Is it okay to eat baby food

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

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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

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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.

Adults, Please Stop Eating Baby Food Out of Squeeze Pouches

I'll admit it: the squeezy pouch of baby food is an amazing feat of technology. You've probably seen these shelf-stable, lightweight packets of puréed nutrients in the grocery store. Maybe you marveled at the product's ingenuity. Maybe you felt resentful that these squeezers weren't around when you were growing up and instead you were fed weird green goo from a plain old jar. Or maybe you decided that you weren't too old to get in on this pouchy action and bought a package of mango-applesauce to give it a try.

If you did, you'd be in good company. According to publications like Extra-Crispy, The Wall Street Journal, and The Kitchn, many grown-ups are buying—and consuming—these little packages of puréed fruits and vegetables. Like, on purpose.

That's right, adults are eating baby food. And they need to stop.

How to Freeze Baby Food Without Going Crazy

Don't get me wrong, these packaged baby foods are great for, you know, babies. On a family vacation last year when my then 6-month-old brother, Townes, was transitioning to solid food, the squeeze-y pouches played an invaluable role in keeping him happy and fed throughout the trip, whether we were at the hotel breakfast table or a fancy sushi restaurant or on the beach. Convenient, lightweight, readily available, these packets also usually contain some totally virtuous combination of fruits, vegetables, and the occasional whole grain. Every nutritional need you could have, perfectly sealed in a tiny, science-y, pouch. This is the eating of the future, right? I sure hope not.

The thing is, unlike Townes, you've fully learned how to masticate and ingest solid food. (And even Townes is well on his way these days, enjoying scrambled eggs and berries and lots of banana pancakes.) You have teeth and a jaw that unhinges for a reason. Congrats! Proud of you. Use the incredible set of resources afforded to you by nature. Rejoice in the pleasure of chewing delicious solid food—it's truly, in my opinion, one of the few true joys we're afforded on a daily basis.

Of course, there are plenty of situations and real medical conditions that make eating solid food difficult. But, in that case, there are also plenty of totally delicious foods you can make that are infinitely more delicious than weird tube goo. In fact, there are whole categories of food devoted to this: Soups! Smoothies! Ice cream and milkshakes! Mashed vegetables! All glorious, soft, liquified foods you—an adult—could happily enjoy instead of resorting to sucking room-temperature food out of a tube marketed to babies. In fact, these are actually some of my favorite foods. I used to almost look forward to getting my braces tightened so my mom would make me vichyssoise. Have vichyssoise, not tube goo. You're worth it.

Craving some food but too tired to chew? Try soup!

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

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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 lot 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

is it possible to eat mashed potatoes in jars and lose weight Still, modern children can have mango puree for breakfast, eat horse meat with vegetables for lunch, and dine with organic chicken with rice. Why shouldn't adults eat this delicacy too? It turns out that the baby food diet exists and has already gained popularity among Hollywood stars.

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Tracey Anderson, an American fitness trainer who has worked with many celebrities, became the popularizer of the baby food diet. She suggested that those who want to get rid of extra pounds and keep themselves in shape should pay attention to jars of baby puree. Wiz Reeserspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Lady Gaga followed this diet at various times.

There are a lot of advantages of such a diet, but, however, such a diet also has enough disadvantages. We figure out what outweighs and to whom such a diet can suit.

How can you lose weight on baby puree?

There are several variations of this diet. The strictest option does not involve the use of any other products - only mashed potatoes, no juices, curds and other products. It is optimal to use only mono-products, which means that, most likely, you will have to limit yourself to mashed potatoes for the smallest ones, because jars for older children already contain mashed potatoes from several components.

It is recommended that you consume no more than 1200 calories daily. Considering that one jar contains up to 100 kcal, you will need quite a lot of such jars for one day. It is quite possible to lose weight on baby food - following a diet for babies can provide a loss of up to 5 kilograms per week.

An easier and simpler option is to substitute baby puree for several meals or use baby food for a quick snack.

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What are the benefits of a baby food diet?

Such a diet can captivate with its simplicity - you do not need to count calories, because all the data is written on a jar. There is no need to waste time on cooking, serving and studying the composition, and the products for babies are so diverse that such a diet cannot be called boring. Do not forget about the quality of the products - baby food meets the highest standards, and therefore definitely does not contain harmful additives, artificial colors and incomprehensible ingredients.

In general, when choosing food for the little ones, you definitely will not buy pizza for babies or baby fries in a jar: the assortment will be healthy and healthy. Take at least mashed broccoli or green peas.

Weight loss on such a diet is more than real: the absence of harmful products, calorie restriction, portions adjusted to the gram will help get rid of extra pounds.

The Baby Puree Diet: Cons of the Diet

Obviously, for most of us, baby food as a permanent diet will not work - this system can serve to unload for a week or two. Abuse of a strict version of the diet can harm rather than improve the body.

If you follow such a diet, you will have to eat food without spices - salt, pepper and other seasonings are not added to monocomponent purees. Surviving more than two weeks on unleavened food is not so easy.

In addition, it is worth remembering that protein, whole grains, fiber and proper fats enriched with polyunsaturated fatty acids are not enough in children's products - they are quite enough to provide everything a baby needs, but they are not enough for an adult. Long-term adherence to such a diet can lead to digestive problems.

For those who have already experienced certain diseases of the digestive system, the use of baby puree in large quantities should be completely abandoned. Also, the diet is not recommended for pregnant and lactating women, those who suffer from anemia, have problems with pressure.

Another important factor is the high cost. A two-week sitting on baby puree will cost a pretty penny, because you will have to eat the contents of 10-15 cans every day, which will cause both the body and the wallet to lose weight at the same time. We also note the environmental aspect - such a huge number of empty jars will quickly accumulate in your house that the question of their proper disposal may arise.

Baby puree: yes or no

Feedback from those who have already tried the baby puree diet is mixed. Some say that such a diet really allowed them to throw off those extra pounds, while others note a constant feeling of hunger for one or two weeks of “canned” nutrition. Many simply yearned for "adult" food, wanting to chew on pieces of food and not only absorb certain foods, but enjoy the very process of eating.

Those who nevertheless decide to try such a diet should not forget that it is not necessary to follow it for more than two weeks.