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Review and Giveaway: Nourished Baby by Mommypotamus

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Today we’re reviewing and giving away a copy of Nourished Baby by Heather Dessinger of The Mommypotamus. Heather provided me with a free copy of the eBook to review and graciously offered to allow us to give away one copy to a lucky reader.

Let me start out by saying I LOVED this eBook!  It is so refreshing to see a book about traditional foods eating for babies that gets it right! After seeing so much inaccurate and misleading information out of many traditional foods sources of information, this book was a wonderful breath of fresh air. Heather’s book is well researched and well written, with plenty of recipes in the back of the book to help you get started on feeding your baby right. If you read Heather’s blog, you know that she does a lot of research on all sides of an issue before she draws a conclusion, and this book is no different.

Heather begins the book by covering issues that other traditional foods sources ignore- micrometabolic imprinting in infancy. This extremely important aspect of gut health for your child forms the basis for the rest of his or her life and is critical for setting your child up for a healthy gut.  When you get this area right, your chances of having the child’s gut health go wrong decreases, and if something does go wrong, the severity is likely decreased by getting this one thing right. I believe this is one area that we’re going to see a lot more research on in the next few years and it will become more common knowledge of how important it is that a child’s gut be colonized correctly at birth.

Solid advice on how to nourish yourself during pregnancy and breastfeeding follows next. She discusses dietary advice and even includes a handy chart that shows possible cravings and what nutrient your body is possibly wanting and what other foods would satisfy that craving. 

Heather then moves on to discuss the appropriate introduction of solid foods based on ALL of the signs of solids readiness and the science behind it. Not introducing solids until all of the signs of readiness appears, showing that the gut has closed, is critical for reducing the possibility of food allergies and gut problems for the rest of their life.

I practiced baby-led weaning, which is what Heather recommends in the book. That includes when and how to introduce solids, allowing a child to feed themselves instead of the mother force-feeding them with a spoon and allowing the child to wean themselves from the breast once they are ready. I was delighted to see the list of what and when to introduce laid out so well.  I was especially pleased to see the advice to avoid grains until the age of 2 due to the lack of appropriate enzymes to digest them not being present until then. It always seems that there is a remature rush to introduce many foods to children, and Heather lays it all out so well based on when enzymes begin being produced, signaling that the gut is ready for them.

A FAQ and many recipes follow. Many of the recipes are appropriate not just for babies, but for the whole family.  That’s one thing I appreciate about a baby-led weaning approach, you don’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen preparing foods for the baby and foods for the rest of your family.  Instead, your baby eats what the rest of the family eats. The recipes are well-rounded and they look tasty. I’m particularly interested in trying some of her ferments once the farmer’s markets are open again and I can get some fresh, local organic produce.

There is only one point I disagreed with in the book.  Heather advocates egg yolk as an appropriate first food for infants, as does the Weston A Price Foundation.  In my ten years of doing traditional foods, my personal experience plus those of many, many mothers I have met is that egg yolk is too allergenic to be considered an appropriate first food. One of my children was faithfully given an egg yolk and CLO daily from 6 months, only to develop a severe egg allergy and I’ve heard that story repeated too many times from too many mothers. Allergic potential can’t be evaluated on family history and maternal diet alone, as my story shows. However, that one minor point isn’t enough to keep me from recommending Heather’s book.

 If you’d like to look at a preview of the book, purchase a copy or read more about it, you may do so here. I strongly recommend this book if you are pregnant, nursing or thinking about having a baby.

Giveaway

There are many ways to enter this giveaway.

There are multiple ways to enter this giveaway.  You must post each entry in a separate comment.  If you post them all in one comment, it only counts as one entry.

  • Post a comment at the bottom of this entry telling me you’d like to win.
  • Subscribe to my newsletter, then post a comment that you joined. If you are already subscribed, leave a comment that you had previously joined the e-mail list and that will also count as an entry. Please note that this entry will be disqualified if you do not confirm your subscription through the confirmation e-mail you receive upon subscribing.  This option also gets you entered into our monthly drawing for a free Menu Mailer subscription!

  • Subscribe to Mommypotamus’ blog.  Visit her page and put your e-mail address in the form at the top of the page. Leave a comment below letting me know you subscribed.
  • Like Cooking Traditional Foods on Facebook, then post below to let me know you have liked CTF.  If you fan the Cooking Traditional Foods Facebook page, you will receive a free Menu Mailer issue. If you already follow CTF, let me know and it will also count as an entry.   Please note: this giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  In posting below, you are providing information to Cooking Traditional Foods and not to Facebook. 
  • Like Mommypotamus on Facebook, then post below to let me know you have liked her page. Please note: this giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  In posting below, you are providing information to Cooking Traditional Foods and not to Facebook. 

Remember, you must post each entry in a separate comment.  If you post them all in one comment, it only counts as one entry.

Giveaway will close Wednesday, April 4th and the winner will be announced Friday, April 6.  Good luck!

I'm KerryAnn Foster, a crazy vibrant Jesus Freak with a heart full of hope. I'm not afraid to love on the least of these or get my hands dirty. This blog is my journey from ineffective, uptight, obese wallflower to a woman on fire for God and living the most vibrant, passionate life possible!

I live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my husband, Jeff, and our two teens. I blog about self-confidence, health and home, homeschooling and living a vibrant, wide-open Jesus-centered lifestyle. I have over seventeen years of real food, natural lifestyle and health experience. We have homeschooled our children since birth and both Jeff and I run home-based businesses. We're crazy, we know it, and we love every second of it!

Read about my journey to health through celiac disease, PCOS, food allergies, obesity, adrenal fatigue and heavy metals.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  6. Jennifer @ 20 something allergies says

    Great review KerryAnn! I shared it with some mamas I know who could really use some information about real food and gut health.
    Jennifer @ 20 something allergies recently posted..Pardon My Dust

    Reply

  20. cmh says

    Would love to win. I’m a mom to seven (six outside, one still inside ;0) ) and an info junkie 🙂 I also love to be well armed with info to share.

    Reply

  37. Jenny says

    I am a follower of you and I like mommypotamus on facebook and subscribed to her blog. I would love this for a friend of mine who is trying to get pregnant.

    Reply

  39. Heather@Mommypotamus says

    Hi KerryAnn! Two days before moving day the flu hit our house and everything from that point is a blur. I am just catching up on things and FINALLY got a chance to read your review. All I can say is thank you! I must say I am still processing your comments on egg yolks. Until now I thought only the whites were typically considered allergenic and that egg allergies in WAPF families was mostly attributed to yolks being introduced too early (with the extrapolation that a baby would have become allergic to any food introduced at that stage). Of course, if the hen is consuming a highly-allergenic substance like soy or corn it makes sense that the yolks would have allergenic properties, too.

    On the flip side, Dr. Campbell-McBride says “raw egg yolk has been compared with human breast milk because it can be absorbed almost 100% without needing digestion.” And the nutrient profile is very similar. I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether the yolks alone are the issue or if it could perhaps be the diet of the hens. Thanks so much for giving me something to chew on 😉

    Reply

    • KerryAnn Foster says

      I hope you’re on the mend. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be! I hope you’re getting settled in and unpacked.

      I assume it’s the egg yolk itself because neither of my kids ever showed or tested positive for a reaction to soy or corn (I was the one who reacted to both). And of the dozen or so people I know personally who had the same problem with their children, I can think of only one who reacted to soy and none to corn. I also know some children who are extremely reactive to corn who can eat battery eggs without an issue. Chickens have a different digestive design and they are designed to completely break down seeds and grains, so I don’t believe corn would be an issue in that regard. I’m not sure about soy without doing more research.

      I know what the science says, but I also know what I see and I know that even though science says ghee is free of casein, many on the GFCF diet still react to it. With so many children having a reaction, I believe the best approach is to take a conservative stance until science can better explain the issues so we have some way of determining the whys, hows and the best route to deal with the issue.

      The WAPF is aware of the issue, it’s been repeatedly brought to their attention and they continue to ignore it.

      Another thing to consider is that the native populations who used egg yolk as a first food didn’t have the massive amount of gut assault we see today. So I don’t recommend that a mother consider egg yolk as a food unless she has impeccable gut and vaginal flora, no personal history of antibiotics, birth control pills or other substances known to damage a gut and an intervention-free pregnancy. Then a home birth with no antibiotics, nothing but breastmilk orally until gut closure, no meds or antibiotics given to the child and the child has neither a family history on either side nor signs of any food reactivity or auto-immune condition. No skin problems, no gut issues, nothing like that. That’s a tall order that no one I know can meet. No c-sections, no antibiotics, no signs of yeast and having never used the birth control pill for the mom eliminates most of the US population before you look further into the mom’s gut health, and that’s before the baby is born!
      KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Traditional Tuesdays

      Reply

      • Heather@Mommypotamus says

        Thank you, KerryAnn! We are doing much better now and getting lots of good sleep out here in the country. 🙂 If you have time for a quick follow-up question I’m wondering if any other foods were introduced alongside egg yolk in the mamas you have talked to. If so, did baby just develop an allergy to yolks or was it an across-the-board problem with anything offered at that stage? Thank you so much!
        Heather@Mommypotamus recently posted..First Moments After Birth Captured

        Reply

        • KerryAnn Foster says

          For my kids, egg yolk and CLO were their first foods. They developed an allergy to eggs (yolk and white) but not CLO. They were also introduced to a few veggies at that stage and it didn’t become an issue. The only thing my kids reacted to were egg, gluten and dairy and gluten and dairy weren’t introduced until 18 months for them both. We started yolks right at 6 months.

          I’ll have to ask around for others, but none in my social group started the other major allergens before 12 months and most waited to start dairy and gluten until their kids were 18-24 months.
          KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Magnesium Oil Trial

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  45. Janea says

    I would love to win this book. I am currently trying to conceive and would love to be able to read this book to be prepared for being a mama.

    Reply

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