If your child does not eat vegetables, herbs, fish and meat well, then soup can be a good option to please the little home gourmet. In addition, warm soup, perfectly warms in the cold season. It contains many useful substances.
Why is soup important in a baby’s diet?
Some nutrients are better absorbed when heated than when eaten raw. For example, starch from potatoes and other vegetables containing it. In addition, when you cook a dish that contains the water used for cooking, a number of substances from vegetables and herbs remain in it.
A Pennsylvania State University study of young children showed a range of health benefits when eating soup at the start of a meal. In addition to the benefits of eating vegetables, the feeling of fullness from the soup allows you to consume fewer calories from other dishes, which is an excellent prevention of obesity for those babies who need it. For more information on individual diets, contact a specialist.
When and what soups to introduce into the baby’s diet
Soup, as a full-fledged dish, appears in the daily diet of a child after 12 months. But, already in the second half of the year of life, when the baby got acquainted with all the main complementary foods: vegetable, meat, fruit purees, cereals and sour-milk products, other variations of dishes from these products can be introduced into his diet, for example, vegetable cream soups. The main thing here is that the product meets certain standards.
For kids, when preparing such a soup, vegetable broth is taken as the basis, from those vegetables that are already in the child’s diet. Not meat or fish, and here’s why: when cooking from bones and muscles, a large number of various substances pass into the broth, they are also called extractives, which can negatively affect the state of the gastrointestinal tract in the first place, and with regular consumption, and health other organs and systems.
“For the digestive and excretory systems, extractives can take a heavy toll. Therefore, at least up to 3 years, experts recommend giving babies soups only on a vegetable basis: lungs that do not create an extra burden on the body, ”says Tatiana Kovtun, scientific adviser to PROGRESS JSC, candidate of medical sciences.
For the first acquaintance with the soup, the child can be given mashed soups with a uniform consistency. Then gradually introduce soups with pieces.
For children over 6 months old who are already familiar with the main complementary foods, vegetable puree with the addition of meat puree, a small amount of dairy-free baby porridge for the consistency of vegetable or butter can become “soup”.
You can give your child a taste of ready-made children’s soups. For example, FrutoNyanya vegetable puree soups, which do not need to be cooked, just warmed up. For children older than 8 months, you can use FrutoNyanya vegetable soup with chicken, which includes not only vegetable, but also meat components.
The advantage of industrial baby food is that it is very convenient – it takes a lot of time to prepare the right baby soup, and for young parents this is sometimes a problem. In addition, the production facilities clearly monitor and guarantee the proven composition and microbiological safety (finding good meat and vegetables in the store or on the market is a real problem).
Also, in the production of baby food, the consistency of the product is strictly monitored. Children’s soups of industrial production can also be used in the nutrition of children in the second and third years of life.
When the digestive system is ready (after 3 years), you can start preparing soups for the whole family. But even here it is important to prepare the right broth, which will bring maximum benefit.
It should be cooked on the “second”, and preferably the “third” broth. Fish or meat should be from lean and sirloin parts. Then you pour the ingredients with cold water, bring to a boil, and when the foam appears, drain this broth and pour cold water over the fish or meat again.
Another important point – experts recommend giving soups on meat and fish broths to children no more than twice a week. You should start with small portions of 20-30 ml, focus on the child’s appetite and gradually increase the portion to 180-240 ml.