REVIEW: Super Foods for Babies and Children by Annabel Karmel

I was sent SuperFoods: For Babies and Children by the publisher to do a review. Since I don’t have small children at this point I was going to pass the book onto my nephew and his wife, who have 3 young children including a new baby, and ask them to try a few recipes.   I had the book sitting out at Christmas to give to them and it turned out they already had it and love it.  They’ve used recipes from just about every chapter and say they’re quite tasty and they were thrilled to have their kids eating such healthy food and enjoying it. And they like the recipes too!

The recipes in here look good and Karmel gives you a brief overview of lots of different foods and why they are good for you. She also gives you a bit on “eating by color” which is something I used when my girls were little. Rather than talking about how many fruits or vegetables they’d eaten that day, we’d talk about how many colors they’d eaten! It’s a fun way to get kids to be a bit more adventurous and it makes for a much more interesting plate of food when there is a variety of color.

After the nutritional information, she dives into the recipes, which are organized by age. The first 6 months has recipes for various purees (both fruit and vegetable) and guidelines for introducing new foods. The chapter on 7-9 months includes some guidelines for introducing more new tastes and textures, tooth-friendly snacks, new purees, including fish and lamb and beef ones and more. The chapter on 9-12 months adds chopped and mashed foods to replace the purees as well as finger foods. Pasta, risotta, various dips, orzo, a mini shepherd’s pie, and a mild bolognese sauce and more. 1-2 years has some good sounding “rabbit muffins” with a very cute picture, carrot soup, chicken skewers, meatballs and various fish recipes, plus some fun desserts. The chapter for 2-3 year olds has recipes the entire family will enjoy, including chicken salad, Chinese fried rice, chicken dippers, bow tie pasta with salmon and many more. The final chapter includes more family friendly recipes like curries and fajitas, healthy snack ideas, tips on getting kids in the kitchen to help out. My nephew’s children love the chicken meatballs and the fried rice recipes especially.

Each chapter includes tips as well as recipes and a meal planner to give you an idea for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner. I remember my pediatrician recommending not to get too worried that each and every meal is perfectly balanced but to look at the whole day and the whole week, aiming for a variety of foods.  The menu plan ideas would really help with that.

So to sum up, I have not yet personally tried any of the recipes (although I think the chicken meatballs will be on my list to try!) but my nephew and his family purchased the book and love it and highly recommend it.