When it’s time to include solid foods into your baby’s diet at the 6-8 month mark, nutritionists advice packing in food high in essential nutrients and vitamins to promote good development and growth. Iron is an essential ingredient for babies to pick up motor skills.
Fruits make a great complement to the iron-rich diet that nutritionists advice as these power packed foods helps in facilitating iron absorption into baby’s system. Imbued with Vitamin C goodness, its anti-oxidant properties protects the baby against diseases, promotes healing in the body as well as facilitates growth of tissues.
The human body is unable to store Vitamin C and hence, have to take in these regularly through food sources. Therefore, small doses of Vitamin C rich foods are recommended. At 0-6 months, 40mg/day of Vitamin C is the recommended dosage for infants and largely, fruits should be served raw to your baby as far as possible.
To maintain the integrity of the fruit, try not to freeze the food and serve it fresh each time. It is best to allow the fruit to fully ripen as these contain more Vitamin C than unripe fruits. If you wish to cook your fruits, try steaming them to retain the vitamins within rather than boiling them. The boiling process may cause the Vitamin C to dissolve into the water.
Here is a great recipe for apple and mango puree, a sweet treat for your little one at the 8th month mark.
Apple and Mango Puree
Ingredients
1 ripened mango
1 red apple
Method
1) Peel, core and cut the apple into chunks and steam them.
2) Cut the mango lengthways, pop the seed out and cut the mango into little squares.
3) Place the cubes of mango and steamed apple chunks into a blender.
4) Blend the mixture smooth and serve.
