Whilst making myself a sandwich one day I threw a couple of my spinach leaves Buttercup's way. I didn't really expect her to do much more than play with them. But, being the omnivore she is, she ate them. Seriously, this kid will eat anything. This has its downfalls, especially when she's playing on a not-freshly-vacuumed floor or outside, for example. One of Buttercup's favorite non-foods is paper. She loves tearing apart and chewing on paper. While I don't endorse paper as a good food for babies (and feverishly try to prevent Buttercup from eating it), I guess all of her practice at eating books paved the way for her to successfully enjoy spinach leaves. HA HA!
Buttercup has had cooked spinach mixed into dishes before (and blended into her smoothies), but this was the first time she ate raw spinach. She tore the little leaves apart and ate them much in the same way she eats every little piece of paper she can get her hands on. I was curious how she would deal with the spines, but she ended up tearing the leaves off the spines, and left the spines alone. I was also interested to see if Buttercup would gag on little bits of leaf getting hung up in her throat. While she did cough a few times, she didn't have any problems with it. However, I wouldn't recommend this to babies just starting down the baby-led solids path. Also, I suggest buying organic spinach, as spinach is one of the "dirty dozen."
PROS: great nutritious superfood, no prep
CONS: not for the BLS newbie
***UPDATE: The evening I posted this we gave Buttercup raw spinach leaves again. She coughed a lot more than she did the first time. So, I guess I'm saying "be careful."***
I'm so glad to know that my BLS baby is not the only one who eats every SINGLE piece of paper she can get her hands on. lol
ReplyDeletePS Your blog has been wonderfully helpful in figuring out BLS - thanks for putting all this time into it. :-)