Your Baby Foodie

Weaning your child onto solid food is about learning how to eat, exploring new textures and flavours and creating an enjoyable eating experience.  The window between six months to one year of age is a key time for helping your child develop his or her taste preferences and offering a variety of flavours during this time is essential. 

It is often assumed that babies prefer bland foods, but this is generally not the case.  Your baby actually begins to taste what mom eats through the amniotic fluid in the third trimester of pregnancy and continues to taste what mom eats through her breastmilk.  Adding flavourful foods into your baby’s diet from the start is the next step in taste development.   

Chef’s Daughter is a new baby food delivery company by prominent Canadian Chef and Top Chef Canada finalist David Chrystian.  He is devoted to encourage building blocks of great taste and nutrition with his seasonally curated, never pasteurized jars of food containing the freshest possible produce, nutrient dense oils and fat, organic meats and sustainably caught fish. 

I met David and his wife, Katherine when they stopped at my booth at last year’s Baby Show with their daughter Charlotte.  The were in the process of launching their new venture and decided to attend one of my introducing solids workshops as they were committed to ensuring they met the developmental and nutritional needs of the babies they would feed, including the chef’s daughter.

As a chef, David knows which combinations of ingredients will work well together to bring out the best flavours.  He also works hard to include nutrient-dense foods that you may not feel comfortable working with at home.  As a kids’ nutritionist and feeding expert, I do not like to see babies exclusively being fed purees for an extended period of time and I always encourage parents to prepare food for their baby at home whenever possible.  While you are in this phase, however, doing your best to maximize the variety and quality of ingredients as well as the flavour potential will help to jumpstart your child’s love for nutritious and delicious food. 

For those who wish to supplement their homemade offerings with exciting flavours or those who want the benefits of feeding their child nutritious, freshly prepared food but simply don’t have the time or lack the necessary skills in the kitchen, Chef’s Daughter is a great option.  They not only deliver right to your home but also offer convenient vacation kits. 

Check out their website at chefsdaughterbabyfoods.com for more information.