Yes, this does happen. I've seen people in China doing this. There are probably some benefits to doing it (digestive enzimes in saliva, maybe strenthening baby's immune system?). Of course nowadays in the West we've become so preocupied with making everything sterile (making ourselves vastly weaker in the process*), that this seems totally crazy. I'm expecting a little one next year and I'll probably do it. Call me weird.

*Yes improved sanitation in hospitals was certainly a good thing, as it was in cities. But we've gone seriously overboard, as many doctors and scientists are beginning to acknowledge.

I was known to do that from time to time when no blender or food processor was available. I'll add that I was never sick at the time and my babies never suffered any illness because of it.

I did this for all of mine with meat. It just seemed the natural thing to do.

It has been determined through research that Hepatitis B, Group A Streptococcus, Herpes, and Epstein-Barr virus can be passed through pre-chewed food. Drug manufacturers must disclose whether products can be transmitted to babies through breast milk. There is no information about the transmission of drugs (beneficial or not) through saliva as a result of pre-chewing food and giving it to your kid. If a person is a smoker or a tobacco chewer (snuff's enuff), the nicotine by product, cotinine, can appear in saliva samples taken from toothbrushes (forensic science, folks) for up to ten hours after use. The transmission of cotinine is much more direct in saliva that it is from second-hand smoke. Cotinine has definitively and repeatedly shown by research to be associated with learning problems in children and adolescents. Serving up pre-chewed food is a risky business.

"Ancient humans did not own Cuisinarts."

But they didn't have the Internet, either.

Is it really likely this happened often? There are lots of old people with no teeth in various poor parts of the world but I have never heard of anyone prechewing food for them. I suspect the body can digest the food without chewing as long as the pieces are cut small. Or you can beat the stuff tender using a rock. Might have happened sometimes for babies though. However, I don't see any obvious advantage to it now that we have forks and all.

The bacteria that cause tooth decay can be spread, so I don't think it is particularly wise to pre chew food for small children.

This reminds me of that movie......Enemy Mine

meat can be naturally tenderized, say with slices of pawpaw laid over it for a few minutes. You'll find plenty of other naturally occurring tenderizers, if you seek them out. To make cassava into a pudding, say for consumption by a child or infant, the cassava was grated and pushed through a sieve made of natural plant fibres. It still is where I come from. My point is there are plenty of ways other than chewing, which seems fraught with complications - as long as the chewer is not a smoker, has no gum disease, etc.etc. Just do what people have done for ages to soften food for infants. It isnt so hard to puree stuff, you dont have to chew it. Prechewing is so making a statement at the expense of commonsense.

Simply stated, no.