What to Do with the Super Porridge that Your Baby/Toddler Couldn't Finish?

Ingredients:
1. 250g risengrød (Danish rice porridge)
2. 1 egg
3. 1 TBS flour
4. 1 tsp cooking oil (if you use non-stick pan, it is possible to avoid even using oil)

Directions:
1. Mix risengrød, egg and flour together.
2. Heat pan with oil on high and reduce to medium high (no. 7.5 on my stove).
3. Take 1 tablespoon of the mixture and place it on the pan.
4. Spread it into a bigger round area the size of a small bowl.
5. When the back of the pancake turns golden brown, flip it around (adjust the heat accordingly to how fast your pancake browns, as you want the inside to be cooked dry as well, and not wet like the original porridge)
6. When the other side turns golden brown, it is ready to serve :-)

Additional Information:
I got inspiration for this idea from the Danish klatkager - turning left over rice porridge risengrød into pancakes. Hey, why don't I do the same to Baby FECS' super porridge?? I wondered to myself. The super porridge I made for Baby FECS usually consists of oat, carrots, pumpkin and mashed banana as well as wheat germ and brewer's yeast. Other times, I use quinoa or millet. Sometimes she could not finish it, like this morning.

So after I made the klatkager for the rest of the family, I decided to turn Baby FECS' super baby porridge into pancakes. And it was a hit :-) She ate quite a few pieces and also for lunch. So while the rest of the family are eating, albeit the less healthy klatkager, Baby FECS was happily eating her super porridge pancakes :-)

 Add 1 egg and 1 TBS flour into the left-over baby porridge and mix well

 When the back of the pancake turns golden brown, flip it around

 When the other side turns golden brown, it is ready to serve :-)

J Summary (6Y4M8D) - J's Breakfast at 6 Years Old...

J's super baby-porridge breakfast has evolved a little. I paid a little more attention to the presentation, although the basic ingredients are still the same.

Here is oatmeal cooked with milk, drizzled with wheat germ, brewer's yeast, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, chopped nuts (walnut, pecan, almond and hazelnuts), goji berries, sliced banana and strawberries. He really likes it. I seeing him eating a healthy breakfast and actually enjoying it.

I have found a super easy way to chop nuts, I will share in the next post.

Going Down Memory Lane On Baby First Food...

13 September 2009 (6M8D) - At 6 months old, J eating the amount equivalent to only the size of a sauce dish

It has been almost 4 years ago since J was a baby just starting on solids. I remembered how excited I was, as a new and inexperienced mom (I still am an inexperience mom coping with the different stages), learning to introduce solids to J. I remembered reading up, and recording my research on introducing solids to baby and how much a baby should eat.

My sister is now starting to introduce solid to her baby, has some questions for me. I am so glad that I have recorded everything (well, almost everything :-)). Reading through the journals brought back so much pleasant memories, lots of hard work, but lots of joy. I was almost 5 years younger than, and boy, I wondered how I managed to write so much, juggling taking care of a young baby!

If there is one thing that pays off, it is that all my journals and posts have been helpful to my sister. That made it all the effort worth to record down in my blog.

Here is a pulling together of the series that I wrote on introducing solids to baby, for the benefit of my sister and making it easier to navigate my blog:

1. My views on baby first food and a list of foods to introduce in a suggested order:

http://www.momlearnings.blogspot.dk/p/about-baby-first-food.html

2. When solids is established, here is a guide to how much a baby should be eating:

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/search/label/1.%20How%20much%20food%20should%20baby%20eat%3F

3. If you are making your own baby food, here is menu planning using baby food cubes:

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/search/label/2.%20Baby%27s%20Menu%20Planning%20Using%20Baby%20Food%20Cubes

4. This is important because Baby needs fats for brain development. Here is a post on good and bad fats:

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/search/label/4.%20Good%20and%20Bad%20Fats

5. Here is my basket of recipes for Essential Baby First Food (6-8 mths) 婴儿辅食

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/search/label/Basket%20of%20Essential%20Baby%20First%20Food%20%286-8%20mths%29%20%E5%A9%B4%E5%84%BF%E8%BE%85%E9%A3%9F

6. Here is my basket of recipes for Essential Baby First Food (8-12 mths) 婴儿辅食

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/search/label/Finger%20Food%20and%20Other%20Food%20for%20Babies%20%288%20-%2012%20mths%29

7. Here is An Essential Super Porridge Breakfast for Toddlers:

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/2011/01/essential-super-porridge-breakfast-for.html

8. Toddler's Menu Planning + Daily Consumption Log for Toddler

http://momlearnings.blogspot.dk/2010/07/toddlers-menu-planning-daily.html

An Essential Super Porridge Breakfast for Toddlers

Picture: This is a power breakfast that I serve every morning to J (with variation here and there), and one that I can't do without. J usually eats a full bowl like this. I also believe this is the key to J having such good health, and that he hardly falls sick. When he has eaten a full bowl of this Super Porridge, I usually do not mind if he doesn't eat well for lunch at the daycare or dinner later at home.

The base ingredients of this power porridge are baby food cubes. You can read more on why I am still making baby food cubes here.

Ingredients:
1. 2 TBS of cooked oatmeal, which is cooked with low-fat fresh milk (1% fat) (white colour)
2. 1 cube of homemade mixed beans and grains (red beans, mung beans, black beans, quinoa, millet and barley) (red and black colour)
3. 1 cube of homemade frozen broccoli puree (green colour)
4. 1 cube of homemade frozen carrot puree (orange colour)
5. 1 egg yolk (optional, on egg days 2-3 times a week)
6. 1 banana (white colour)
7. 1 tsp of olive oil (fat is important for brain development, but use only the good fat)
8. 1 tsp of brewer's yeast
9. 1 tsp of wheat germ
10. Pumpkin seeds or sunflowers seeds (J likes to sprinkle this by himself as breakfast is served)

Directions:
1. Warm up the first 5 ingredients in the microwave for 30s - 1min.

2. Mix them together with the rest of the ingredients.

3. Sprinkle the pumpkin seeds on top.

Tips:
You can grind and sprinkle some goji berries into the porridge once in a while. J loves to sprinkle goji berries on his porridge, and to pick them one by one and eat it on its own.

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Additional Information:
Some people have asked me how I manage to give J healthy food and manage to find the time to do so and still have a job. So I have decided to make a post on it.

I read the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron and followed it. The author's child is willing to eat such super porridge even until 3 years old, while even most toddlers would reject it. I have so far been fortunate with J. J is soon turning 2 years old, and still very willing to eat this breakfast, which he calls "zhao can" in Mandarin. He even requested "zhao can" for dinner.

How to get toddlers to eat such super porridge breakfast?

It takes hard work to get a toddler into habit of eating such a porridge and the hard work began all the way when J was just a baby. When he started on solid food around 5.5 months, I began to introduce such food one-by-one and the journey was completed by the time he was 1 year old. I did not use a single baby bottle food at all. I am relieved that it has shaped his appetite and willingness to eat this super porridge till this day. My advice is that you need to start your baby young, otherwise, it is very likely that he/she is not willing to eat such a bowl of super porridge.

The importance of nutrition and sleep

J is a very healthy boy and he hardly falls sick. If he does, he recovers really fast. The only time he fell sick for a long period of time was when he started day care and getting use to the germs and bacteria there. I believe this is due to the food and nutrition I give him, and also the amount of sleep I make sure that he has. Bedtime is usually at the latest 7.30pm and the exception is 8pm (when we are out). When I write bedtime, I mean the time he has fallen asleep. This means that he is usually in bed 15-30 minutes before. I believe that sufficient sleep also contributes to building his immune system. Because he is hardly sick, I have more energy to juggle work, and don't have to struggle with child's sick leave. Because he sleeps early, it also gives me time to do the household chores, spend time with my Superstar or do research on child development and work on my blog.

We are very strict about J schedule, especially his sleep schedule. The price we pay for keeping J's sleep schedule, for me to hold down a full time job, juggle family and meal time is that I usually don't accept any social invitation later than 3pm. This means that our social life is sacrificed, but since we already have so little time left for each other (our spouse), it is something that has to go. If we have any after 5pm appointment, it is usually at our home.

It is also very important that your child sleeps through the night. Otherwise, you will be interrupted constantly and would not have the time to yourself, which makes juggling a full time job even more challenging. In anticipation of me returning to the work force after a yaer, we had trained J to sleep through the night already when he was 14 weeks old (when he showed no sign of doing so on his own) with the help of my best friend, Jannie. It is a whole topic on its own, and I hope to do a separate post on it.

How to juggle?

This is how I manage to juggle making such a breakfast for J while having a full-time job:

1. I make the vegetables and bean puree in batches and freeze them in ice-cube trays.

(I usually multi-task and steam the vegetables for J while I am making dinner or cooking rice. I can steam the vegetables using my automatic rice cooker. I learned from my friends Ansoha and Jenny to cook beans in a pressure cooker, and it takes 30 minutes all in all only. Thus, it helps me to save some time.

2. I thaw the vegetables and bean cubes in the fridge the night before.

3. I make the oatmeal the evening before, and it usually last for 2-3 days of servings in the fridge.

(I multi-task by simmering the oatmeal under no. 4 heat source on my stove, while working on my blog. Usually it works well and I succeed, but it is not always as smooth sailing as it sounds on my blog. Sometimes I burn the pot, if I am too engrossed in the other task. If so, I am fortunate enough to have a great help in my Superstar to scrub the burnt pot :-). For example, I was making the oatmeal for J this evening while writing this post, and I just burnt the pot!)

4. I grind the flaxseeds in the morning and they usually last for 2-3 days of servings in the fridge.

(Again here I mutli-task, I grind the flaxseeds while preparing J's lunch pack.)

5. The rest of the enhancers (brewer's yeast and wheat germ), I have it readily in front of me in glass containers and I just spoon it and sprinkle it into the bowl.

6. I hard boil 5-6 boil eggs at one go and freeze the cooked egg yolks in ice-cube tray.

(To save time, I usually do this when I am preparing dinner for the family. After dinner and J goes to bed, I will peel the egg shell. Again, it is not always so perfect. I sometimes only manage to do this a day later. If so, I will keep cooked eggs in the fridge)

7. I mash in the banana in the morning itself.

Feeding the rain bow and variation

Notice that I am "feeding the rainbow", i.e. giving different colours of the vegetables and grains. You can make variations.

1. For example, instead of always using millet in the mixed beans and grains, you can use buckwheat occasionally.

2. Instead of carots, you can give pumpkin or sweet potatoes puree.

3. Instead of broccoli, I also give french bean puree.

4. Instead of olive oil, I sometimes mash in half an avocado. Avocado is very nutritious, containing the good monounsaturated fats as well as vitamin E.

Why porridge?

You may ask why do I give mashy food like porridge to J for breakfast, since Johua is already a toddler and he can eat food without mashing it?

1. It is easier to slip down his throat then giving him bread, etc. for breakfast.

2. Thus, it is quicker for him to eat. He takes him much longer to eat a piece of bread. Therefore, he eats more in a shorter time. Since I have to go to work in the morning, it is a real advantage that he can eat his bowl of breakfast in just 5-15 minutes.

3. It is easier for the toddler's stomach to digest and absorb the nutrients if the food is mashed and the seeds/nuts are ground. Otherwise, it will just come out of the system whole.

The Super Baby Food Book

The Super Baby Food book is not that easy to read - no glossy pictures, and full of words. But for those who can read such a book from cover to cover and make summaries to make it work for them, it contains truly golden knowledge far better than any baby's or toddler's food book I have come across. It is a "no Nonsense" book.

I must admit that I had 6 weeks of pre-maternity leaves and 1 year of maternity leave to read the whole book. For those who don't have such luxury, my blog is a summary of application of the concepts in the book with pictures, plus some of my own ideas.

References:
- Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

- http://www.babywisemom.com/

29.1.11 - J having his Super Porridge Breakfast

Good & Bad Fats & Oils in Food/Gode og Dårlige Fedtstoffer og Olie i Mad/好与坏的脂肪[hǎo yǔ huài de zhī fáng]

* Nuts contain both monounsturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Nuts are classified here in the category of predominant fatty acid.

It is not true that all fats are bad. For babies and toddlers, they need the good fats for brain development. As adults, we need good fats in our diets to prevent Alzheimer’s disease in our old age. Fats are also needed to hold essential fatty acids (EFAs) and the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).

There are 4 types of fats:

1. The good fats – monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (i.e. avocado, olive oil, flaxseeds, walnuts, salmon, cod)

2. The bad fats – saturated fats (i.e. butter, cheese, dairy products)

3. The worse fats – trans-fatty acids from man-made fully hydrogenated fats (i.e. deep-fried food stuff, chips, commercially prepared baked food such as cakes, cookies, pies, etc.)

4. The worst fats – trans-fatty acids from man-made partially hydrogenated fats (i.e. margarine, commercially prepared baked food such as cakes, cookies, pies, etc.)

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Additional Information:
The good fats are unsaturated and there are 2 types of unsaturated fats:

1. Monounsaturated fats - found primarily in most vegetable oils (i.e. avocado, olive and canola/rapeseed)

2. Polyunsaturated fats - found primarily in fish, nut and seed oils (i.e. Sunflower, safflower, walnut, soy, corn)

Both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats may help lower your blood cholesterol level when you use them in place of saturated and trans fats.

Furthermore, the fats we need are called Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs). EFAs are the fats we must get from our diet, because our bodies cannot manufacture them.

There are only 2 fatty acids that are considered essential:

1. Alpha Linolenic acid (LNA) – found in Omega-3 fatty acids

2. Linoleic acid (LA) – found in Omega-6 fatty acids

These 2 EFAs are both polyunsaturated fats and make up a large percentage of our brain tissues.

Omega-3 (LNA) is found in cold-water fatty fish (i.e. cod, mackerel, salmon and tuna), flaxseeds (contains a high amount), walnuts, soy beans and olive oil (contains only small amount)

Omega-6 (LA) is found in sunflower seeds, corn oil, safflower seeds.

The bad fats to avoid is the saturated fats found in animal and daily products such as beef, pork, chicken, lard, butter, eggs and a few vegetables such as palm oil and coconuts. Saturated fats are called saturated, because they contain a maximum amount of hydrogen (i.e. they are saturated with hydrogen).

The worse fats to avoid are the man-made trans fatty acids (TFAs) found in margarine and confectionery.

TFAs are produced either by adding hydrogen to monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats or by heating food containing oils to high temperatures. Manufacturers do so to improve the texture of food such as margarine and cakes as well as to extend the shelf-life of products and fats. TFAs is a very cheap way to make fats less prone to rancidity. Therefore deep-fried food contains lots of TFAs.

The worst fat to avoid is the partially hydrogenated oils. They are are worse than fully hydrogenated fats. If an oil is only partially hydrogenated, the part that has not takne on hydrogen – the unsaturated part – is open to the formation of TFAs. TFAs are carcinogenic and have found to raise the bad cholesterol levels in the bloodstream and lower the good cholesterol levels.

Although we need some unsaturated fats in our diet, nevertheless, an overabundance may lead to serious health problems. Polyunsaturated fats, when consumed in excess, may lower HDL (the good cholestrol) levels in the blood stream.

Monounsaturated fats are the only fats that have managed to keep a clean bill of health through all the scientific studies.

References:
Pg 510 of Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

Part 2: Toddler's Menu Planning + Daily Consumption Log for Toddler

While planning on returning back to work, our primarily concern was pure survival... we made a schedule on how we could make the day work, who to pick up Joshua from the childcare, how we can put dinner on the table, doesn't matter whether the dinner is decent or not, just as long as we have food on the table at 5pm daily. Therefore, it is usually easy western meal every day, as it is easier to prepare western meals.

After five months of being a working mom and 5 months of practice, our family has established a good routine to survive and thrive. I am now ready to fine-tune those areas for improvements. In a cross-cultural marriage, I wish very much to enrich our cultural experience. Of course, taking into account nutrition. I have now made a generic weekly menu planner for Joshua and the family.

Thus, my daily goals are:

1. Breakfast - Super Porridge Breakfast

2. Lunch - Danish Open Sandwiches during weekdays, Yogurt during weekends and finger food

3. Dinner - Finger food and table food including meat and fish

I need to have a short meal/feeding time, so that I can go to work. It is important to have easily digestible food, so that toddler can absorb the optimum amount of the vitamins and nutrients from the food. At the same time, it is also important to practice fine motor skills with finger food, and to have meat and fish in the diets. By having this daily plan of easily digestible porridge in the morning and finger food in the evening, I would be able to achieve all the above.

My weekly goals are:

1. Three times a week western food, three times a week Asian food, and once a week free-and-easy, where I will serve food from other cultures, if I manage to find the time.

2. Two times a week fish dish.

3. Three times a week egg for Joshua.

And, of course, I have put it all in an Excel overview, so that I can just follow my plan in an auto-pilot mode for efficiency :-)

Furthermore, there are now additional challenges with toddler meal time. I am getting a little paranoid, as Joshua seems to be eating very little nowadays. I have read that babies in-take of food drop after the first year, but sometimes, Joshua seems to be surviving on just "pure air". After recording his food in-take in a "daily" log (I don't do it daily, only on days when I feel that he is not eating much), I am relieved and actually surprised to see that actually Joshua is eating enough of the bare minimum to thrive.

I found a very good worksheet from "The Super Baby Food". Toddlers usually eat 2 good meals a day, if one is lucky, if not just 1 good meal. Thus, this book recommends that if moms can squeeze in one good meal - breakfast, moms can cruise through the day, even if toddler is not eating. I make sure to give Joshua a power breakfast. If he finishes his breakfast, I can relax even if he eats very little for lunch or simply only "flirting" with food during dinner. So far it is working.

This book is highly recommended. I have used it since I started Joshua on solids when he was a baby. I have started to record in a "loose" way the amount and food Joshua eats on a daily basis. I am attaching it here in the following link to share it:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8uGpq3ubWWCOWU3NTNmNzQtOGY0MS00YmYzLTk2NjAtMDkzMjgyNTY1YTQ1

Please do not stress if you are not the type who uses Excel to organize your thoughts or do your planning. This is part of my personality, and I actually truly derive a lot of joy and fulfillment doing it. For those who don't, please do not compare yourself with me, who is the freak, and freak out. But if it is useful for you, you can use it in general to get some inspiration on how much food a toddler should eat and gauge for your own child.

References:
Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

http://www.great-workout.com/nutrition/vegetables

http://www.babycenter.com/0_7-superfoods-to-boost-any-kids-diet_1745746.bc?bclink=bullet1&scid=adhoc_20100618_cobrand_tyson:3&pe=2UyYa5h

http://www.babycenter.com/0_10-nutrients-that-every-child-needs_1201019.bc

Note:
Unfortunately Goggle Docs doesn't not support spreadsheet so well, so if you want the whole Excel file, just write to me and I will send it to you.