2023 Infant Feeding Trends & Predictions

Katie Ferraro (1s):

Whatever's trending on TikTok of course immediately trickles down into parents asking questions like, Katie, is this safe for my baby to eat? And because tinned fish is blowing up on TikTok, as someone who's been creating BLW sardine content since 2016, I know I for 1:00 AM really excited about the rest of the world. Finally catching on to the benefits of offering babies canned seafood. Now of course we need to weigh that with some of the potential safety concerns regarding mercury toxicity, but there's a lot of benefits. And, there are definitely safe ways we can do canned fish for Babies Hey there. I'm Katie Ferraro, registered dietician, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weening here on the baby-led weening Made Easy podcast.

Katie Ferraro (44s):

I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weening. So what do you guys think is gonna be hot and trending in the Infant Feeding world in 2023? Now, none of us knows what the new year holds for us, but we know a few things, right? Your baby is going to continue to get older. Your baby is going to continue to hit those Feeding and nutrition milestones. You are gonna continue to offer your baby an increasingly wide variety of foods and flavors and tastes and textures, all working towards that end goal of your baby being able to eat a hundred foods before they turn one, if not more in your efforts to raise an independent eater and prevent picky eating.

Katie Ferraro (1m 29s):

That's what baby-led Weaning is all about. And I've got some 2023 Infant, Feeding, Trends and Predictions that I think we might be seeing or hearing more of in the new year. All right, first up, talking about prioritizing mom's mental health. I love the increased focus on mom's mental health from all aspects of a parenting, right? It's not just the psych and mental health people talking about this. Now we've got mom influencers talking about mental health, we've got pediatricians asking about it, which is awesome. I just interviewed, if you guys listen to the last episode, Libby Ward from the TikTok account, diary of an Honest Mom, her take on mental health. I'm like, you are so poised in 2023. She already blew up like a couple years ago, but like she is on a trajectory because everything she's saying I feel like is so on point about really making sure that we're taking care of ourselves as moms.

Katie Ferraro (2m 19s):

Because as my mom always told me, you can't take care of other people if you don't take care of yourself. And sometimes that feels selfish, but I like that. Like as a movement in parenting, we're like, no, we need to take care of ourselves and we need to take care of our mental health So. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. If you guys wanna check out Libby's episode, it was called Holiday Food Stress Stuff, coping Tips from Diary, even Honest Mom, Libby Ward. That was episode 2 92 and we talk a lot about mental health and mom's mental health in that episode. I think we're also gonna be seeing a lot more in the new year about the link between severe eczema and food allergy risk, right? We've known for a while that a baby having severe eczema, not your run of the mill eczema that all babies have, but severe eczema puts baby in the high risk category for peanut allergy, right?

Katie Ferraro (2m 60s):

There's two things that put your baby at high risk for peanut allergy if they're gonna be there that's having an established egg allergy and or severe eczema and So I know us as a brand and a company and myself as a baby-led Weaning dietician have been looking much more closely at this emerging research about the link between eczema and food allergy. Not in any way to blame or shame parents who end up with babies who have food allergies and say, oh, it's because you didn't treat the eczema. That's certainly not the case. There are lots of contributing factors to food allergy development and we do not understand all or even many of them. But we are starting to learn more about the importance of helping to protect your baby's skin barrier and the notion that what you put on your baby's body is just as important as what you put in your baby's body.

Katie Ferraro (3m 41s):

So I know we've been doing a lot more content about eczema, but I think we're gonna be doing much more about it in the new year and very excited about some of the research that's coming out. If your baby does have eczema, even mild eczema, it is important to treat that eczema. Sometimes parents, especially if you're like a second time parent, you're like, oh, my old, my other baby had eczema. All babies have eczema. But treating that eczema is really important and I have been very excited about our partnership with the skincare brand Evereden. This is a lineup. Non-toxic skincare products. They put out an amazing eczema healing treatment cream in 2022. I have never seen an over-the-counter non-steroid, non-toxic product work like this. It works better than all of the steroid containing creams that you need a prescription for.

Katie Ferraro (4m 22s):

So if your baby has eczema and you're looking for a treatment cream, I can't recommend the Evereden Healing Treatment cream enough. I have an affiliate discount code forever Evereden. My code KATIE15 works for a discount. I love their products because they're all designed by their moms in medicine team who are dermatologists moms interviewed a number of them, especially the food allergy mom, Rebecca Hartman, who is a doctor as well. The baby that had eczema and a baby that had food allergies, has food allergies. And she's like, listen, it's not your fault. But she talks a lot about the importance of taking care of that skin barrier. So check out ever Eden, the code is Katie 15 and all the products that treat eczema are National Eczema Association approved and I'm excited about what they're doing for eczema in the new year too.

Katie Ferraro (5m 4s):

I think in the new year, another thing we're gonna see more of is increased scrutiny of ingredients in foods and formulas fed to babies. Formula has really, you know, 2022 was a rough year for formula. Well, depends where you are was a rough year for a lot of moms and parents and families who rely on formula because of the Infant formula recall and then the Infant formula shortage. But I think the silver lining here is that we're starting to see increased interest in alternative formulas by all sorts of parents in the United States in the past. Like I know when I would, my quadruplets were supplemented with formula and I would go to the store I just bought like the brand name that was on the shelf. And I remember looking at it being like, why are there corn syrup of solids in this? Like it felt weird to me as a dietician, but like that was the industry's standard And there wasn't really a lot of other choice because of what happened with the Infant formula shortage.

Katie Ferraro (5m 52s):

We've kind of, I think the cat is out of the bag with regard to the fact that there are different formulas out there and there's some really innovative formula companies starting to challenge this traditional notion that formula has corn syrup, solids as the primary source of carbohydrate in it, and they're not okay with that. So what that also leads to is that parents who are interested in scrutinizing the ingredients in the formulas that they're offering their baby are also increasingly interested in the types of foods that they're gonna be offering their baby when they start solid foods. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (7m 32s):

So I. Think you're gonna see more pushback. I hope some of this is, I think, but a lot of it is I hope like commercial packaged Infant, Feeding foods products, pouches that have added sugar in them. You're gonna appearance being like, wait a minute, there's not supposed to be added sugar in my baby food. Why does the baby yogurt have added sugar in it? Let's read our labels. Let's be a little bit more cognizant of the foods that we're buying and know that there are some other alternatives out there. So, I am looking forward to more of that, just that increased scrutiny. Cuz as a dietician, sometimes you feel like you're the only one saying it. Like these products are full of things that shouldn't be in baby's bodies, added sugars, refined carbohydrates, lots of salt, making your food for your baby if you're making food for yourself and you can modify it so your baby can eat.

Katie Ferraro (8m 16s):

It kind of takes you all out of this scenario, which I think is nice. But I know a lot of us rely on convenience foods from time to time and I think it would be nice if there were some more options that were more aligned with what Feeding experts like myself recommend that we put in baby's bodies. I pulled my team to put this list together and Caitlin, who is our dietician, would probably also admit that she spends a lot of time on TikTok doing market research as we call it, regarding content creation. And she's like, dude, tin fish is blowing up on TikTok. So I've been doing, we include can seafood products on our hundred first food list. I've been doing, I feel like Sardine baby-led weening content since at least 2016.

Katie Ferraro (8m 56s):

It's nice to see adults catching on to the beauty that is caned seafood. There are so many types of amazing can seafood like parents like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna feed my baby shellfish? I'm like, there's a ton of ways that you can do it. So I hope that with more parents and adults being interested in tinned fish, that will see some more of it for the baby space because there are a lot of really amazing canned food products that your baby can eat. We definitely have some concerns about canned tuna and I did a very, very well received episode this year as one of our, the highest downloaded episodes that we had and it was called Tuna Talk. Is it Safe for Babies to Eat Canned Tuna? And I interviewed Michael Hansen, who's a PhD in the head scientist at Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports has really been a leader in this space of this.

Katie Ferraro (9m 38s):

Talk about, you know, should we or should we not believe the United States government recommendations about eating can tuna because of the potential for mercury. So there are a lot of upsides to offering your baby seafood, including fish with regards to is it potentially allergenic food and the nutrition and the zinc. But also there's some drawbacks about the potential for heavy metals such as mercury, So, I, think we're gonna be seeing some more interest. Hopefully it'll trickle down to baby-led weening as far as tin fish goes, another trend that's out there right now is kind of using the nut and oat pulp from like making homemade milk alternatives and then using that pulp for flour. Okay, so there's another gallon, our team, there's three people on our team, basically me, Lauren, and Caitlin. So Katelynn is our other dietician, and then Lauren is our growth strategist and she lives in Irvine and So I live in San Diego.

Katie Ferraro (10m 22s):

Katelynn lives in Long Beach, so we meet up quite frequently in at Lauren's house in Irvine. And she's always got like the latest and greatest gadgets. Her husband works in coffee and food and she has this thing called an almond cow, which is like this contraption that makes almonds into almond milk. And I just thought almond milk came from the store. I mean obviously it once was originally almonds, but like I talk a lot about how don don't use almond milk as a way to introduce babies to tree nuts almond because there's hardly any protein left. If you look at commercially processed almond milk and then when you look at how almond are actually processed into milk, she was using this almond cow. There's like all of this pulp and this like amazing nutrient rich like stuff left over and you're like, what are you gonna be doing with that?

Katie Ferraro (11m 5s):

So it's kind of interesting that as a TikTok trend, you know, that trickles down to parents being like, Hey Katie, how can I do this to make it safer my baby to eat? And certainly we don't offer, you know, saw dust-esque, really dry, crunchy foods to babies, but the potential to process it into flour and utilize that is awesome because that's where most of the protein and the nutrition is and the protein's a potentially allergenic part of that So I know I for one will be experimenting. I'm gonna go to Lauren's house, get all the leftovers from her almond cow after she makes almond milk and work on some baby-led Weaning recipes with it for you guys in the new year. All right, avocado oil trending hard, which I feel like it's like, you know, like chia always is on a trend like chia pets back in the seventies and then chia and like whatever diet craze is going on, chia always shows up.

Katie Ferraro (11m 53s):

And this was not on my original list, but I even gave into the chia trend last year. We actually did an episode on chia versus flax. So chia or flaxseed, which is better for babies. That's episode 273, but I feel like maybe chia was last year's trend and this year it's gonna be avocado oil and it's cyclical. I feel like avocado oil, it doesn't really go out of favor, but like it comes back in favor and parents' like, oh, I've never heard of avocado oil. Well avocado oil is one of my favorite oils for baby-led weening. So I'm super excited that other people are gonna be excited about it. And the reason why I love avocado oil is because a number of reasons it works for baby -led weening really well because it is very mild flavor profile, right? Like we want your baby to learn how to taste the foods that you're introducing, not like the overpowering flavor of the oil.

Katie Ferraro (12m 34s):

It has a very high smoke point. So we fry a lot of foods, make a lot of fritters for baby-led Weaning. And I like avocado oil as a good basic like pantry staple to have on hand. Another episode from earlier this year was all about fritters. So how to make fritters for self Feeding babies. That was episode 143. And I talk a little bit more about the avocado oil choice in there, but I did a whole separate oil episode kind of comparing some of my favorite ones, like avocado oil's up there. But yeah, it's expensive. And the benefits include that it has a high smoke point, it has a mild flavor profile, but it also has a very good fatty acid profile. So we wanna choose oils that have a higher percentage of unsaturated fatty acids, good ones than the saturated ones, which are the bad ones.

Katie Ferraro (13m 20s):

So in episode 256, I talked all about oil and what type of oil should I use for baby-led weening. If you are just like in the oil aisle and you're like, just gimme the answer, I like avocado oil and I think we're gonna see more of it in the new year. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back.

Katie Ferraro (14m 55s):

All right, last trend that I am predicting spiking interest in for the 2023 year. If TikTok is any indicator are fermented foods and fermentation. And it's kind of been a sticking point for us because a lot of the fermented foods are really high in sodium, at which point they would not be appropriate for babies and baby-led weaning, right? Because we don't offer babies high sodium food. We really wanna minimize the salt. We want your baby, again, tasting the flavors of the food, not the overwhelming salty additives that we're adding. So in episode 267 this year I did fermented foods, can babies Safely Eat Fermented Foods? And we had some pretty cool ideas And there. We came up with some different recipes. I'm gonna kind of flush some of those out in the new year cuz I know a lot of parents are interested in like the taste of fermented foods, some of the potential health benefits.

Katie Ferraro (15m 40s):

And then how can we modify these foods to make them safe for babies. Like we want our babies to ultimately be eating, you know, modified versions of the same foods the rest of the family is eating. So if fermentation continues to trend in the new year, I'll be right there with you guys figuring out how we can do it a little bit easier. Like some of the ways that we had recommended in the past, I don't feel like they were like super doable for family So, I wanna get some easier fermentation stuff for you guys in the new year. So just a little roundup of some Infant, Feeding, Trends and Predictions from 2023. I'm interested to hear what you guys think is gonna be trending. If you are on TikTok, we're there too. Be very begrudgingly, I must admit as a 45 year old old person.

Katie Ferraro (16m 21s):

But I'm very grateful to the lovely but younger than me team members who are making a, making me make relevant content for you guys. So if you're on TikTok @babyledweanteam and Instagram, @babyledweanteam, and all of the other places, I'll be there in the new year to help you guys give your babies a safe transition and a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weening. And I'm looking forward to spending the new year with you guys here on the podcast. We're online at blwpodcast.com. Special thanks to our partners at AirWave Media. You guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out AirWave Media and head to blwpodcast.com for lots more info on baby-led weening. Take care.