Journal bethanie's Journal: [NYT] A New Tasting Menu in the Baby Section 5
August 2, 2006
A New Tasting Menu in the Baby Section
By DANA BOWEN
WHEN Akiyo Mitchell, a jewelry designer, traveled from New York to Las Vegas on business in June, she had asparagus risotto and homemade chicken soup FedExed to her hotel.
It's not that she wasn't planning on dining out. The meals were for her 9-month-old daughter, Lena, who turns up her nose at jarred baby foods.
"They're tasteless," Ms. Mitchell said in a sympathetic tone. So she went to urbanbaby.com and found a reference to Evie Failla, a personal chef for babies who cooks, vacuum-packs and freezes weeks' worth of meals in her clients' homes. Ms. Failla recently started Evie's Organic Edibles, a line of small-batch frozen baby food. The product has become a staple in Ms. Mitchell's freezer.
For years baby food changed little. Now there has been a growth spurt of alternatives, from single-ingredient purées to complete toddler meals in designer packages. Most can be found in the frozen-food section of supermarkets, like Whole Foods, which has freezers dedicated to baby food in some of its stores.
Homemade Baby, in Culver City, Calif., ships fresh baby food, even cross-country. Bohemian Baby, in Los Angeles, also ships, but it will drop off batches of food made hours earlier to houses in its delivery area, replacing empty jars.
And while these new baby foods often cost twice as much as jarred food, or more, interviews with several customers suggest they are not just feeding babies born with silver spoons in their mouths.
"Our gift certificates have been in celebrity baby shower goodie bags, but most of our customers are concerned parents who have made fresh food a priority," said Theresa Kiene, co-founder of Homemade Baby, a year-old company that sells fresh meals like Baby Tex Mex (kidney beans, brown rice and vegetables) in her Culver City store, which has a tasting room where parents and children can sample before they buy.
These baby food start-ups, mostly the brainchildren of parents who searched in vain for alternatives to jarred food, address the way parents' dietary concerns are magnified by a highchair. The new baby foods are all organic, and they are sold fresh or frozen, not in shelf-stable jars, which, Ms. Kiene said, "are often older than the baby you're feeding them to."
They also contain ingredient pairings not usually found in food for infants and toddlers. Plum Organics, a new company based in New York, will sell a fruit-studded rice pudding and chunky meat stews made with celeriac and bay leaf. A spoonful of carrots from Evie's Organic Edibles, available at Fairway and Whole Foods, delivers a gingery zing. You can taste shallots and herbs lurking in the lentils.
HappyBaby, which sells colorful cubes of frozen vegetable and fruit purées through FreshDirect and Gourmet Garage, flavors puréed peas with fresh mint, and potatoes and red lentils with coriander and cinnamon in their savory dahl, an Indian staple.
"This is how my parents fed me," said Shazi Visram, co-founder of HappyBaby, which began on Mother's Day and is expanding its line this month. "Why shouldn't babies, of all people, get to eat delicious things?"
Baby food has grown into a $3.6 billion a year business, according to ACNielsen, the consumer research company. But until recently flavor profiles had not evolved much since 1928, when Dorothy Gerber sold her first cans of puréed, strained peas and carrots -- an innovation at a time when babies were often fed cereal gruel, said Amy Bentley, an associate professor at New York University who is working on a cultural history of baby food. (The glass jars came in 1931, from Beech-Nut.) Most baby food manufacturers long ago abandoned added salt, sugar and modified starches as thickeners.
The new baby foods appeal to parents from countries where the division between adult and baby food is not as distinct as it is in the United States.
"In Japan mothers are very creative and try to feed their babies from the same meals as adults," Ms. Mitchell, who was born in Japan, explained over the phone. One of the earliest foods she fed her daughter was broth infused with bonito flakes, seaweed and, later, miso.
She believes these early introductions have made her children adventurous eaters. "I have friends whose kids won't eat anything but pasta," she said.
Many experts agree that if babies develop a taste for fresh fruits and vegetables and for healthy preparations that make them more interesting, these preferences will follow them through life.
"One of the big issues that we're struggling with is obesity," said Steven J. Czinn, a pediatric gastroenterologist and chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "I think anyone who's looked at baby food, who's had a child who had tried baby food, will agree they're relatively bland with not much taste. Doing something to enhance flavor, if the baby food itself has the appropriate nutrition, is a good thing."
Major baby food companies have been expanding their flavor range, too. A new line of soup by the Earth's Best line includes cinnamon. Gerber's new organic line, Gerber Organic -- the largest introduction of new products in the company's history -- pairs ingredients like apples and sweet potatoes.
In 2002 University of Tennessee researchers, commissioned by Gerber, published an eight-year study that reported that children's food preferences are formed as early as 2 to 3 years of age and that new flavors may first be shunned but are often accepted after repeated offerings.
Dr. Czinn recommended cautiously introducing foods, one at a time. Because food allergies and intolerances are on the rise in the United States, he urges parents to wait until babies are at least 4 months before introducing solids, and to avoid potential allergens like eggs, nuts and honey until a year, when the digestive and immune systems are fully developed.
But many parents complain about the mixed messages they get from pediatricians, friends and family.
"I'm overwhelmed with questions," said Leah Agudelo, cradling 4½-month-old Veronica, after taking a baby food class at Realbirth, an education center for new parents in Manhattan. Ms. Agudelo's mother is pushing orange juice, her doctor rice cereal. "My husband is from Colombia, and they feed babies ground lentils, even meats, and rice,'' she said. "We're thinking avocado."
Erin Patterson, the instructor of the class, who also runs smallbitesonline.com, a Web site about feeding children, said, "There are no rules or laws, especially in a city where we have people from all over the world."
But some parents remain skeptical. "Moms ask me, 'Can babies really have that?' " said Anni Daulter, co-founder of Bohemian Baby, which delivers meals like Vegetable Korma, made with coconut milk, for 12-month-olds, and purées of fruits like pomegranates and figs for infants. "And I say, of course! What do you think they feed babies in India?"
Not all parents see the point in the new, more expensive preparations of baby food.
"I don't need another thing that's going to go bad in the fridge," said Sheila Cecil, of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, whose youngest of four children started picking up finger food and eating it at 8 months. "It's the easiest thing in the world to pop a sweet potato in the microwave."
The new baby food companies tout their fresh and frozen methods as being healthier, claiming that they preserve more nutrients than the jarring process, which involves cooking food to higher temperatures.
Nutritionists agree that freezing gently cooked ripe produce could be even healthier than cooking under-ripe produce.
While major baby food companies have yet to venture into a frozen product, they have been galloping toward organics. Sales of organic baby food have shot up 58 percent in five years, 16 percent in the last year alone, according to ACNielsen.
"I don't always eat organic, but our kids pretty much do," said Louise Ortega, a former nanny who lives in Inwood and hired Ms. Failla to cook for her 22-month-old daughter, Emily. "In fact, they eat better than we do."
A New Tasting Menu in the Baby Section
By DANA BOWEN
WHEN Akiyo Mitchell, a jewelry designer, traveled from New York to Las Vegas on business in June, she had asparagus risotto and homemade chicken soup FedExed to her hotel.
It's not that she wasn't planning on dining out. The meals were for her 9-month-old daughter, Lena, who turns up her nose at jarred baby foods.
"They're tasteless," Ms. Mitchell said in a sympathetic tone. So she went to urbanbaby.com and found a reference to Evie Failla, a personal chef for babies who cooks, vacuum-packs and freezes weeks' worth of meals in her clients' homes. Ms. Failla recently started Evie's Organic Edibles, a line of small-batch frozen baby food. The product has become a staple in Ms. Mitchell's freezer.
For years baby food changed little. Now there has been a growth spurt of alternatives, from single-ingredient purées to complete toddler meals in designer packages. Most can be found in the frozen-food section of supermarkets, like Whole Foods, which has freezers dedicated to baby food in some of its stores.
Homemade Baby, in Culver City, Calif., ships fresh baby food, even cross-country. Bohemian Baby, in Los Angeles, also ships, but it will drop off batches of food made hours earlier to houses in its delivery area, replacing empty jars.
And while these new baby foods often cost twice as much as jarred food, or more, interviews with several customers suggest they are not just feeding babies born with silver spoons in their mouths.
"Our gift certificates have been in celebrity baby shower goodie bags, but most of our customers are concerned parents who have made fresh food a priority," said Theresa Kiene, co-founder of Homemade Baby, a year-old company that sells fresh meals like Baby Tex Mex (kidney beans, brown rice and vegetables) in her Culver City store, which has a tasting room where parents and children can sample before they buy.
These baby food start-ups, mostly the brainchildren of parents who searched in vain for alternatives to jarred food, address the way parents' dietary concerns are magnified by a highchair. The new baby foods are all organic, and they are sold fresh or frozen, not in shelf-stable jars, which, Ms. Kiene said, "are often older than the baby you're feeding them to."
They also contain ingredient pairings not usually found in food for infants and toddlers. Plum Organics, a new company based in New York, will sell a fruit-studded rice pudding and chunky meat stews made with celeriac and bay leaf. A spoonful of carrots from Evie's Organic Edibles, available at Fairway and Whole Foods, delivers a gingery zing. You can taste shallots and herbs lurking in the lentils.
HappyBaby, which sells colorful cubes of frozen vegetable and fruit purées through FreshDirect and Gourmet Garage, flavors puréed peas with fresh mint, and potatoes and red lentils with coriander and cinnamon in their savory dahl, an Indian staple.
"This is how my parents fed me," said Shazi Visram, co-founder of HappyBaby, which began on Mother's Day and is expanding its line this month. "Why shouldn't babies, of all people, get to eat delicious things?"
Baby food has grown into a $3.6 billion a year business, according to ACNielsen, the consumer research company. But until recently flavor profiles had not evolved much since 1928, when Dorothy Gerber sold her first cans of puréed, strained peas and carrots -- an innovation at a time when babies were often fed cereal gruel, said Amy Bentley, an associate professor at New York University who is working on a cultural history of baby food. (The glass jars came in 1931, from Beech-Nut.) Most baby food manufacturers long ago abandoned added salt, sugar and modified starches as thickeners.
The new baby foods appeal to parents from countries where the division between adult and baby food is not as distinct as it is in the United States.
"In Japan mothers are very creative and try to feed their babies from the same meals as adults," Ms. Mitchell, who was born in Japan, explained over the phone. One of the earliest foods she fed her daughter was broth infused with bonito flakes, seaweed and, later, miso.
She believes these early introductions have made her children adventurous eaters. "I have friends whose kids won't eat anything but pasta," she said.
Many experts agree that if babies develop a taste for fresh fruits and vegetables and for healthy preparations that make them more interesting, these preferences will follow them through life.
"One of the big issues that we're struggling with is obesity," said Steven J. Czinn, a pediatric gastroenterologist and chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "I think anyone who's looked at baby food, who's had a child who had tried baby food, will agree they're relatively bland with not much taste. Doing something to enhance flavor, if the baby food itself has the appropriate nutrition, is a good thing."
Major baby food companies have been expanding their flavor range, too. A new line of soup by the Earth's Best line includes cinnamon. Gerber's new organic line, Gerber Organic -- the largest introduction of new products in the company's history -- pairs ingredients like apples and sweet potatoes.
In 2002 University of Tennessee researchers, commissioned by Gerber, published an eight-year study that reported that children's food preferences are formed as early as 2 to 3 years of age and that new flavors may first be shunned but are often accepted after repeated offerings.
Dr. Czinn recommended cautiously introducing foods, one at a time. Because food allergies and intolerances are on the rise in the United States, he urges parents to wait until babies are at least 4 months before introducing solids, and to avoid potential allergens like eggs, nuts and honey until a year, when the digestive and immune systems are fully developed.
But many parents complain about the mixed messages they get from pediatricians, friends and family.
"I'm overwhelmed with questions," said Leah Agudelo, cradling 4½-month-old Veronica, after taking a baby food class at Realbirth, an education center for new parents in Manhattan. Ms. Agudelo's mother is pushing orange juice, her doctor rice cereal. "My husband is from Colombia, and they feed babies ground lentils, even meats, and rice,'' she said. "We're thinking avocado."
Erin Patterson, the instructor of the class, who also runs smallbitesonline.com, a Web site about feeding children, said, "There are no rules or laws, especially in a city where we have people from all over the world."
But some parents remain skeptical. "Moms ask me, 'Can babies really have that?' " said Anni Daulter, co-founder of Bohemian Baby, which delivers meals like Vegetable Korma, made with coconut milk, for 12-month-olds, and purées of fruits like pomegranates and figs for infants. "And I say, of course! What do you think they feed babies in India?"
Not all parents see the point in the new, more expensive preparations of baby food.
"I don't need another thing that's going to go bad in the fridge," said Sheila Cecil, of Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, whose youngest of four children started picking up finger food and eating it at 8 months. "It's the easiest thing in the world to pop a sweet potato in the microwave."
The new baby food companies tout their fresh and frozen methods as being healthier, claiming that they preserve more nutrients than the jarring process, which involves cooking food to higher temperatures.
Nutritionists agree that freezing gently cooked ripe produce could be even healthier than cooking under-ripe produce.
While major baby food companies have yet to venture into a frozen product, they have been galloping toward organics. Sales of organic baby food have shot up 58 percent in five years, 16 percent in the last year alone, according to ACNielsen.
"I don't always eat organic, but our kids pretty much do," said Louise Ortega, a former nanny who lives in Inwood and hired Ms. Failla to cook for her 22-month-old daughter, Emily. "In fact, they eat better than we do."
I can't wait (Score:2)
What's funny... (Score:2)
1) Babies can eat pretty much anything, so just give them food from your meal
2) My baby has such refined taste that she can only eat upscale exotic cuisine
have gotten jumbled together, with hypercompetitive American parents turning "Here, eat some aloo paneer!" into "My baby must have aloo paneer flown in daily from Bangalore!"
Poor kids...
Re:What's funny... (Score:2)
It used to gross me out... (Score:1)
We just ground up whatever we were eating and fed it to Mercer and he seemed to like it well enough.
Baby Food Grinder (Score:1)