Almost every childcare book offers the same advice about a baby's first solid meal -- start them first on rice cereal mixed with breast milk or formula. This has been received wisdom for 60 years.But this is because in the 1950's, baby food companies launched an advertising blitz trumpeting the benefits of white rice cereal.
But there is no scientific basis for this recommendation. None at all. And now, concerned about increasing childhood obesity, some pediatricians want to change how babies eat.
If babies are getting used to the taste of highly processed white rice and flour, it could set them up for a lifetime of bad habits.
USA Today reports:
"White rice -- after processing strips away fiber, vitamins and other nutrients -- is a 'nutritional disaster' ... White rice and flour turn to sugar in the body 'almost instantly,' ... raising blood sugar and insulin levels."