Rainbow Eating for Babies

By Anni Daulter, Sacred Pregnancy

When feeding your babies and toddlers, keep color in mind. In my book, Organically Raised, I call this rainbow eating. As a new parent, it's often difficult to manage all of the day-to-day details of raising little ones, and so finding easy ways to make sure our kids are getting the nutrition they need, without the stress of monitoring nutritional content of each fruit or veggie, just look at the color! Simply put, you want to make sure your babies and little ones are eating a wide variety of colors as each group organically represents various unique health benefits and will naturally keep your baby in balance. By feeding your baby foods in a rainbow of colors, you ensure that he will have a diet with diverse tastes, textures, and nutrients. It is also a wonderful way to teach her about colors!

 Here is an easy chart to help guide you on this fun culinary adventure!

The White Group:
Includes pears, apples, bananas, cauliflower, and white asparagus- contains high levels of vitamins B&C.

The Red Group:
Includes strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, beets and red peppers- contains high levels of vitamin C.

The Orange Group:
Includes winter squash, sweet potato, pumpkins, cantaloupe and carrots- high in vitamin A. The

Green Group:
Includes kiwi fruit, broccoli, asparagus, kale and spinach- It's primary purpose is to provide energy to the body and many green foods contain lutein (a phytochemical important for eye health) and folate (a water soluble B vitamin).

The Blue/Purple Group:
Includes blueberries, blackberries, concord grapes, and eggplants- high in antioxidants.

Here is a bright and fun, rainbow inspired, recipe for you to enjoy...
Baby Joy's Peach-Raspberry Acai Yogurt (makes 3 servings)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
 2 yellow peaches
1 tbs ground acai berries
1/4 cup organic plain yogurt
1 tsp ground wheat germ

Cooking Instructions:

1. Wash the raspberries. Steam for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the berries begin to break apart. Press the steamed berries through a fine sieve to deseed, collecting the juice and pulp in a mixing bowl. Scrape all the berry pulp from the bottom of the sieve into the bowl.
2. Peel and pit the peaches. Cut the flesh into 1-inch pieces. Steam the peaches with the acai berries for 8 minutes, or until they are soft. Reserve the liquid from the steamer.
3. Combine the peaches, berries, and deseeded raspberries in a food processor. Puree until smooth. Add the reserved liquid in a scant 1/8 cup at a time as needed to achieve the desired consistency.
4. Transfer the peach mixture to a mixing bow, add the yogurt, and whisk until fully combined. Add the wheat germ. Mix until fully blended.