Primal Baby Food
Some of you out there have been asking me for recipes of what I feed my little one. I’ve been slow in getting this post up but here are some baby food recipes that are primal / paleo / real food.
Also I’ve had a few questions on whether my son’s doctor knows what he eats etc etc. Well not really because if I get the doctors nod for everything then I wouldn’t be doing things my way would I? I’d be doing things the same old conventional way and I’d have nothing to write about on this blog. And after you read the ingredients and food he eats, you make up your mind whether I should be asking a doctor or go about my merry way of doing things.
Also I never gave him fine purees but mostly soft pieces of food he could suck on with his gums. He now eats much bigger pieces that he chews and chews and chews till its soft enough to swallow. When we are out at restaurants he eats whatever I give him including pieces of steak, chicken, lamb, fish etc. in small soft pieces.
Egg recipes:
N got tired after almost two months of eating egg yolks mashed in butter. So now I make 2 egg yolk scrambled eggs with tomatoes, onions, sometimes milk, in coconut oil.
2 egg yolk scrambled eggs with cheese.
2 egg yolk omelets with mushrooms, tomatoes.
Salt and pepper in all of the above. I always make his eggs (and ours) in coconut oil. This is the same breakfast his father and I eat, except we eat two whole eggs and he has yolks.
Fruits:
He eats fruits in the morning and in the evening when he is out and about.
I cut up any fruit that’s available into pieces. Papaya is his favourite. He can devour whole apples (steamed and cut) or a pear (steamed and cut) or a banana, (chopped not mashed) in one sitting. I sometimes mix fruits up like melon, watermelon, papaya.
Main meal – Vegetables and chicken.
His main meal of the day is around 5:30 pm
I have this Avent steamer and blender. 
I steam chicken in this and then blend. Initially I used to blend the chicken pretty fine but now I make it slightly chunky. It has the grainy texture of rice.
I steam vegetables in this separately. I normally put two or more together like – carrots / cabbage, spinach / sweet potato, Green beans / potato, cauliflower/ carrot, etc. I blend the veggies coarsely too.
I freeze in small two ounce containers the remaining chicken and veggies (separately), to use over the next two days or so (not longer).
With these basics, I prepare the meal each day at a time.
Initially I used to put some ghee in a pan and pan-toss the chicken and veggies with some salt but that doesn’t do it for him anymore. (His tastes seem to have evolved).
So here are some recipes:
1) Fry onions in ghee, add chicken and then vegetables with chopped tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Vegetable – cabbage and carrot.
2) Chicken and fresh basil in ghee. Add in veggies – cauliflower and sweet potato. Salt.
3) Onions and dhaniya in ghee, add in chicken. Then the veggies – beans – carrots- potatoes, and haldi.
4) Onions fried in ghee, add in chicken. Add spinach – sweet potatoes and salt.
5) Chicken in ghee. Add cauliflower and gawar. Throw in finely chopped red or yellow peppers. Salt.
veggies and chicken
These are some recipes I’ve written off the cuff but experiment with combinations that taste good and your baby likes. He may like some more than others but try it once again after awhile and he may surprise you by wolfing it down. I try to include sweet potatoes or potatoes for starch content. They’re also excellent to mask strong flavours.
Fish and soup
At 8 pm before his last nursing he eats a bowl of vegetable or chicken soup. Tomatoes, carrots, mixed veggies, or spinach home made soup or chicken broth. The chicken broth is with chicken blended finer than it is for the rest of the family so he can drink it up from his sipper.
He sometimes eats steamed ravas (a type of fish) with whatever marinade we’re having. Garlic and basil are the most popular. He absolutely adores fish.
fish
N still nurses up to 5 times in addition to all this food. (He is one big tornado of a little person).
A few things that have worked for me are: don’t baby your baby and think he cannot eat this and that. Let her try everything and develop her own tastes. Don’t be scared to give pieces of food. If you only give mashed and pureed food the baby will take too long switching to regular food.
I tried that – introducing new foods one at a time for 4 days – thing initially but got fed up in 3 weeks. Then I just started giving him new foods all the time and luckily he hasn’t reacted to anything yet.
You tell me, is he missing grains? Do you think I should give him daal-rice too? Thanks for reading, write to me in the comments if you find this post useful.
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Aloka ,
Superb post … I had been waiting this post from you regarding veggies and chicken together ..
Just wanted to ask you , how often do you buy chicken for N ?
I have that doubt , as I buy in weekends only …But. I prefer to give proteins to her in the form of non veg ..so thought of chicken ..
I think you could guide me well here ..
Hey sangeetha. Sorry I took a long time in publishing this.
I buy twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday. Clean it and steam and blend a very little bit that’s a little more than an ounce and a half per day and keep it for 3 days in the freezer in separate containers.
Protein in the form of any meat is good. Even red meat is fine and infant super for breast fed babies as its a great source of iron.
Egg yolks are another awesome source of protein and iron.
Hi
Good read..this is a good nutritious set of food recipes for a baby…love it!!!
Thanks manasa!
Hey a nice read
Thanks !
Fantastic ….. Natalie always spoke about your diet to me. I don’t know why we always like to over pamper our children. Thanks for sharing your diet in so much detail. Will definitely try your recepies !
Hey, thanks for the comment. Will keep posting more and more as my son grows. And yes we do pamper our babies too much specially with regards to food. Remember they will not starve! They will eat when hungry 🙂
Hai,thanks for detailed posts and love your posts.I love to raise my little Daya,15 months old, on a healthy paleo diet .The only problem is m a vegge,so it’s difficult for me to cook non veg food,but he does take one whole egg a day,with so much ooh ahh from my ped:) .
Can you please guide me through .
Love to catch up with you,can you please send your no to my mail
Hi rohini,
That’s great news to hear you want to raise your 15 month old paleo. My son is almost 17 months now so it’s nice that they are the same age. Almost.
Well since you are already giving her eggs just make sure you give her full fat fermented dairy and lots and lots of veggies with butter or ghee.
Avoid all processed foods and sugar for her and use coconut oil. Give her coconut products like the ‘malai’ and water. When they’re this young if fine paleo the easiest things for the kids,
Good luck
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Hi Aloka! I was recommended to read your blog by one of my friends few weeks ago, and I’ve already made more than a few clicks to it. The artivles are very informative, interesting and relevant (my munchkin is 7 months old).
I had a very basic question, if you could help – I tried egg yolk for my daughter, a scrambled version, done in little butter and a pinch of salt. She actually loved it, but because it was a bit dry, she kept coughing a little bit. What would you suggest I add to it – to make it easily edible?
you could add milk or breastmilk. scrambled eggs aleays taste good and moist with milk. my son loves fried egg with runny yolk but he is alot older than your daughter.
Great, thanks, will try it out. Happy blogging – it’s a treat for people like us! 🙂
Hi Aloka! Interesting take on child’s nutrition. I echo your thoughts completely on processed food, fries, etc but have a couple of questions/ feedback…
1. For children who cannot avail breast milk, is it ok to feed on formula milk as many number of times?
2. Did you offer no cereals at all? – not even the healther options like raagi, dalia, brown rice, oats, bajra etc… What harm do they cause if given? Isn’t anyway a carbohydrate source important as much as protiens and fats?
3. What’s your take on offering cooked foods after refrigeration? As it is very difficult to cook bite-size portions…
4. You mentioned at some stage that your boy ate only the yolk – his choice or yours? Is it safe to give the entire egg?
5. Did you not any use even a bit of sugar or salt in preparing your baby’s meals? Especially before a year…
6. Do you have a way to prepare tomato ketchup for kids? So as to replace the market version without losing the taste? Please share if you have a recipe.
7. How about legumes/ daal? Didn’t see any reference to that in your blog…
8. Do you prepare the cheese or ghee at home as well? How frequently the market version of cheese could be given in order to stay safe?
9. Have you ever tried any of the organic baby foods? – First Bites by Pristine Organics, for example. Or know of any reviews about it?
10. I have a different view on purees. Like yourself, several people told me not to take the puree route but my daughter took time as her gums were really soft. So I safely continued with purees to complete her nutrition. After a year or so, she attempted to munch and that’s when we could offer her slightly more granular textures…