If Wilbur and Cinders teach pigs anything its Neurosis Saves Lives.

Good news for Jews, Bad News for the Giraffe

i don't know how this escaped me, but a rabbi named Shlomo Mahfoud (which sounds like a made-up name, in the "Zohan" sense) has declared that giraffe meat is kosher. This must come as a huge relief to the vast Jewish population of the Serengeti.

Questions like this one have actually arisen in my life. On a couple of occasions I've been to a restaurant in Nairobi called Carnivore, which serves all sorts of inedible animals, including crocodile, and I've managed to avoid eating some particularly gamy-looking game by pleading Jewishness in the first-degree.

Which reminds me: I was once talking to a game scout in Tanzania who had several times eaten elephant trunk. After I got over my initial revulsion, I asked him what it tasted like. "Wildebeest," he said.

Breastmilk, fruits & vegetables is a perfectly normal diet for a 10-month old! The only thing that made me look twice was the inclusion of nuts, which isn't recommended by peds in the US until 3 years. (Used to be thought that delaying allergens reduced the risk of allergies, current thinking is that if your kid IS allergic to nuts, it's easier to intubate a 3-year old than a 6-month old.)

My next-door neighbor's son (4 weeks younger than Dylan) was vehemently anti-solids until he was 9 or 10 months old, and still mostly lives on breastmilk. And he is teeny, but so are both of his parents. He's getting plenty to eat, just genetically a small person.

Breastmilk is a complete food. A 10-month old will need to eat really really frequently if that's all they're getting (because breastmilk is digested so fast), but they will not be nutritionally deprived. (Unless the mother is starving, which does not appear to have been the case in the article. And in most cases, even if the mother IS starving, her body will leech nutrients from her bones and organs in order to make breastmilk for the baby. Nature doesn't give two craps about the older generation once the new one is born.)

Dylan eats almost the full range of adult foods because he is food-crazy like his mama and will eat just about anything that he can steal off of a bigger person's plate. Every time I think something's going to be too spicy or garlicky etc for him, I've been wrong. (I've always looked sideways at the American notion that babies naturally prefer bland mush to real food, but I didn't expect to have a not-quite-1-year old enjoying pepperocini-spiked pasta salad.)

American notion that babies naturally prefer bland mush to real food,

That way lies the Road of the Picky Eater who, I totally believe, are created not born. So I'm right there with ya. Em will eat almost anything and constantly asks for salsa or hot sauce if she sees Joe using it. She loves pepporocinis, too.

Dylan eats almost the full range of adult foods because he is food-crazy like his mama and will eat just about anything that he can steal off of a bigger person's plate. Every time I think something's going to be too spicy or garlicky etc for him, I've been wrong. (I've always looked sideways at the American notion that babies naturally prefer bland mush to real food, but I didn't expect to have a not-quite-1-year old enjoying pepperocini-spiked pasta salad.)

hahahhahaha....I only laugh because there are very few things that Noah will not eat. I think we found he's not fond of blue cheese (though if you give him a spread of roasted red peppers and goat cheese, he's very very happy) and he doesn't really like mac and cheese (which makes me question whether or not he's my kid after all). But it's changing and I'm finding foods he really loved (avocado) he is less tolerant of.

I still think that we are born with the picky gene. Brendon would have nursed forever if he didn't get cut off at 2 years. He has always been very limited in what he will consider eating. His brother shunned the breast at a little over a year in favor of the sippy cup and wanted real people food as soon as he could grab it. He'll try anything and likes spicy. Brendon thinks the rest of us are insane when we pick up the Tabasco.

Can I be totally annoying and vote both? I'm pretty sure that there are aspects of pickiness -- supertasting, some of the texture things, smell aversions -- that are completely and totally baked in there. But lack of exposure and a culture of bland doesn't do anyone any favors, wherever their pickiness baseline may be.

I agree with you, amych. I think like with anything having to do with humans, it's combination of nature and nurture. Em won't eat squash. She didn't like it as a baby food, but we kept trying it and eventually she would eat it, but she was never as excited about it as she was peas or carrots. We gave her baked squash a few months ago and she didn't want it but she tried it and promptly threw up. We don't bug her about it now. I've seen among people I am acquainted with (and, for the most part don't much care for or respect, so even if they did everything exactly like me, I'd still find fault with it - just to put that caveat out there) who go the "easy" route with food and once they find something their kid likes, they don't make the kid try anything else (she says, slightly hypocritically as her own daughter got two PBJ's for lunch today as she has for the past two weeks).

Oh my God, you guys! Why is it so hard to get caffeine. I couldn't take it any longer so I went across the street to get a coffee. Then I went to another building to go to an ATM. As I am entering the 2nd building I trip on some uneven pavement, roll my ankle, fall on my ass, and drop my brand new coffee, which splashes everywhere. (I also seem to be bleeding from the left knee.)

Why do the coffee gods hate me today?

Undeterred, I have bought a third coffee. But it's Tim Horton's, which is kind of rank.

Oh no, Sue! At least you finally have coffee!

(she says, slightly hypocritically as her own daughter got two PBJ's for lunch today as she has for the past two weeks).

Speaking as a person who likes to eat many things (and loved raw onions as a toddler) there is NOTHING WRONG with eating the same thing for lunch many days in a row.