I'm not a parent but I found this article to be interesting:
New Health Canada Guidelines Advise Meat as Baby First Food
Here's a chunk of the article:
Rice cereal is never a healthy first food for babies. Not only is it an extremely high glycemic food when eaten alone (spikes the blood sugar) but it also contains ample amounts of double sugar (disaccharide) molecules, which are extremely hard for such an immature digestive system to digest. The small intestine of a baby mostly produces only one carbohydrate enzyme, lactase, for digestion of the lactose in milk. It produces little to no amylase, the enzyme needed for grain digestion until around age one. Now, at least one governmental body is waking up to the harmful notion of feeding baby cereal grains as the “ideal” first food. Health Canada in collaboration with the Canadian Pediatric Society, Dietitians of Canada and Breastfeeding Committee for Canada has recently issued new guidelines for transitioning a baby to solid food and two of the first weaning foods recommended? Meat and eggs! While these new guidelines are certain to rile vegetarian and vegan groups, the fact is that meat and eggs are indeed perfect first foods for a baby. Not only are these animal foods extremely easy to digest compared with cereal grains, but they also supply iron right at the time when a baby’s iron stores from birth start to run low. The inclusion of meat in these guidelines is in line with the wisdom of Ancestral Cultures which frequently utilized animal foods for weaning. A traditional first food in African cultures is actually raw liver which the mother would pre-chew in small amounts and then feed to her child.
I like the myth busting revelation that meat can be easier to digest than grains. Rabid vegans often claim the opposite.
Paleo parents - What do you think of this article? What were your baby's first solid foods?
