Health Canada telling parents to feed babies MEAT?!

[mizzallycat]

I saw this on another discussion board, and as a vegan momma, in a vegan family, raising a vegan baby, I just feel so defeated. I am just so frustrated with people telling me that I need meat (for the past 14 years of my life), and now this! There must be a corporate beef head behind all of this, right? Who is behind Health Canada? It's extra sad that even though Health Canada recommends exclusively breast-feeding until 6 months (and up to, or longer than 2 years), something like only 28% of woman follow this, yet I now (and have already read) people ranting and raving about giving steak to their babies. Why are people so quick to take this horrible advise?! Health Canada needs a "Forks over Knives" take-down.

- Frustrated Momma

[veggierunner]

Canada is not alone. It is sadly also recommended starting at 4 months by the american academy of pediatrics. I am a pediatrician myself and find this appalling. I tried to get support to have this changed, but haven't been successful.

[VeggieSue]

This was the same advice 30 years ago when my son was born. After breastfeeding for a year I was told to start him on meat and only meat as his first food for a few weeks, because once he got the sweet taste of vegetables and fruit he'll reject the "healthy" meat and only want the fruits & veggies. Being one of the pickiest eaters on the planet (and still is) he hated the taste of meat (still does) and if we got one spoon of the stuff out of each jar we opened we were satisfied with it. Veggies, on the other hand, he would eat 3 to 5 jars of at one sitting, once he started on those. When I saw how much he was eating I eventually gave up on the jars and just pureed whatever I was making for us. I had to sneak the meat in, maybe a molecule per spoonful, because if detected, out it went.

If only I knew then what I know now.

[SecondHalf]

One really can't blame babies for rejecting baby food meat. That jarred meat is disgusting. The smell alone was enough to nauseate. I couldn't bring myself to feed it to my three sons.