My experience with babies was that they ate spicy food with enthusiasm -- until the dreaded one-year mark hit. Somewhere after one year, babies aren't hungry all the time. This means that they are able to be picky. Mine took full advantage of this right.

Then ensued the 10-Year Mac-N-Cheese Glut. Let us never speak of it again.

Then ensued the 10-Year Mac-N-Cheese Glut. Let us never speak of it again.

Heh. Except for those of us hovering on the brink.

I'm trying to imagine my mother varying her menus based on our preferences. From where I was sitting, she sure seemed intractable ::shudders at liver memories:: but it's not like I'm an unbiased reporter, or anything. I do know she worked around my father's predilictions, or at least tried to, and then threw her hands up in despair. Still! Fufu!

I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to avoid growing up mentally and physically stunted on my childhood diet, which heavily featured Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup, white bread (I rolled it up into dense balls--ick!), the crust of fried chicken but as little of the meat as I could get by with, etc.

Of course, maybe I was supposed to be 6'0" with an IQ of 200....

I'm trying to imagine my mother varying her menus based on our preferences.

Oh, that definitely didn't happen at my house growing up. My dad only liked two vegetables: corn and green beans. My mom never served anything else with dinner. We just ate what was there or we didn't. I try to plan stuff we all like with at least one option for everyone--but that's only when I *plan*. Which doesn't happen very often.

My MiL always cooked at least three separate meals. She had one that refused meat and one kid that refused just about everything else. These were BiL and SiL--when DH was a kid she was intractable due to tighter contraints on the food budget.

Evidentally most of the "rules" for introducing new foods or the foods to aviod/feed aren't really based in science. The new studies show that if the family has no history of food allergies it should be okay to introduce fish, peanut butter, etc to babies under 1 yr.

When it comes to fish/seafood, there are other issues aside from allergies and intolerances. Some fish (esp. tuna, and maybe the other fatty fishes) are a problem because of the high level of mercury in them. Tuna can be introduced earlyish, but you've got to really limit how much you give them.

I think they're not sure why peanut allergies abound now, so I think the advice to hold off on its introduction makes sense. There is, I think, a theory that if a food is introduced before the child is ready to tolerate it, you can almost cause the allergy to develop from premature exposure, or over-exposure. This wouldn't matter for kids who have inherited the allergy, but it might explain other causes.

Also that young children/babies only like bland food isn't fact and that if the parents can add spicy, salty, seasoned food and see what the child likes. They even hinted that the wives' tale that children like whatever their mother's were eating while pregnant might be true.

Before the child is 18 months, is actually *the* time to introduce the spicier foods. It takes that long for their taste buds to fully develop, and sometime between 12 and 18 months, they also get extra stubborn and suspicious. If you get them accustomed to zestier foods before then, you're usually all set.

Also? Being an old wife, I'm fond of old wives' tales. After all, it is the old wives who have always done the gestating, delivering, breast feeding, diaper changing, feeding of the whole family, gathering herbs, and caring for the sick and dying, etc. There are untold generations of knowledge passed down griot-style from mother to daughter. Sometimes the advice conflicts. Mother A might tell her daughter bananas are a good remedy for loose bowels, and Mother B might tell her daughter just the opposite. But maybe they're both right, for their particular genetic combination.

Most mothers I know have/develop a sixth sense about illness, particularly in their children. Maybe it harkens back to a more primative age, when we were more in tune with our other senses. My mother swears she could always smell a fever on me. I thought she was nuts, until I realized I could smell a fever on my own kids. Similarly, they smell "wrong" to me, when they first get home from school, but after they're home and hour or so, they smell "right" again. I can tell from the droop of their eyes if they have an ear infection, with nearly 100% accuracy. I can sometimes tell by their voices (and congestoin isn't the cue) if they're going to come down sick with something in the next few days.

The only thing I'm sure my mother didn't make me eat, despite everyone else loving it was eggs. But it's not that I don't like, so much as the taste gives me headaches and makes me retch and perhaps vomit. Sugar cane and wet sugar has the same effect, but it was always on the optional list (like most fruit, but sadly not grapefruit, which I also hated). I had dispensation to leave the room whenever anyone else ate either.

Heh. Except for those of us hovering on the brink.

Annie's Shells taste much better than Kraft, at least to an adult palate. They're also less full of chemical glop.

Annie's Shells taste much better than Kraft, at least to an adult palate.

Word, and they even have an orange kind now (I love annato).

I remember my s-i-l swearing by Annie's. I have yet to try it. Christopher has serious love for Kraft. I limit it like crazy, because of all the non-foodstuffs in there. I will have to check out Annie's.

Word, and they even have an orange kind now (I love annato).