This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 12:03pm and is filed under Parenting, Media and information, Organic foods, Labels, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Our friends at Barfblog have posted this article from the NY Times, which says that babies prefer organic formulas because they use cane sugar, making them significantly sweeter.
I’m all for buying natural food for my children, and organic formula seems to make sense, right? And if my baby likes the way it tastes, isn’t that a win-win?
“No health problems in babies have been associated with Similac Organic. But to pediatricians, there are risks in giving babies cane sugar: Sucrose can harm tooth enamel faster than other sugars; once babies get used to its sweeter taste, they might resist less sweet formulas or solid foods; and some studies suggest that they might overeat, leading to rapid weight gain in the first year, which is often a statistical predictor of childhood obesity.”
We all love big, bouncy babies, but this article makes me pause. How many mothers think about over-consumption when their child is upset and hungry? And how many of them will, like one of the mothers quoted in the article, re-think their formula choice after finding this out?
We tend to just grab a product that says “organic” and head towards the check-out, but there’s a lot more behind the labels then we take the time to find out. I want what’s best for my children, and as both a mother and someone who wants to stay informed I have to make time to find out the facts. And as a bonus, this helps me teach my children to make better choices. But what’s the right choice here?
PS: Daddy Types has a great take on this, too.
TAGS: 
organic; 
baby; 
food labels
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:13am
I think a lot of people take label terms like “organic”, “whole grain”, “no artificial…” to mean that a food is automatically healthy. Junk food is junk food, organic suagrs and fats are still sugars and fats.
I believe the food itself is more important in most instances than the production system used to grow it. Personally, I’d rather feed my kids fresh fruits and vegetables and non-processed meats produced through traditional methods than processed foods that are organic, or “___-free”.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:15am
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