By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

Picture a baby, 6 months or older, sitting in a highchair, covered with food – maybe orange carrots or green puréed spinach. It’s clear that their eating experience is not just to satisfy hunger. First food experiences typically don’t result in lots of food going into (and staying in) baby’s mouth. These first encounters with solid food introduce new tastes, textures, and colors. They prepare babies for a lifetime of eating foods.

Pediatricians usually recommend that babies start eating solid food around age 6 months. That’s when they’re able to sit up and physically able to eat solid foods. Does it matter which foods are introduced first? A new study suggests that introducing vegetables before fruits may make it more likely that children will eat more vegetables.

In this study, which took place during the first 4 weeks of feeding solids, one group of babies ate only vegetables (spinach, potato, beets, green beans) and another group ate a combination of fruits and  sweeter vegetables (apple, pear, pumpkin, small amounts of spinach and beets mixed with apples and pears). This was in addition to the babies continuing to receive breast milk and/or infant formula. They also were given puréed meat as an iron source. Although this study used meat as an iron source, other foods such as iron-fortified baby cereals, puréed lentils and other legumes, and tofu supply iron. After the 4 weeks of the study were completed, families were encouraged to feed the babies as they wished.

When the babies in the study were 9 months old, the babies who had been in the “only vegetables” group ate more vegetables over the course of a day than did the babies who had been in the “fruit and sweeter vegetables” group. The babies in the “only vegetables” group were more likely to accept broccoli and spinach than were the other infants. Both groups of infants ate the same amount of fruit. According to the study’s authors, the take-home message could be to offer babies a variety of tastes of vegetables when they start eating solid foods.

Reference:

Rapson JP, von Hurst PR, Hetherington MM, Mazahery H, Conlon CA. Starting complementary feeding with vegetables only increases vegetable acceptance at 9 months: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022;116(1):111-121.

To read more about feeding babies see:

Vegan Nutrition in Pregnancy and Childhood

Off to a Good Start with Baby Cereal