Is baby food good for you

Why Adults Shouldn't Eat Baby Food

Celebrities may give this diet fad more credit than it's due, but adults should steer clear of a baby food diet for several reasons.

By Kimberly Holland February 07, 2017

Credit: Credit: Vstock LLC/Getty

Celebrities have quite the knack for causing a stir when they release their "diet secrets," and this week is no different. Today, Girls writer and star Lena Dunham posted on Instagram her "Trump Diet." Dunham, a liberal stalwart, was facetiously remarking on how difficult she's found eating since the November election. Her tone is clearly joking, but tucked in the third entry is a shout out to baby food, an infamous celebrity diet trend.

Credit: Photo: Lena Dunham/Instagram

Struggling to cook healthy? We'll help you prep.

Indeed, several celebrities tout baby food as their secret elixir for shedding pounds. Last summer, Camila Alves credited her flat stomach to two meals of baby food each day. She eats a more sensible dinner—a protein, black beans, and vegetables —but the actress and co-founder of baby food company Yummy Spoonfuls says she supplements her nutritional needs all day with pouches of squeezable food. Designer Hedi Slimane admitted to living on a diet of baby food to keep his super-slim physique, too.

What is the baby food diet? Why is it popular?

The idea is simple: replace two meals each day with several jars (or pouches) of baby food. A jar of baby food contains between 20 and 90 calories, so sticking to a low-calorie diet will still require downing several jars of pureed goo.

Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson gets a lot of the internet-(in)famous credit for this fad, but research reveals it's been around since the 1980s. Some advocates suggest eating about 14 jars of baby food throughout the day, then a dinner at night. Other "plans" suggest you only eat baby food. Truthfully, you won't find any hard and fast rules for the baby food diet because it's more of a myth than a medical regimen.

Can you lose weight with the baby food diet?

Absolutely. You can lose weight with just about any "diet" though, so don't give the baby food diet too much credit. In fact, it's easy to understand why the baby food diet would be successful. You will need to eat a lot of baby food to maintain a normal calorie count each day, so if you can't keep up, you may miss your daily calorie goal. Eating fewer calories than needed for weight maintenance means you will start seeing pounds slip off. Each jar is small, so portion control isn't very difficult. And if you can stomach all the flavors (turkey and "gravy," anyone?), you also get a wide variety of flavorful options.

But with those "benefits" come a few harsh realities. You'll have to train your palate to find baby food tolerable. Many brands don't season their foods at all. A more mature palate is accustomed to salt, sugar, and fat, so removing those entirely will be quite a shock to your tongue. Likewise, adults are made to eat real food. Unlike babies, we have teeth and digestive systems that can handle chewable food.

A balance of fiber, protein, fat, and carbohydrates is essential to keeping your body running at optimal levels. If you exercise too, a diet of pureed produce is unlikely to meet your body's needs. You could soon find yourself feeling weak or worse, hangry. Meeting your daily nutritional requirements while eating two meals of pureed fruits and vegetables will be difficult, if not nearly impossible. If you use it for quick slim down prior to a big day (like a wedding or a party), know that you'll likely gain back all the weight you lost quickly once you return to solid food.

"Baby food is lacking adequate amounts of fiber, fat, and protein to sustain a healthy adult. This puréed, and often strained, food is created for babies with underdeveloped digestive systems," says Cooking Light assistant nutrition editor Jamie Vespa, MS, RD. "Keeping our digestive systems active by eating whole, nutrient-dense food is healthy for both our gut and our immune system. The 'baby food diet' is a gimmicky, unsustainable diet that should not be utilized by adults wishing for long-term results."

Bottom line: Like Dunham's advice to not follow her Trump Diet, we do not recommend you try the baby food diet. "It's nutritionally inadequate. I can't think of a single pro for an adult to eat baby food, unless their jaws are wired shut," Vespa says. Healthy adults should instead look to fill their plates with fiber, protein, fat, and carbohydrates and leave the jars of colorful glop to the young ones.

I Ate Baby Food for An Entire Week

I held the spoon to my mouth, and I grimaced when the contents touched my tongue — warm, mushy carrots.

This was my 7-month-old son's dinner — and mine too. I would spend a week eating baby food, although it was less of a calculated effort and more of a desperate attempt to hang onto my sanity.

As a new mother who worked from home, I was unprepared for how difficult it would be to juggle both a job and an infant, often getting crapped on from everyone, everywhere. The laundry piled up to unbelievable heights. The dishes in the sink smelled like a homeland security threat. For myself, I did the bare minimum to erase the stink lines that followed me around like Pigpen in a Peanuts comic.

Courtesy of Maggie Downs

Something had to give, I realized. And that something was chewing.

I'm kidding. Chewing wasn't so much the issue. The problem was the time it took to make myself a separate meal. When the choice came down to cooking for my son and cooking for myself, it was an easy decision. He who sobs the loudest wins.

This sort of thing wasn't new for me, per se. I've done some crazy diets in the past. In college, I was the originator of the Beef Jerky Diet, which sprained my jaw before I ever lost any weight. (No wonder my diet never caught on.) I've been a raw foodist and I've tried juices. I've scrubbed my guts with gallons of cabbage soup and master cleansed with liters of lemonade. One time I ate nothing but raw macadamia nuts for three days.

When my son began eating solid foods, I decided to make all his meals from scratch. I'm a person who enjoys cooking anyway, and it was important to me to provide him with fresh, healthy produce.

When I thought about it, eating baby food wasn't a bad idea idea. After all, many of the world's most beloved foods are enjoyed in their squished form. Guacamole is perfection. Applesauce is awesome. Hummus is great. And who doesn't love mashed potatoes?

Plus, I've been enough to fancy restaurants where entrees are served atop puddles of parsnip mash or dollops of spring pea purée. This wasn't mere baby food I was creating — it was cutting-edge cuisine!

Courtesy of Maggie Downs

At first, the purées I ate were terrific, like downing super thick smoothies for every meal. And it really did save a lot of time, which otherwise would have been spent over the stove or cleaning the dishes. The bonus was that it forced me to be more creative with the things I whipped up in the blender, because I wanted to consume delicious things too. Snap peas, pears and a banana? Tasty. Sweet potatoes, cherries and vanilla? Like a party in my mouth. Fava beans and summer squash with leeks? Eh, not the worst.

After a week of baby food; however, eating became something laborious. It was no longer interesting or enjoyable. I fantasized about crunch. Chewing felt like an old friend I only vaguely remembered. I realized I was on the diet of someone who just had his wisdom teeth pulled, but for no real reason.

That's the day I decided to reverse the process: Instead of eating what my baby eats, I would simply give him what I like to eat.

It's a strategy that has worked well for us ever since, with a food repertoire that has expanded to include soft grilled eggplant, five-bean chili, rice pudding, roasted veggies of all kinds, aloo gobi and pillows of naan.

We didn't want to be those culinary snobs who go to a restaurant and just order the parsnip purée, anyway.

Maggie Downs

Maggie Downs is a journalist and essayist based in Palm Springs, CA. Her work has appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the U.S., including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and in digital media such as Today.com, Outside, Smithsonian, and the BBC. She is a traveler, a book nerd, and an accidental adventurist.

Is it possible for adults to eat baby food: benefits and harms

Photo: Natalia Kurzova / Adobe Stock

Now we will talk about the benefits and harms of products made specifically for children. These include fruit and vegetable purees, juices and nectars, yoghurts and curds, cereals and various snacks for the little ones.

Pluses of baby food

No harmful ingredients

It is clear that baby food is made specifically for babies. Therefore, they do not add harmful additives, dyes, flavors, a bunch of sugar and salt. Not a single ingredient in the composition should cause an allergy or any disorder in a baby - which means that such food is safe for an adult. Moreover, manufacturers are strictly looked after - all children's products undergo a thorough check, and only then they get on the shelves in stores.

Tasty and convenient

Children's curds, cereals and purees with a sweet fruity taste can easily replace high-calorie cakes and other "adult" desserts. Some may also like cookies in cute little packages.

Speaking of packaging. Kids are not physically able to eat a lot, so for them everything is laid out in small portions. And these jars and packaging are very convenient to take with you for a walk, to school or university.

Low Calorie

Children's fruit and vegetable purees, and in such tiny portions, are very, very few calories! Some stars even specifically switch to only baby food in order to lose weight. So, for example, did Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.

Ready to follow suit? Well, slow down. Now let's talk about why you shouldn't do this.

Disadvantages of baby food

Few essential nutrients

Yes, these tasty purees contain only useful things and nothing harmful. But do not forget that this is still baby food. That is, it is made specifically for babies - taking into account the peculiarities of digestion of young children. And the body of an adult, you know, is very different. An adult needs a lot more fiber and dietary fiber - otherwise problems with the intestines will begin.

Sometimes it's not so tasty

Taste is both a plus and a minus of baby food. Sweet foods really look like a delicious dessert, but mashed vegetables and meat? We are used to cooking with all sorts of spices, which will definitely not be in the composition of dishes from a jar. In general, "adult" and "children's" food is very different in taste. You can, of course, get used to eating baby food all the time . .. But why?

Is it useful or not?

There is nothing wrong with snacking on baby food occasionally. It can be quite healthy, tasty and without extra calories. But you definitely can’t replace all breakfasts, lunches and dinners with them - in this way you will deprive yourself of important components and harm your health.

Ekaterina Migacheva, Elena Bugay

Baby food - harmful or useful?

April 12, 2009, 4:24 pm

Health is not offended.

But the product was natural at that time ....

April 12, 2009, 16:38

April 12, 2009, 17:00

, of course, useful definitely not bad!

April 12, 2009, 17:24

April 12, 2009, 18:34

April 12, 2009, 18:36

12 April 12 2009, 21:01

April 12, 2009, 21:51

April 12, 22:32

April 13, 2009, 06:27:27

#10

April 14, 200912:16

#11

April 22, 2009, 07:06

#12

April 24, 2009, 12:14

#13

26 April 26, 2009, 02:03

#14

July 14, 2009, 11:47

Author

Now nothing useful can be found in supermarkets - there is only chemistry everywhere. I switched to baby food. Tell me, maybe I switched in vain and everything is unnatural there too?

September 30, 2009, 15:07

#18

February 17, 2010, 15:19

#19

17 February 17, 2010 22:55

#20

23 2010, 19:42

#21

June 11, 2010, 13:50

#22

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July 03, 2010, 18:06

#23

Yes, what they say on TV is true!? You just have to believe this! Do you also believe in advertising? They will pay you money and you will advertise what they say that baby food is good and condensed milk is excellent, in which white and wallpaper paste are found, and they say good things on TV! where are the guarantees that this information is reliable? carrots) but you know that there is nothing else besides this, no preservatives, no flavor enhancers!

September 08, 2010, 01:21

#24

08 September 2010, 01:48

#25

September 20, 2010, 21:28

9000

My husband and his children and grandchildren piss me off.
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0204

Such a salary - I don't want to work

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#27

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#28

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#29

September 01, 2011, 09:41

#30

February 19, 2012, 21:36

#31

PERFECTA 9000 9 baby food is for those who do not want to poison their child with nitrates, which are abundant in ANY fruits and vegetables on the market / in the store (unless, of course, they are marked "organic" - but such products are extremely expensive). And you continue to console yourself with the fact that you feed the most useful and natural child, who grew up on no one knows what soil and watered with no one knows what water (because no farmer does soil and water analysis at his own expense - because it will cost a pretty penny).