“Early life nutrition plays a fundamental role in your baby’s brain development, food preferences and the creation of life long habits”
Julie Bhosale (AKA Arjun and Sahan’s mummy) is an internationally renowned family well being and nutrition expert. In her recently released book ‘The Nourished Baby’ Julie states that,“The first 1000 days of a child’s life are increasingly recognized as a vulnerable period for health whereby nutrition plays a fundamental role” (pg 16)“What we feed our babies in the first year of their life fuels their growth and impacts on their health across their lifetime. This includes how their brain develops, their immunity, and the pathways by which food is processed and used, from their taste for certain foods, the bacteria in their gut, and the ability to burn and use fat, carbohydrate and sugar as energy.” (Pg.17)Julie acknowledges in her book that she was extremely fortunate to find a daycare for her boys that served beautiful home cooked meals twice a day and were also very accommodating of any requests that she made.
Providing our Folkestone Street children nutritious meals has always been of the upmost importance to us and we feel privileged to have been guided in our menu reviews by Julie. Julie’s requests in regards to what we offered Arjun as first foods became the start of our learning journey. Julie asked that we did not give Arjun baby rice…. We were curious as to why? Farex had always been recommended as the ideal first food for infants. As a result of Julie sharing her knowledge with us our babies are offered vegetables as a first food.
Our youngest babies enjoy vegetable platters for morning and afternoon tea, with grains now eliminated from our babies menu until after their first birthday. “Researchers say that by the time your child is three, their food preferences will have been developed. This means that all their likes and dislikes have been formed. The variety of food and how many times different foods are tried over these first years, especially before the age of one, will be forming all those hardwired messages in the brain.” (The Nourished Baby, Pg.18)Experts believe “It can take up to 15 times before babies and toddlers like the taste of new foods.”(Eating for healthy babies and toddlers)
By offering a wide variety of vegetables, protein rich foods and healthy fats to our babies for morning and afternoon tea we are encouraging them to learn about and enjoy a variety of different tastes and textures and providing the right kind of nutrition for healthy growth and development.We would like to thank Julie Bhosale for her inspiration and support. If you want to know more about Infant nutrition, Julie’s book provides a step-by-step guide to introducing solids.
You can learn more here at https://juliebhosale.co.nz/product/the-nourished-baby/
