Hi everyone!

I admire immensely what you are all doing. Though right now I cannot be even high raw because of the insane costs of fruits and veggies this summer in Romania (probably the driest and most weird year since weather recordings) I keep reading and learning and my 11 mo old daughetr is pretty much 100% raw.

My problem is: I'm trying to feed her some avocado but she has a huge sweet tooth. What can I combine it with that would be sweet? I know the best combination would be greens but there's no way I can convince her to swallow that. She has greens in the form of juice or smoothie, combined with carrot juice or something.

Any help for curbing down her sweet tooth would be also appreciated. She seems to be resricting her diet to... BANANAS!

love,
peace
Cricri

love,
peace
cricri

Avocados blend very very well with just about everything, so they lend themselves well to sweet puddings. I've used cocoa powder and agave to make chocolate pudding which was quite good. Also mangos blended with avocados make a good pudding. The combination of avocado, apple, and carrot juice has incredible flavor and is naturally sweet and can be blended thick or thin, as either a smoothie or a pudding. One of my favorites though is a simple mango pudding which is only mangos blended with a small amount (or none at all if your blender can handle it) water. I've also done banana and avocado pudding which turns out a nice pistachio green color and topped it with chopped pistachios, which was quite good. Young coconut flesh and its water blended with avocados is delicious too. There really is no end to what can be done.

khale

Have you tried offering raw sesame seeds (tahini) and raw, organic honey? Dried fruits work, too, like dates, figs, raisins, etc.

11 month old child and you want us to help you curb your daughters sweet tooth? Who's in charge of shopping, preparing meals, and feeding the family? Her or you?

It will never be easier than right now to say 'no' to her. When she gets older and is out in the world at school, etc..all around age 5 you will really then have a problem unless you take charge at the age she is now.

I'm not talking about just food either..I'm talking about all kinds of parenting issues.

For her age, you don't even have to say 'no'..just don't bring in the sweet junk foods, and there ya go..instant sucsses!

Oh..and if fruits like bananas are the only sweet treats she's getting (with no junk food sweet treats like candy, etc.), and bananas happen to be her favorite right now..don't sweat it..it won't hurt her to eat like that..kids go in cycles..one week it's just bananas, one month it's something else. I wouldn't try to hide stuff like avocado in something sweet..if everything she gets is sweet how will she develop her palate for other tastes. Sometimes making a sweet treat like the avo pudding would be ok, but if it's just to get her to eat avo..I'd say that's not a good idea.

Love,
Prism

Prism,

Maybe I wasn't quite clear...the sweet tooth is for sweet fruits... peaches are sometimes to sour for us. She has NEVER had any junk food. I fight my friends and family but no junk for my daughter. You know at this age it's hard to say no. The easiest is find alternatives, or not provoke as you say a bad habit. It is my first child but I'm really trying to do my best, not just food wise. I'm trying to give her some avocado because the food choices in Romania are not so great. I haven't found any spinach for more than a month, lettuce is not widely available because in most areas of the country it hasn't rained almost at all for months. I give her parsley, cabbage or celery juice (mixed with carrot juice)for some greens. I'm really struggling with this too, apart from the lack of support I have from my family. So when I buy a 3.50 $ avo at a 800$ salary and she won't have it I sometimes feel it's spoiled, though I will have it. It just means I have to find something else to feed her. Hopefully next year we are immigrating to Canada and things will get easier, food wise.

I gave her some pear alternatively with the avo but then she prefered the avo...weird. The only predictable thing about kids is that they are unpredictable.

Although the wake up call wasn't necessary right now it has helped me realize that I can keep trying to expand her tastes and finally it's going to work. When I gave her the avo the second time today, being hungry she wanted it.

thank you all for your help!
cricri

love,
peace
cricri

Babies and young children should NEVER be given raw honey.

Yes, I heard that too, Islandgirl. It seems there might be some bacteria that can cause real harm to them. Do you know when it would be safe to do that? In Romania thay say after the baby is one. Not that I am in a hurry to give her honey...just being curious. On the other hand, if I wanted to sweeten something the only alternative in Romania would be sugar. My daughter still refuses water although I try it every other day. So I keep her hydrated with juices mixed sometimes with water...lot of work, lot of money but I don't complain. It's all worth it.

My question about avocados, and what I could combine them with, was from the point of view of good food combinations. Do avocadoes combine ok with fruits, and which ones? Personally I prefer avoes as they are or in green salads. I would like to be on the right side of combinations and not cause her little tummy more discomfort than needed. My body gives me enough signals if the combination was not ok, but I cannot quite read her body signals...except restlessness, crying, which can have many reasons.

well, you know moms worry excessively sometimes, especcialy with their first.

peace,
love
cricri

for what it`s worth my kids pediatrician told me not to worry so much about the vegees with my kids when they were babies...he said there is so much nutrition in fruits i didn`t have to push it. maybe push sweeter vegees or mix just a tiny bit of avo with a sweet fruit like the above mentioned fruits. bananas are always a favorite food of babies. they`re soft, easy to hold, sweet etc. at one point all my daughter would eat was grapes and my doc said don`t worry it`ll even out over time...and it did. just keep offering what you can and it`ll all work out.
patty

Thanks, Patty. That's reassuring. Our pediatricians would recommend meat when they are 5 mo old, egg yolks even before that, liver for iron, dairy for calcium...and so on. Fruits and veggies for vitamins. So I'm not talking with any pediatrician about that. I'm really outlandish in Ro with such a diet. Today another mom gave my daughter before asking me and before I could say no a cracker (the 'cheese' ones, really salty and full of aromas and garbage). So I had to let my daughter have it because it was already in her hand. She would have screamed if I had tried to take it away from her and I would have looked plain crazy to do so. My daughter didn't like it (she made such a funny sweet face when she tasted all that salt) and choked on it a bit. So it was ok for me to take it away.

The pressure is immense when we go out with friends or to relatives. After a couple of banana and pear and melon meals they start wandering when I start feeding the child.

Patty, how old is your daughter and what does she eat now?

Thanks folks for your input.
cricri

Cricri, I wanted to send you a private message but unfortunately your box is full.

cricri

that is sad about what u said about societal pressure
but your daughter will thank you for it later when she is the only kid
that is not suffering from ear aches, throat aches, eye problems, asthma, diabetes, and even cancer which some kids get from early ages

it is good that you see the value in what you are doing and think it is worth it
it certainly is

i think that adults , later on, have life long health problems due to what they were fed as babies

your baby is one lucky little girl

to have you as her mom

best wishes

LV

unfortunately my kids are still sad/cooked food eaters i didn`t adopt this lifestyle for myself until a couple months ago so i am a newbie.i`m working on them with smoothies though LOL. my kids are 8 and almost 12...the 8 year old is my daughter autumn and the 12 year old my son tyler. i am trying to teach them to listen to their bodies and trying to school them about nutrients but they are filled with humor and say here goes the crazy salad lady again!!! LOL but i know it`s sinking in. don`t let other people make you feel bad, it`s overwhelming enough to just be a 1st time mom. read and learn and then make your best judgments. you are her mother, you are in charge of her life, you make the decisions. the more educated and confident you are the better and easier it will be to explain, if you feel you have to explain, which i don`t think you do why you are raising her the way you are. it`s not gonna get easier, hun. when she`s in school or out and about she`ll have to be able to have the tools to stand her ground. it`s your job to give her those tools as she grows you`re a great mom, have faith in yourself. i don`t know your stand on multivitamins or if she`s breastfed but would you consider a multi?
patty

What are the restrictions on getting someone to send/mail you packages of fruits and veggies? Depending on time delay, you might try that. I sent my mother haas avocados once thru the mail..but it was only here in the US, state to state.

Love,
Prism

Prisim that is a wonderful idea. I do wonder how much it would cost to send some produce to romania.
I take care of my grand son who is 11 months old now. He loves avacados. If he sees me eating he hollers for some of my food. I have given him some of my tomato also. When I juice I give him a cup of fresh vegetable juice and he gets real happy after drinking it. One thing I did was blend some greens and avacado with a apple in it I did'nt like it to well but he ate it without any problems. It even had dulse sprinkled in it, He loved it. Some children are a little picky in what they eat. Thats o.k. its good that you are feeding her health foods. Don't sweat the cracker though. She will gravitate to the foods that make her feel good.

Thanks a lot to all of you and especially for your intention to send produce here. To my knowledge that is not possile. Anything that can spoil is forbidden. The package would take at least a week, usually around 2 weeks, so the produce would be rather stale.

Mosaica, I'm checking now my PM box. How many PMs can you have? I only have around 5.

I know my daughter will be better off in the long term with raw. I only hope I can give her the tools to stick to it when she is older...going to school, wanting to not stick out with an odd diet...I'll take things one at a time. I hope the societal pressure will lessen to some degree in Canada.

Yes, you can have only 5 which is ridiculous but there is help. You can make a folder and import them there.
When you go to you PMs you'll see an option called Edit Messages. Click on it and simply create a new folder. My new folder is called Saved, because I save all the received ones here so I won't have my mailbox full. So when you got a PM you'll see Select folder and Move buttons on the bottom right side. If you click Move, you can select your new folder and import the message there. Very simple, it takes longer to explain than to do.

cricri Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi everyone!
>
> I admire immensely what you are all doing. Though
> right now I cannot be even high raw because of the
> insane costs of fruits and veggies this summer in
> Romania (probably the driest and most weird year
> since weather recordings) I keep reading and
> learning and my 11 mo old daughetr is pretty much
> 100% raw.
>
> My problem is: I'm trying to feed her some avocado
> but she has a huge sweet tooth. What can I combine
> it with that would be sweet? I know the best
> combination would be greens but there's no way I
> can convince her to swallow that. She has greens
> in the form of juice or smoothie, combined with
> carrot juice or something.
>
> Any help for curbing down her sweet tooth would be
> also appreciated. She seems to be resricting her
> diet to... BANANAS!
>
> love,
> peace
> Cricri

allow your daughter to choose from what you provide.
she knows best.
don't try and control her.

when i first started raw I ate fruit mostly (and still do), and i found my favorite way to incorporate avacado was to chop it up in bite sized peices and put it in a fruit salad.

you said she likes bananas right now, so avas and nanners are very similar texture, so chop them both up in a bowl, maybe add a couple other fruits, toss'em together, yummy.

avocado and medjools blended make a sweet fat pudding or add water and its a thick shake that is sweet

Mosaica Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes, you can have only 5 which is ridiculous but
> there is help. You can make a folder and import
> them there.
> When you go to you PMs you'll see an option called
> Edit Messages. Click on it and simply create a new
> folder. My new folder is called Saved, because I
> save all the received ones here so I won't have my
> mailbox full. So when you got a PM you'll see
> Select folder and Move buttons on the bottom right
> side. If you click Move, you can select your new
> folder and import the message there. Very simple,
> it takes longer to explain than to do.



Thanks mosaica, very helpful.

I agree with fresh. Let your daughter eat what she wants. Avos are not the best food for young children. Sweet fruit has higher nutrient density (vitamins per calorie ratio and minerals per calorie ratio) than an avocado.

The best food your daughter could be eating is mother's milk. Next to that, fresh sweet and juicy fruits. If she desires greens, then feed her greens. But don't train her to like fat, as this will not serve her health.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2007 02:53AM by Bryan.

Another thing. Don't be in a hurry to train her to like honey. Honey will give her cavities in her teeth. Sweet fruit is far superior to honey in terms of nutrients.

Nice to see a Romanian here - I thought I am the only one.
I'll keep my eyes on you :-)

Mult noroc shi buna dispozitzie!
(Good luck and good mood)

Pls. excuse my English - foreigner.

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Medicine, Food Industry and Commerce are businesses.
Is their goal to make/keep me healthy or to make more profit?
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Cricri, here's a link about the danger of honey for babies.

[www.publichealthgreybruce.on.ca]

I was just reading a little about the low-acidity in infants being the reason they can't tolerate the botulism spores in honey and it made me wonder.....if infants have low-acidity, maybe that's how we're supposed to stay. Maybe honey isn't a natural food.

I don't eat honey because I don't like it, but it would be one of the last foods I would worry about from an vegan standpoint because it can be harvested without physically harming bees, It still doesn't make sense to me as a food, though.

Any thoughts?