“Pediatricians have recommended rice cereal for decades, as a baby’s first solid food. It’s easy on the tummy and gluten free, so baby is less likely to have an allergic reaction. But there is now a campaign against it.
“Do you want some more?” Carrie Plastow is helping her eight month old daughter Lydia adjust to solid foods. Her mom says she started, like most American moms, with rice cereal. “This is recommended by everyone, but doctors, by dieticians, by the WIC program, by everybody.”
Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician from Stanford University is fighting the recommendation. He has started the “white out” campaign. He says he has studied nutrition for ten years and is certain there is a link between rice cereal to the national epidemic of overweight children. “I have become convinced that white rice cereal can predispose to childhood obesity.”…”
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1 comment
Juliette Aiyana, Herbalist, Nutrition Author says:
Feb 1, 2011
Refined foods are not the only culprit to blame for obesity. But I won’t go off topic. Refined grains= a grain that HAD all the vitamins nutrients and oils inherent to the plant. Those are removed, then artificially replaced. Hummm….
Also, baffles me why the medical establishment recommends grains for infants/babies before they grow teeth to chew and swallow grainy material by themselves. The first step to digestion begins while chewing, in the mouth, where the digestive enzyme amylase is secreted in the saliva to start digesting carbohydrates/grains. Without this enzyme (which only occurs in the mouth, not in the stomach), grains will not be properly digested. This is why our grandmothers told us to chew slowly, 100 times before swallowing.