Super Baby Food (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ruth Yaron cares deeply about what your baby is eating--so much so that her bestselling Super Baby Food is encyclopedic in both scope and size. Ounce for hefty ounce, this manual/cookbook/reference guide is worth its weight in formula, packed as it is with detailed information on homemade baby food, nutritional data, feeding schedules, cooking techniques, recipes, and other invaluable feeding tips. Yaron builds her compelling argument for making baby food at home on the simple premise that food profoundly impacts health, especially when an infant's developing digestive tract is involved. Parents will learn why babies should start out on rice porridge, bananas, avocados, and sweet potatoes before advancing to more difficult-to-digest foods such as wheat cereals and milk products. While Yaron's passionate stance and vegetarian bias may turn off some parents, others will be grateful for her strict attention to potentially harmful additives and chemicals. No matter what their eating philosophy, most parents will appreciate the economy and surprising ease of making baby food at home. This is not gourmet cooking; all you have to do is learn how to boil water and operate a blender. For veggies, simply steam some vegetable chunks and blend. For baby porridge, just grind some whole grains in a blender and boil. It's that simple. And when you're feeding your baby, simple is best. --Sumi Hahn

Product Description

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING you should know about feeding your baby and toddler from beginning solid foods through age three years. How and when to start your baby on solid foods, with detailed information on the best and safest high chair, spoons, bibs, and other feeding equipment.

Which foods to introduce to your baby during each month of his first year, with details on proper food consistency, amount, and temperature. How much you can expect your baby to eat and drink during the months of her first year with information on her digestive system at each age. Interesting details on your baby's physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychological development as it applies to self-feeding and mealtimes; how you can increase your baby's or toddler's self-esteem and self-confidence during mealtimes.

The age you can expect your baby to start finger feeding, drinking from a cup, eating table foods, and self-feeding with a spoon and fork. If you choose to make homemade baby food, this book will give you the knowledge and confidence to make your own healthy and safe homemade baby vegetables, fruits, cereals, meats, and other Super Baby Foods. Extensive information on food allergies; foods considered choking hazards; foods likely to cause digestive problems in young babies; and safety precautions to prevent burns and poisoning.

Thousands of money-saving and time-saving child care and kitchen tips. How to make meals fun! Food decorating! Cute cake patterns! Toddler party snacks and favors! Many other entertaining ideas! More than 350 quick, easy, delicious, nutritious, and sometimes entertaining recipes for babies and toddlers, including imitation homemade recipes for: Pop Tarts, Grape Nuts and other breakfast cereals, instant breakfast drinks, hot chocolate mix, Shake-N-Bake, Pam, Fruit Roll-Ups, Stove-top Stuffing Mix, homemade vanilla extract, Hamburger Helper, and more. So much cheaper and healthier (no preservatives needed!) to make for your toddler and family! Recipes for homemade play dough, finger paints and brush paints, bubbles for blowing, and dozens more children's arts and crafts recipes and ideas. Ideas for Halloween, Christmas, Easter, birthday parties, and homemade toddler toys and gifts.

All about nutrition and your baby, including nutrient tables of all major vitamins and minerals with convenient baby-sized portions to help you be sure that your baby is getting proper nourishment. How to save money by making homemade yogurt, fruit leather, and how to grow sprouts, fruit plants, and herbs in your kitchen for fun and food. Easy, economical recipes for homemade baby accessories, such as baby wipes, diaper cream, and many more.

Baby-safe and environmentally-friendly recipes for household cleaning products, such as baby-safe drain cleaners, furniture polish, window cleaners, and more. These recipes cost only pennies to make and are so safe that most are actually edible!! Tips for removing crayon, spit-up, and urine stains from baby clothes, carpets, and furniture. This book is the most complete and well-researched baby food book on the market today. Even though it is 600 pages, it is cleverly designed for the busy parent to read only a small part each month as baby grows.

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: F. J. Roberts Publishing Company; 2nd edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793180619
• ISBN-13: 978-0965260312
• ASIN: 0965260313
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (686 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,335 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #5 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Parenting > Health & Nutrition
  #7 in	Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Reference
  #18 in	Books > Parenting & Families > Parenting > Child Care

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

913 of 944 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good reference, but some key inaccuracies, January 3, 2001

By A Customer

As a family physician and new mother, I bought this book with interest. Overall, excellent principles of healthy baby diet, and excellent ways of preparing baby food at home. However, I was astounded by several key things. -Yaron recommends feeding a baby nuts - she doesn't give a specific time frame to start, but talks extensively about how to prepare and feed them to "baby." Nuts are HIGHLY allergenic, they are definitely not recommended before the first year and longer after that if a mother can help it. I have heard of a child suffering from anaphylactic shock from eating home made peanut butter at 8 months. -Yaron recommends preparing Spinach and Carrots at home, these two vegetables are not recommended for home preparation because of their high concentration of nitrates. Baby food companies screen these two vegetables so that only those from areas of the country with low nitrates can be served to baby. -Yaron makes comments such as, "the good old days" when you can buy tofu in a refrigerated bin where you can bag your own tofu...well this was ended for a specific reason, IT ISN"T SANITARY.

These glaring statements make this book one that I would not recommend for my patients. If you are aware of all the facts above and will double check some of her principles with other authorative text, then this is a good book on home preparing food in a wholesome, organic manner.

160 of 166 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Use with Caution, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

There is a lot of great information in this book. However, there is also quite a bit of nutritional misinformation to go with it. So I found myself having to double-check any recommendation I didn't already know about with another source which somewhat defeats the purpose of buying the book. That said I'm a complete kitchen klutz so having a book that explains exactly how to shop for, prepare and freeze each food is very helpful.

I'd just be very, very careful about using the exact diet as recommended for a baby under 1 year without consulting with your pediatrician first. For example, in order to avoid the "evil" meat, the book recommends introducing nuts, seeds & soy into the baby's diet from a pretty early age. These foods are all high allergen foods and really are not any better for a small baby than some pureed chicken. The book also recommends liver powder -- but organ meats are high in toxins. It also recommends cottage cheese starting at 6 months but cottage cheese has all the same problems as cow's milk and should not be given until you are ready to start straight cow's milk.

So in some senses I think the "cure" (a diet full of allergy-causing foods) is worse than the "disease" (eating meat once in a while).

The book is also not very bfing friendly... if you push solids in the amounts recommended here and as early as recommended here, you could easily have supply problems or your baby could self-wean by 9-10 months.

546 of 621 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Some good information, but MAJOR issues, May 31, 2003

By	Kate A (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews

I have never written a review of a book on amazon, but based on my experience with Super Baby Food I feel compelled to submit a review of this book. While this book has good tips on how to make and prepare your own baby food at home (and I found these to be very helpful), there are several major flaws that parents should be aware of:

1) This book is not well-organized and could be written with 1/3 the number of words utilized by this author. It is also chock-full of extraneous information and helpful "tips" on completely unrelated topics.

2) Alarmingly, this author promotes nuts and nut butters and recommends introducing these at 10 months of age. Peanuts are SEVERELY allergenic and can even cause anaphylactic shock, which can lead to throat constriction and even death in children and adults. The information on nut allergies is mentioned in a completely separate allergy chapter of the book and is not discussed in the chapter on nuts and nut butters. Because this book is incredibly dense, it is easy to forget about this reference by the time your baby is 10 months old and it is time, according to the author, to introduce nuts. Early introduction of nuts can reduce the likelihood that a child will outgrow this allergy. Most pediatricians now recommend waiting until 2 years to introduce nuts.

3) This author recommends home-prepared carrots, which I learned from another source contain nitrates and are dangerous for newborns.

4) This author has a superior attitude about her methodology, which is a little annoying. Her only scientific support for her approach is that she has two kids and they seem to have been sick less than other kids.

I would buy this book for the useful tips, but go in with eyes open to the flaws