed, whole-wheat sugar cookies, and basic meatballs (much better than those weird "meat sticks" in a jar).

For the whole picture on feeding your baby, I recommend Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense as my bible, and the best, most complete feeding book out there. But the one thing it's missing are recipes, ideas for nutritious, tasty, toddler-appealing foods that families can eat together at the table. "Better Baby Food" has those in spades, and I turn to it again and again in the kitchen.