Arlo Eats - Toddler edition 1.0

It's been a while since I shared a detailed post about what Arlo eats. In fact, my last post was when he was around nine months, and eating mostly puffs and purées! Things have changed a lot since then.  As mentioned in his 15 month update, shortly after his one year birthday, we switched him to a fully plant based diet.  I did a lot of research on toddler nutrition before we made this change, especially in the non-dairy milk department.  It is also worth mentioning for any new readers that I have been vegan for eight years now, and have formal training both as a nurse and a cooking and nutrition instructor for The Cancer Project, a non-profit organization that focuses on educating the public about a plant-based diet.  So this wasn't something that I just made up as went along, and not something that I take lightly either. That being said - if you are thinking of starting your child on a plant based diet I highly encourage you to do a lot of research on your child's nutritional needs, as well as consult with your pediatrician. Ok, disclaimer out of the way - onto the good stuff!

Our mornings usually begin around 6:45am when Arlo wakes up, and by 7:00am or so we are downstairs in the kitchen to get breakfast started.  This is the one meal that doesn't tend to vary too much, and he usually eats the same thing every morning without complaint.  He always gets fruit - usually 1/2 banana, mixed organic berries (whatever looks good that week at the store), and 1/2 a kiwi or clementine.  In addition to that, I make a special dish of oatmeal just for him, which consists of quick oats (from the bulk bin at Whole Foods), cinnamon, nut butter (usually sunflower or almond), flax oil (about a teaspoon), and just a touch of maple syrup to give it a little sweetness.  Sometimes I also add in raisins or blueberries.  Up until recently, I was spoon and fork feeding him everything, although he has been practicing with utensils at school since he started there.  Recently, he got a hold of the fork I was using to feed him his dinner, and started using it all on his own!  I didn't think he was ready quite yet, and suspected we would end up with quite the mess, but he actually does a decent job at stabbing his food with the fork and bringing it to his mouth.  The spoon is a little more challenging but he is starting to get the hang of it.

Arlo's oats - I just put everything in a small glass bowl, add some hot water from the kettle, mix and let sit for 3-4 minutes, and it's ready to eat!  If it is too hot, I add in a few frozen blueberries which makes it the perfect temp.

I have tried offering Arlo milk with his meals, but he actually much prefers water.  So he gets a bottle or sippy cup of milk mid-morning between breakfast and lunch, a smoothie with his mid-afternoon snack, and a bottle before bed.  Overall he typically takes in 16-18 ounces of milk per day.

Depending on the day and how hungry he is, Arlo will sometimes get a mid-morning snack around the time of his milk.  Today I gave him Organic O's (Whole Foods version of Cheerios) in his snack catcher while we were out for our morning walk.  I should also mention that 95% of what Arlo eats is organic.  The pesticides in our food supply are not good for any of us, but are especially important to avoid in growing children.  We always choose organic whenever possible, and depending on the food will sometimes not even buy unless an organic version is available.


We usually eat lunch between 11:30am and noon, and Arlo goes down for his nap shortly after.  This is the schedule they follow at school, and it works great for us at home as well.  Arlo's lunches, as are mine, are typically leftovers from the previous nights dinner.  Today Arlo had green peas and baked tofu, raw carrot sticks, and seed crackers with hummus.  He will usually also get fruit or raisins for dessert.  I always wait until he is done with his main meal before giving him dessert, otherwise he will fill up on fruit and leave the other stuff on his plate.  He is a fruit monster, it is definitely his favorite food right now.

After his nap, sometime between 2 and 3pm, it's snack time.  When it is not a school day and we are at home, I always make him a smoothie.  I make it a little differently each day, but the basics are usually his milk mixture, banana, frozen berries, hemp or flax oil, and nuts or a nut butter.  Today I used banana, milk, blueberries, hemp oil, and walnuts.  I also gave him a few graham crackers.  Other afternoon snacks might include cereal, raisins, carrot sticks, non-dairy yogurt, fig bars, pretzels, or fresh fruit like orange wedges, apple slices, or quartered grapes.

Oh, and a word on his non-dairy milk mixture.  Arlo drinks a blend of hemp, oat, soy, and flax milks, combined in equal portions.  Together, they provide good amounts of fat, calcium, protein, and calories.  Every few days I mix up a big glass pitcher of his milks so it's ready to go when I need to make a smoothie or bottle and I don't have to get out all four milk cartons.

all of his milks are "unsweetened" as Arlo gets plenty of natural sugars from all the fruits he eats.  the oat milk is naturally very sweet without any added sugar which adds a slight sweetness to the milk mixture.

Evenings are when things tend to get a little challenging in our house from a food perspective.  Arlo usually gets hungry around 5pm, which to feed him at that time would require me to start dinner around 4pm if he was going to eat what I was cooking for Erik and I.  The problem is, Erik doesn't get home until 6pm or after, so I usually end up serving dinner twice.  Today, as I often have been recently, I opted to make Arlo his own dish, and fed him his meal around 5:15.  Erik and I ate together when he got home from work, and I gave Arlo a few bites of my food while we were eating, even though he had already finished his and been cleaned up long before we sat down to eat.  Today, Arlo had mashed avocado on whole grain flax bread, corn, berries, and a bowl of leftover lentils I made the previous day.  I often make a super simple pot of red lentils, spinach, and some Earth Balance or olive oil for healthy fats.  I also add a tiny pinch of salt for flavor.  Arlo loves this dish and it will keep in the fridge for several days.  I am hoping that after we move closer to Erik's new job we can return to eating together as a family, but for now this is my temporary solution to keep everyone fed and happy.

lentil dish.  this one also had quinoa, millet, and butternut squash.

And just in case you were curious as to what Erik and I had...

Cuban black beans with onion, bell peppers, corn and tomato.  side of brown rice with avocado, cilantro, radish, and lime.  yum!

And to answer a question that I am prepared to do many times in the coming years when people learn that Arlo is being raised on a plant-based diet:

"Your kid is a vegan?!  But where does he get his..."

Protein:  nut butters, beans, lentils, quinoa, tofu and tempeh (eaten a few times per month), soy milk, non-dairy yogurts, flax milk which is fortified with pea protein, and the oat milk and hemp milk that he drinks have small amounts as well (4g and 2g respectively per serving.)

iron:  leafy greens, beans, tofu, lentils, and quinoa.

calcium: calcium-fortified non-dairy milks, broccoli and leafy greens, beans, and tahini.

fat: avocado, hemp oil, flax oil, nut butters, flax seed, tahini, tofu, and tempeh.

vitamin B12:  nutritional yeast and fortified non-dairy milks.

* please note that lots and lots of foods have small amounts of protein, fat, and iron.  Take broccoli and sunflower seeds for example.  You might not think of them necessarily as a good source of iron or protein, but broccoli has 4 grams of protein and 1.1 mg of iron per cup!  Sunflower seeds have 3.3 grams of protein and 1.2 mg of iron per 1/4 cup.  These foods might not get you to your recommended daily allowance on their own, but those little bits here and there add up throughout the day.

And lastly, some of our favorite food-related products, many are seen in the photos above:

Pura Kiki stainless steel cups: In my quest to eliminate all plastic from Arlo's life, I bought these sippy cups a few months ago.  These were the only 100% plastic-free cups I could find, as the vessel is stainless steel and the spout is pure silicone.  Overall, I do like these cups.  They come with regular bottle nipples for a younger baby, and you can also purchase a silicone straw top instead of the sippy spouts.  Arlo took to these right away, and we often use them in place of his bottles.  The downsides - they are not the easiest to clean, they are insanely expensive (the three bottles, silicone sleeves, and sippy spouts and shipping cost somewhere between $60-70.  ouch.)  As well if they sustain a fall from a high chair or table, they dent pretty easily.  Probably not something I would buy more of, but we do get a lot of use out of the few that we have.  I eventually realized that a completely plastic-free existence is not only expensive but stressful as well, so I relaxed my no-plastic rules and bought these:

Re-Play Plates: Another mom blogger I follow recommended these, and my local evil big box store carries them (for less than $5 a pack) so I decided to give them a try.  We love them.  Easy to clean, super durable, and fun colors too.  I like that the food can sit in divided compartments, and I think Arlo likes that too.

OXO roll-up bib:  Love, love, love this bib.  We have another pocket-style bib that we used for many months before I discovered these.  The problem with it is that the whole thing is rigid rubber, which seems uncomfortable for Arlo and has even pinched his neck a couple of times.  These OXO bibs are awesome - soft up top but have a sturdy pocket to catch dropped food.  Easy to clean, waterproof, and they roll up compactly for travel.  I bought two and haven't used another bib since.

snack catcher:  nothing too fancy here, just a little non-spill snack container that Arlo can use to feed himself his Organic O's, raisins, pretzels, and other small snacky foods.  We started using this when he was around 10 months old, but it took him a while to realize it wasn't some game I was providing him with, and that the goal wasn't to pull out giant fistfuls of food to then feed to the dog.

silicone placement:  I don't know the brand, but I recently found an inexpensive 100% silicone placemat at Target for around $4.  It is perfect for eating out at restaurants, folds up small, and is easy to clean.  I love that it keeps his food off the restaurant table, as well as makes cleaning up the mess easier for us.


So there you have it, everything our little foodie baby is up to at 16 months old!  And a couple more of my favorite meal time photos...

cheese-ball face

the face of a little guy who just drank his smoothie out of a regular cup.

Arlo Eats

Now that Arlo is well into eating solid foods, I thought I would share a little more detail about what he eats and how I prepare his meals.  I always knew I would be making his baby food at home, but had no idea how fun it would be to come up with new recipes and allow him to try new things.  It's no secret that food and nutrition are very important to me, so it shouldn't surprise you that I am pretty excited to be introducing our little guy to the wonderful world of fruits, veggies, grains, and beans.  I have loosely been following the advice of the "baby food bible" Super Baby Food, and have taken the bits and pieces I feel are appropriate for us and also added in a few of my own ideas.  The most helpful information I took from the book is the schedule of which foods are appropriate for baby at their current age.  Since I am no expert on the development of an infant's gastrointestinal tract, and I didn't want to upset his little tummy or increase his risk of a food reaction, I tried to not to introduce foods until the book said it was okay to do so.  So far he has not had any signs of allergy or sensitivity to anything he has tried, and fortunately eats pretty much everything I offer him.  Let's hope that this adventurous sense of eating continues into toddlerhood.  Toddlers like kale and quinoa, right?  ;)

Making the meals:

Each week I choose a new food or two to buy at the store, and if it requires cooking and freezing I try and do so as soon as I can to preserve the nutrients.  99% of what Arlo has eaten has been organic, and while I will surely relax this rule as time goes on, I feel at his young age it is absolutely essential for him to avoid unnecessary pesticides whenever possible.  In terms of how I make his meals each day, the food prep depends on what it is, and if he can eat it raw or if it needs to be cooked.  Breakfast typically consists of a mashed raw fruit mixed with oatmeal cereal, and lunch and dinners are usually cooked veggies mixed with rice cereal or other grains.

Example breakfasts:

• fork mashed bananas + oatmeal
• peaches + oatmeal
• pears + applesauce + oatmeal
• pureed blueberries + fork mashed bananas + oatmeal
• banana pieces (finger foods)
• kiwi pieces (too slippery for him to pick up, I feed him with a spoon)

 

Example lunch and dinners:

• sweet potato + rice
• peas + quinoa
• squash + tahini+ rice
• carrots + spinach + rice or quinoa
• green beans + carrots + rice
• kale + apples + mixed grain cereal (oats, barley, and spelt) 

Raw foods:  This process is super simple and just requires having the right foods on hand!  This is how I typically make his breakfast, and involves either taking the fruit and fork mashing or blending lightly in the baby bullet, and then mixing in some store-bought or made at home baby cereal (we are doing mostly store-bought at this time because it is super convenient and fortified with DHA, choline, and probiotics.)  I mix in a little bit of hot water from the electric kettle to warm the meal a bit, and then stir it all together, adding more cereal or water until the right consistency is reached.  Arlo is doing well with thick foods that have small chunks now, but back when he started solids preferred a much smoother consistency.  Examples of some raw foods that Arlo is eating include: banana, pears, peaches, blueberries, spinach (although that requires blending), and avocado.

Cooked foods:  This method takes a bit longer to prepare initially but can be done in large batches, saving you time when making future meals.  As I mentioned before, I usually pick a new food or two each week and prep it that day if possible to preserve nutrients.  I will either bake, boil, or steam the veggie, and then process it in the vitamix.  I then freeze it in a 2 ounce cube that can easily be mixed with 2 ounces of cereal (or beans or cooked grains) or 2 ounces of another veggie for a complete 4 ounce meal.  The baby bullet I bought (new for $15 at a yard sale - score!) also came with three silicone freezer trays so I can make 18 cubes at a time.  Once the cubes are frozen I put them in a labeled freezer ziploc bag and store in my dedicated baby food freezer drawer.  I always save 2-3 meals worth of the veggie I just cooked and store it in glass jars in the fridge so Arlo can have several days in a row of the new food to monitor for a reaction.  

When I am planning his meals for the next day, I will take out 2 or so frozen cubes of baby food and let them defrost overnight in glass jars, and by the time he is ready to eat they will be thawed and ready for cereal to be mixed in.  As it turns out, the cute tapered jars that Beech Nut baby foods come in fit the frozen cubes like they were meant for each other, and those small jars fit into our bottle warmer perfectly, allowing us to avoid the microwave or inconvenience of heating each meal in a pan on the stove.  So while the process might sound complicated, the time I spend to prepare each of his meals is perhaps 1-2 minutes at most.  I have several empty de-labeled jars (that I ate the contents of because Beech Nut doesn't make organics, whomp whomp) so I can store, heat, and serve his meals in glass.

1.)  fork mashed bananas + blended blueberries, ready for some oatmeal to be mixed in  2.) breakfast ready to eat  3.)  happy baby with full tummy  4.)  all gone!

A fun thing I have been doing lately is making two or three foods at one time, and freezing them layered together in the silicone molds.  This allows Arlo to have several foods at once, without having to preplan to defrost several foods at the same time, and try to figure out what things I have on hand that might mix well together.  

green beans + carrots on the left and butternut squash on the right.  once defrosted just mix in some cereal/grains, heat, and serve!

Finger Foods:

 

this kid loves his puffs!

While we are still doing mostly mashed/blended foods for Arlo, he is also starting to get into finger foods as well.  He has been enjoying teething biscuits and puffs for a while now, but recently we also started to give him his first tastes of table food.  When we went out for my birthday two weeks ago, we tried an Ethiopian restaurant for the first time, and have Arlo a few pieces of the bread that comes with the meals, called Injera, and he absolutely loved it.  He also had a few bites of the non-spicy lentil dish and chickpea salad and liked those as well, although I did spoon feed him that as they are not really "finger foods."  This past week at dinner I let him feed himself some roasted sweet potato pieces I made, as well as some plain pasta noodles.  He did really well until he either got full or bored, as he decided to turn the potatoes into finger paints and smear them around his high chair tray.  It is pretty fun to sit down together at the table and eat the same foods, watching Arlo feed (and happily entertain) himself during dinner!

The plan (if there can be one with anything baby related) is to continue to introduce appropriate finger foods, but also keep on feeding him blended (and eventually more whole form) baby foods for as long as he will let me.  Many of the things he takes in "baby food" form wouldn't be easy (or safe) for him to feed himself right now, such as blueberries, kale, quinoa, and other small grains.  So I obviously want him to continue to eat those for nutritional reasons, but also so he develops a taste for these foods while he is young and will hopefully want to eat them as he grows up.

Going out to eat:

As mentioned before, I love making Arlo's meals at home, and this is what he is eating the vast majority of the time.  But when meeting friends at the local co-op, traveling, or just going out to dinner, the convenience of those store bought baby food pouches can't be beat.  Plus, they come in such amazing combinations of fruits, grains, and veggies that I have a hard time not eating them myself!  My biggest complaint about these pouches is the packaging.  Not only does it seem wasteful, but it's made of plastic, one of my least favorite materials.  So we try and limit the pouches to when we are out and about, and stick with the homemade stuff when at home.

"Sprout" brand - made just for Arlo aka Sprout?  ;)

Up until recently we have been feeding him by either squeezing the pouches onto a spoon bite by bite or using one of those screw-on style baby spoons that attach directly to the pouch.  However we recently decided to try and squirt it directly into Arlo's mouth right from the pouch.  Once he got a little taste of the food he closed his lips around the spout and sucked it down like it was a bottle!  We actually had to slow him down at one point because he had taken in around 1/3 of the pouch without even stopping.  He even held it himself for a bit and ate, although since we were out at a restaurant and didn't want baby food to squirt everywhere we helped him with most of it.

And an update on the sippy cup:

I started to let Arlo play with the sippy cup many months ago, probably when he was around 4 or 5 months old.  I thought that would help him learn to use one early, but in fact I think I might have taught him that it is not, in fact, a vessel from which to drink fluids, but a fun toy that makes lots of noise when you bang it against the high chair tray.  Oops.  We introduced a straw cup a few weeks ago and while he will sometimes drink from it without issue, he usually spits most of the water out and thinks its a fun game.  He is getting enough fluids between his bottles and solids though, so I am not too worried that he isn't a big fan of water yet.  I have no plans for diluted juice anytime soon, and I plan to hold off on any milks until he is around a year.  I am still researching our best options, but right now I am leaning towards giving him a combination of oat, almond, hemp, and rice milks.  We will choose options fortified with calcium so he will be getting at least as much as he would if we had him on a dairy-based milk.

Right now I think we are off to a great nutritional start and hope that our little man continues to be a good eater.  I am really excited about introducing him to more of the foods that we like to eat, and watching him grow into a more independent eater.  His favorite things right now are sweet potatoes, bananas (and all other sweet fruits), and surprisingly - kale!  

Leaving you with one last picture, quite possibly my favorite one to date of him eating.  This is what it looks like when your baby can't decide between taking a nap and eating a teething biscuit....