First Foods

The way most parents are told to introduce foods (i.e., introducing cereals as a first solid food) is the worst way to do it and can set our children up for health issues in the future. Cereals are essentially manmade foods that are refined, processed, and stripped of nutrients, which means they are not "real" food. We can easily prevent this by introducing "real" foods in line with how our organs mature and how our bodies are able to effectively break down and absorb the foods they are given.

The Developing Digestive Tract

When we are born, our digestive tracts are hyperpermeable. (Hyperpermeable means that anything, including food particles that haven't completely been broken down and come into the digestive tract, can easily move through the walls of the digestive tract into the bloodstream.) This means we have to be cautious of what we put into our children's delicate, immature digestive tracts.

The digestive tract is hyperpermeable for a reason: an infant receives its innate (or nonspecific) immune system, as well as all the nutrients, hormones, enzymes, and healthy bacteria they need in order to grow and develop, from the mother's breast milk.

The immune system and digestive tract are immature in a newborn, and the process for preventing food reactions has not been fully activated. For this delicate, immature digestive tract, the only source of nutrition should be breast milk, the perfect food for an infant. There is nothing equivalent to it. Breast milk decreases infections, allergies, and autoimmune reactions in infants. The World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the United Nations that was established in 1948, recommends exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months to achieve optimal growth, development, and health. Exclusive breastfeeding means offering no other food or drink, not even water, for the first six months.

I recommend exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months and breastfeeding for at least one year. The WHO recommends breastfeeding until two years of age (or even beyond). We should all be aware that the worldwide average of children being weaned from breast milk is 4.2 years old. Unfortunately, in our Western culture, breastfeeding a toddler is considered abnormal, but the longer you can breastfeed, the more beneficial it is for your child's health.

Introducing anything other than breast milk can be damaging to the infant and set up the potential for health issues in the future. Introducing cow dairy–based formula into the infant's hyperpermeable digestive tract causes the proteins to easily move into the bloodstream, whereby the body sees these proteins from the formula as foreign bodies and activates an immune response within an immune system that is extremely imma