Written by Ioanna Angouraki*, Dietician-Nutritionist.
Short answer: no. But let’s examine it in more detail.
A piece of advice that parents often receive from their paediatrician, social environment, or social media is that their babies should be eating meat every day. This piece of advice mainly includes beef, which should be alternated with chicken on some days.
Of course, that advice is mainly given because of iron. While iron is a critical nutrient that should be consumed through solid foods, it’s also included in a wide variety of other foods besides red meat, especially besides beef, as we’ve also explained in a previous article.
Are there official guidelines?
There are no official guidelines from authorities for the frequency of meat consumption before the age of one year old.
On one hand, there’s a general guideline that mentions that babies should be eating a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods every day. This includes meats, seafood, and fish, to satisfy their needs in nutrients.
On the other hand, a well-designed vegetarian or even vegan diet can also promote the baby’s correct development. This always takes place in combination with appropriate guidance and observation by the child’s paediatrician and nutritionist, according to the American Pediatric Society and the American Dietetic Association. In other words, if it’s possible for a baby to follow a vegetarian diet, we can infer that eating meat every day is not imperative.
What if we’re following the BLW method?
In case you decide to follow the BLW method, for which I’ve written here in more detail, offering meat every day might be a challenge for many babies that are having a hard time consuming it. Especially if parents restrict other foods they don’t consider as nutritious, that ends up leading to a lesser intake of necessary nutrients, instead of aiding the child’s development. In the beginning, when the baby is eating one meal a day, or eating very small quantities of solid foods, you could offer meat more often, but that doesn’t mean that it should be found in every meal, every day.
And how can we provide more iron without meat every day?
By enriching the child’s diet with a variety of foods, from the start of the transition to solids, you ensure their greater needs for nutrients are satisfied more effectively, improving their intestinal microbial flora, which is directly connected to their health, while also helping the baby accept all foods more easily, something that becomes more difficult the older they get. For foods rich in iron, I’ve written in my article “Iron, babies, and diet.”
We also shouldn’t forget that it would be prudent to attempt to initiate our children to a healthy diet early on, like the Mediterranean diet, which includes fish, legumes, nuts, and generally plant-based foods.
Impact of meat overconsumption
Finally, meat overconsumption might have negative health effects:
- the appearance of certain cancers, like large intestine cancer,
- the appearance of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease,
- a likely connection with the appearance of obesity in infancy, though data is insufficient according to studies.
Conclusion
In a conclusion, we want the baby’s diet to include a variety of both plant- and animal-based foods, we should be informed on iron sources, and make the correct choice of foods in every meal.
SOURCES Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025 Hooda, J., Shah, A., & Zhang, L. (2014). Heme, an essential nutrient from dietary proteins, critically impacts diverse physiological and pathological processes. Nutrients, 6(3), 1080–1102. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu6031080 Campoy Cet al (2018). Complementary Feeding in Developed Countries: The 3 Ws (When, What, and Why?). Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism, (suppl 1):27-36. https://doi.org/10.1159/000490086 English, L. K. et al (2019). Types and amounts of complementary foods and beverages consumed and growth, size, and body composition: a systematic review. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 109(Suppl_7), 956S–977S. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy281
My name is Ioanna Angouraki, I’m a dietician and a new mom. I completed my basic education in the department of Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics of the Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, and then earned a postgraduate degree in Nutrition and Public Health from the Harokopio University of Athens. Since then, I’ve continuously improved my knowledge regarding baby and child nutrition through workshops, conferences, and seminars, and I’ve been working towards international certification as a breastfeeding consultant. I recently created Mommy & Me, a centre for the nutrition of the baby, the toddler, and the mother. I have a license to practice the profession of Dietician, I’m an active member of the Hellenic Association of Dieticians and Nutritionists, and of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Website: https://mommyandme.gr/
Instagram: @mommyandme_dietitian
Facebook: Ιωάννα Αγγουράκη Διαιτολόγος Διατροφολόγος MSc
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