Vital vitamins

When you prepare foods for your baby, how you cook them (especially fruits and vegetables) will affect how much of their ‘goodness’ they keep.

Some vitamins are destroyed when vegetables or fruit are cut, boiled, or kept warm for a long time, and Vitamin C dissolves in water.

To preserve those vital vitamins:

• If you want to boil vegetables, add to the pan just enough boiling water to cover them, and cook them until just tender; serve as soon as they are cool enough.
• Try steaming foods whenever you can, this not only retains vitamins but also keeps the food’s natural flavours; again, serve as soon as they are cool enough.
• If you have a microwave oven, you can use it to cook vegetables and fruits; put them in a suitable dish, add a little water, cover, cook until just tender and leave to stand to even out any hot spots before serving.
• Use the water you cooked the vegetables in to thin a vegetable purée to the right consistency.
• Offer your baby some raw vegetables and fruits.
• Frozen fruit and vegetables are a good way of introducing a variety of tastes to your baby. They are frozen soon after they’ve been harvested, so they may even contain more vitamins than fresh produce that has been stored for a long time. If you use tinned fruit and vegetables, choose fruits canned in natural juices rather than sweet syrups, and vegetables in plain rather than salted water.

The Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. Unless otherwise advised by your health professional, solid foods in any form (baby jars, cereals or rusks) should not be started any earlier than six months.