Are you a parent? Do you want what’s best for your child? I have to laugh when I ask the question. It’s kinda like asking if you enjoy sunshine. Of course, you do. Who doesn’t? Every parent wants to give their babies the best possible start in this world. Take a look at the thousands of available books, magazines, and websites on these subjects, and you’ll see what I see — a flood of information. Conflicting information.
How can you know what’s best? Who’s word can you trust? For myself, I’ve always opted to do what made intuitive sense. That way, I could be honest with myself. In the very least, I want my parenting to be authentic. Even if I make mistakes, if those mistakes are fueled by genuine love, I have confidence my children will turn out well. So, I’ll read a book, peruse a parenting forum, even take a class, but in the end the tools I put in my tool belt are the ones that come the most naturally to me. When it all boils down to it, I am the expert of my own life. Nobody else is in my home with me, living in my marriage, parenting my kids with my husband and I. Even my best friends get relatively few hours of my time. They get the summarized version of events — the highlights of the extremes. They’re never with me in the minutiae, the little moments that fill my days, the innumerable small decisions that present themselves to me.
This doesn’t mean I immediately discount all advice. That’d be stupid. But it does mean that I have enough confidence in myself to weigh the advice I get. Sometimes, it comes from a parental worldview so wildly antithetical to my own there is little I can do but shake my head and say, “that is so not for me.” Other times, I find myself constantly nodding my head in agreement — awed that someone else comes from a place so similar to my own.
That, dear readers, is how I feel about Nourished Baby by Heather Dessinger.
Heather is an old college friend of mine, a Real Food nutrition blogger at Mommypotamus, and stay-at-home mother like me. Like me, her formal education isn’t in nutrition. Like me, she was inspired by her children to seek out a better way to nourish them. And, like me, she found herself gravitating towards the world of Real Food.
Like me, she researched, researched, and researched some more. Ultimately, she formed a nutritional worldview based on a simple premise: Eat traditional, real food. This is not processed food. This is not the food of giant agribusinesses or the food industry.
This is food your great, great grandmother would have recognized as food. Essentially, it’s the way food was pre-industry — when cows spent their whole lives on pasture, chickens roamed farms and yards freely, all fruits and vegetables were “organic,” and people “put up” food by traditional means of salt-curing and lactic-acid fermentation.
Starting from this place, you’ll ask a different set of questions when you nourish your babies. Instead of walking down the baby food aisle, looking at the recommended ages for introducing particular foods on shelves, you’ll wonder what your great grandmother fed your grandfather when he was a baby. You’ll wonder what sorts of foods parents in other countries traditionally fed their babies. You’ll look for the common denominators. Then, you’ll feed that to your baby.
In Nourished Baby, Heather spends the first part of the book introducing her food philosophy to readers. It’s simple and straightforward. She’s not writing a dry research paper. She’s not even trying to convince you that her way is the only way. Her goal here is communication. She wants you to know where she’s coming from, to follow her train of logic so you can understand why the recipes in the second half of the book aren’t your typical baby food fare.
And that’s where the true value of this little e-book rests — in the recipes.
New parents are often stumped about how to introduce foods to their babies and when. Beyond looking to successful traditional food cultures as a guide, Heather also takes a “family table” approach to baby foods. Translation? No purees or feeding with spoons. Rather, you introduce foods socially — the same foods that are on your own table — and in an order that promotes optimal digestion and nourishment.
Take a moment to marvel at what she’s done.
She’s compiled a list of nourishing foods that your spouse, your kids, and you will enjoy, AND these foods are all baby-friendly.
Will the wonders never cease?
If you’re a parent who is starving for new and creative ways to nourish your baby that don’t break the bank, that don’t require extra kitchen time, and yet will keep everyone in your family satiated and happy, I highly recommend you buy Nourished Baby.
If you know someone who’s a parent, someone who could use a little Real Food inspired nudge towards feeding their babies well, I also recommend you buy them a copy of Nourished Baby.
It’s a good book, a pleasant read. I’m certain you’ll find it enjoyable, valuable, and useful.
Want to know more?
If you want to find out more about what the book is all about, read reviews by other readers, or even buy the book, click here.
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Thank you so much for all of your wonderful information! I have an 11 month old who is weaning her self (she has been exclusively breastfed). She has a wonderful appetite for table food and eats 2 eggs a day, lots of meats, yogurt, fruits and veggies. We DO NOT want to give her formula, but everyone says babies aren’t supposed to have milk until the magical age of 1. We thought of maybe doing goats milk but eventually want her to drink raw cow’s milk like we do. Do you have any advice to offer? Thank you again!
If I were you, I’d try to pump as much as possible, and if necessary, supplement with a homemade formula. I recommend these:
http://www.westonaprice.org/childrens-health/recipes-for-homemade-baby-formula
I’m very interested in this book since I’m about to start foods with my third baby in the next few months. He’s almost 9 months now, and I’m waiting as long as possible because I’ve had a lot of problems starting solids with my other two, even though I followed the advice in Nourishing Traditions and other similar resources. I need some more info to decide what to do! However, I’m very put off by the price of this book. I might pay that much for a hard copy, but not an ebook that I have to try read on my computer and can’t take into the kitchen with me or lend to a friend.
Hi Rosie,
I understand your hesitation. Because e-books are digital, they are priced based on the value they convey rather than the cost of production. That means you could pay anywhere from $5 for a short little 25 page tutorial on how to maintain a saltwater aquarium to $95 for a 200 page e-book that teaches you how to pass your LSAT, complete with practice tests.
Based on the informative content as well as the number of recipes, I think Heather’s asking price of $18 is very reasonable.
I have the book. I read it coverto cover. I love it. I just have one disagreement with her and with Sally Fallon. I stressed out over feeding my baby at 4 or 6 months. He just would not eat. He showed some signs but not all. Both the book and Sally seem to look at old science saying that babies need iron because mom’s milk is low on it. This doesn’t jive. Yes. Moms milk is low on it but it is digested much more efficiently than food. I finally stopped freaking out at my babies 9 mo check when his hemoglobin was phenomenal. I still try and feed him every day… Eggs, chicken livers but he’s not interested. With that said, this is a small part of the book and everything else is right on. I’m certainly following the recommends on what NOT to feed him. Makes so much sense. Great book. Highly recommend.
While I think this is a good book for anyone who has not read Nourishing Traditions, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Real Food for Baby and Mother (or the numerous blogs and websites on the GAPS diet and Paleo diet), for those of us who have read any of those books, it is just the same information. Even the recipes in the book can simply be found on Heather’s blog. If I had spent a few dollars on this PDF it wouldn’t have bothered me, but $18.99 is extreme. I was expecting a lot more and I am really disappointed. I wish that I could return it, but sadly I can’t because it’s not sold in hard copy form.
Leah,
I can understand why you’d feel that way. Because you’re so familiar with all her sources as well as her blog, you felt it was repetitive. Just remember, though, that you probably weren’t her intended audience.
E-books are often written to reach new audiences, to summarize critical points for new readers so that they don’t have to go back and read several years’ worth of archived blog posts. This book does this really well.
I love Heather’s voice and wit. I love seeing how she draws these familiar ideas together in new ways. And I enjoyed having her baby-friendly recipes all in one place.
While I’m sad that you were disappointed, I don’t think $18.99 is extreme for an informative and useful e-book like this.
I love your blog and find out lots of new information based on what you write or are reading (or from other bloggers who post every Friday). I have enjoyed Heather’s blog at well and think she is a great writer. However, based on your review and the fact that you are always coming across new information, I did expect a lot more. I wrote that review so that people who have read other books relating to the subject matter understand that it is mainly the same info.
I have to respectfully disagree about the $18.99. For that price I think it should be something you have in your hands instead of scrolling down on a computer screen.
I used to feel the same way until a couple of years ago when I became an avid e-book reader. Now I rarely, if ever, read books in print.
As I said to Rosie above, because e-books are digital, they are priced based on the value they convey rather than the cost of production. That means you could pay anywhere from $5 for a short little 25 page tutorial on how to maintain a saltwater aquarium to $95 for a 200 page e-book that teaches you how to pass your LSAT, complete with practice tests.
Based on the informative content as well as the number of recipes, I think Heather’s asking price of $18 is very reasonable.
I agree – GREAT book!
Like some of the other readers here, I have to agree on the steep price of the book. I do personally purchase a lot of e-books, I have a kindle and absolutely love it. However, no e-book that I’ve purchased in pdf or for my kindle has even come close to 18.99. For that price, I would expect a hard copy that I can take with me and mark up, reading on a computer screen an e-book that is on pdf is not conducive. I’ve found that reading books that have a lot of recipes are not great on a kindle either so would want to purchase this type of book in a hard copy. A bit disappointed at the price and will be passing on this even though I was excited when I first came across it. I’ll stick to going through the history on the blog instead. 🙁
I would like to post an updated review. Since I last posted I learned that I am pregnant with my second child. While I still believe that the price of this book is steep for an ebook, it has been a wonderful resource for me the last month. It has been nice to only have to go to one place for information. Although I have read many books regarding this info, I think it’s important to refresh your memory during such an important time in one’s life.