Intro

#144: Do you ever take a look at all of the crazy baby food items for sale today and wonder: how did they get here? What did people feed their babies before the advent of commercial baby foods? Do babies need to eat pouches? Do I need to buy baby food?

As a new mom who also happened to be a food historian, my guest Amy Bentley definitely did. She is a professor in the department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University and author of the book “Inventing baby Food: Taste, Health and the Industrialization of the American Diet.”

In this interview Amy is discussing the history of the baby food industry, shifting guidance and recommendations on the appropriate age to start solid foods over the decades, how pouches came to dominate the baby food aisle but how they also remove the socialization aspect from family meals.

Listen to this episode to learn:

1. How the guidance and recommendations about when to start solid foods has swung so rapidly over the past decade...but why it looks like 6 months is here to stay
2. How the confluence of industrialization of the food supply, medicalization of labor and delivery and the discovery of vitamins catapulted commercial baby food into the market
3. When commercial baby food is appropriate or useful and how social norms, cultural expectations and advertising and marketing efforts all shape our purchasing decisions

Shownotes for this episode can be found here:

https://www.babyledweaning.co/podcast/144

Links from This Episode:

• Amy Bentley’s current project from NYU: Food & Covid-19 Digital Archive & Collection can be found here: https://wp.nyu.edu/foodandcovid19/ 
• Read more about Amy’s work at NYU here: https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/amy-bentley 
• Amy Bentley’s Book is titled: Inventing Baby Food: Taste, Health, and the Industrialization of the American Diet
• Bentley, Amy. "Ketchup as a Vegetable: Condiments and the Politics of School Lunch in Reagan's America." Gastronomica 21:1(February 2021): 17-27 article is here.    
• Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program with the 100 First Foods™ Daily Meal Plan, join here: https://babyledweaning.co/program 
•  Baby-Led Weaning for Beginners free online workshop with 100 First Foods™ list to all attendees, register here: https://babyledweaning.co/baby-led-weaning-for-beginners

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Not sure about which foods to offer your baby next? Get your copy of my original 100 FIRST FOODS list on my free online video workshop called BABY-LED WEANING FOR BEGINNERS.

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Want guided help on how to make all of the 100 FIRST FOODS™ safely for your baby? My program BABY-LED WEANING WITH KATIE FERRARO has a 100 FIRST FOODS daily meal plan and everything else you need to start solid foods safely with baby-led weaning. CLICK HERE TO JOIN.

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Be sure to follow @babyledweanteam on Instagram and our Baby-Led Weaning YouTube channel for more information about helping your baby transition to solid foods safely.

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