LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE

In Nigeria, babies are traditionally weaned using a food called pap. It’s a cornmeal mixed with water type of cereal that will certainly fill a baby up, but a dish that lacks important nutrients that babies need for adequate growth and development.

Latifat Okara is working to change this. Through her company Nomnom Babies, Latifat is helping to educate primary care providers and parents about the wider array of wholesome foods that babies CAN and SHOULD be eating when starting solid foods. 

In this interview Latifat shared some INCREDIBLE stories about how her own daughter was failing to meet her growth milestones because of limited variety and reliance on high carbohydrate staple foods that were failing to provide her with adequate nutrition..and how that experience led her to start incorporating other traditional foods into the weaning process like crayfish and brown beans and egg yolk and plantain…

And I think you are really going to enjoy Latifat’s message - which is essentially that babies CAN eat so many more foods than we often give them credit for. In Nigeria 1 in 5 children is malnourished, and as Latifat will share in this episode - through the processes of unlearning and relearning she is working to redirect how drivers like racial discrimination, cultural beliefs, poverty and maternal education determine food choices and preferences for families in underserved parts of Nigeria.

SHOW NOTES

SUMMARY of episode

In this episode, guest Latifat Okara from @nomnom_babies talked about:

• The food pap (maize cereal) babies are traditionally fed in Nigeria and how overreliance on that food contributes to malnutrition...including a personal story about her own daughter barely grew from 8-12 months and how Latifat then helped rehabilitate her daughter with more wholesome, nutritious foods

• Her efforts to normalize the use of locally available foods that can be fed to babies - foods like crayfish and brown beans, eggs and plantains...and how too often we don’t give babies credit for all of the foods they CAN and SHOULD be eating

• Efforts to educate primary care providers and parents about starting solids and the need to unlearn and relearn practices related to racial discrimination, cultural beliefs, poverty and maternal education that determine food choices and preferences for families in Nigeria and around the world

LINKS from episode

• Helping Babies Get a Nutritious Start in Life - article about Latifat Okara’s work from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

• Nomnom Babies - Latifat’s infant weaning Instagram page @nomnom_babies

TRANSCRIPT of episode

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