Today we've got the Midas touch as we recollect and recount past and present experiences with feeding our kids. We share dos and don'ts, philosophies of eating and why its important to salt babies. We play it cool through prescription muffins, the trendy and the expensive before exploring the division of responsibility and assigning Matthew some homework.
Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton
Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter
Essential Labor by Angela Garbes
Virginia Sole-Smith of the newsletter Burnt Toast and books The Eating Instinct and Fat Talk
Listener Kayoko’s amazing article about feeding babies in Japan at Just One Cookbook
Matthew's Now but Wow! - Paolo from Tokyo a typical day at a rural elementary school video
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:00
Hi. I'm Matthew and I'm Molly and this is spilled milk. The show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all and you can't have any
Molly 0:09
today is episode number 645. I feel like we should announce the episode number.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:15
Okay, yeah, let's start doing because.
Molly 0:16
Because not every podcast makes it episode number 645.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:21
Yeah, probably like do you think do you think we're in the 1%?
Molly 0:25
Probably.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:26
I mean, I am because I have like this one of the Scrooge McDuck gold gold tubs.
Molly 0:31
Cold tubs.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:33
That's what he called it right the gold tub.
Molly 0:35
Do you mean like a brick of gold? Like bullion? That's like as big as a no
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:40
tub. I mean, like an old timey, an old timey clawfoot bathtub full of gold pieces that I bathe in?
Molly 0:46
Oh, it did. Scrooge McDuck have that? Well, he
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:49
had like a mug called his money bin that he would like dive into and like, like, you know, shower himself with gold pieces. I mean, like, if you actually dove into like a container of gold pieces, you would just die. I
Molly 1:02
basically I really liked the idea of like the mental image of a duck diving in, like the way that that chickens and birds do like dust baths. I like the idea of a gold bath. Yes. Like coins.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:15
It's been too long. I think since I brought up on the show a thing I think about all the time, which is the phrase the Midas touch. Do you think about it all the time because I find it so amusing that like it, when you say someone has the Midas touch, that means like they liked a good thing. It's a good thing. But like now in the story, not only is it a bad thing, but it's like the worst thing you can possibly imagine. Yes.
Molly 1:38
Yeah, I don't hear people use it very much. I think that nobody knows what it is. Certainly
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:42
it's certainly become an old timey expression, but I still use it because I'm an old timey kind of guy.
Molly 1:47
I wonder if like you know, kids today think that the Midas touch like refers to like the the lube place like cars to the lube? Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:00
I think you're gonna say the muffler muffler plate, I think I think it's a muffler play, but I'm sure I'm sure they do loops and mufflers. Jiffy Lube? Yeah, people today think that the Midas touch refers to Jiffy Lube. When I was a kid like oil changes take micarta oil can Henry's name
Molly 2:23
is that like the name of the actor who played the Scarecrow in it sure
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:27
was. Not this this girl I was you had to be going for 10 seconds there are like something's wrong with what Molly just said. But I can't figure out what it is no, the Scarecrow. Like, like, like to keep it lubed up.
Molly 2:50
Well, it's better to the better to ignite oneself with
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:54
exactly yeah, no, you eat leave a loom his brain. I need to do. I mean, they say they say the brain is the largest erogenous zone and so you gotta you gotta like stick an oil Kenny, you're here and see what happens.
Molly 3:07
It's also it's very fatty in there. It's very fatty. Yeah. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:11
are you the it's like self lubricating the brain. I kinda hope so. Because I don't want to like crack it open your as your myelin sheath today. Pretty good. I
Molly 3:20
think. I hope I feel like mine. Maybe not as thick as it should be given my inability to complete thoughts. Jiffy Lube, Scarecrow. What will she do next? Maybe
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:33
you got your axons all mixed up with your dendrites?
Molly 3:35
Maybe in there? That's right. Okay. Okay, what's
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:38
this episode about? This episodes about feeding babies? Yeah, originally, we put it down as baby food. But like that implies that we would mostly be talking about like commercial purees which we kind of did recently on the food packaging episode. That's
Molly 3:52
right. So today, the episode is called feeding babies. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:57
it's about feeding babies to other animals. That's correct sharks.
Molly 4:01
And there's obviously so much to say about this topic like a lot more than we can cover a lot more than we want to cover. Sure. So we're mostly going to talk about our own experiences feeding babies feeding up to three babies. Yeah, a total of three between us and so we'll be talking of course about like, purchased baby food as well as just like cooking for and eating with babies. Yes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:24
And this This episode was suggested by many people over the years but most recently, I think listener Kioko, who we've we've met a couple times has one like one toddler and one baby at this point. And so like Rush again to say like I've got a new baby like do your do your feeding babies episode. Ah, great. So we're doing it, like I'm gonna mention upfront just because so we'll forget later listener co Kioko wrote an amazing, long article for just one cookbook.com where she's an editor about baby food in Japan and like habits and rules for feeding babies in Japan that you get From the from the government from your friends, like what did she do with her baby is so comprehensive? It's so interesting. Oh,
Molly 5:06
fantastic. We'll be linked to it in the show notes. Of
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:09
course we will.
Molly 5:09
I'm really glad you mentioned that because one of the things that I noticed while researching this topic is that Wikipedia has, I think, two large charts about either feeding recommendations or like average first or like typical first foods in various countries around the world. Oh, I love that. Well, you know, you're free to go look it up. If you want to go to the Wikipedia entry for baby food, I decided not to mention any of it. Because honestly, given how much my own experience and your experience diverges from even like the typical like us Wikipedia entry, I was like
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:49
experienced does diverge a lot from the US Wikipedia entry. You know what I mean? The the Wikipedia entry for the United States of America.
Molly 5:57
What I'm saying is, I just felt like it was not the best place to go like saying or South Africa or whatever. I'm not going to base that on Wikipedia. So okay, I'm still gonna go look at it. Yeah, sure. Go look at it. Alright. Firstly, let's define the topic. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:14
So so this is about like, what is our approach to like feeding people under two years old? That's right, who may or may not live in our house. That's
Molly 6:23
right. And we're defining like, sort of baby food when we talk about that. We're talking about it as any food other than breast milk or formula that's made for human babies under two years old. Okay, so ready made, like purchased ready made or table food that's like mashed or otherwise easy for a baby to
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:42
eat? Or like purees that you make at home? Sure, any of those things? Let's go down memory lane. Great. Do you remember being a baby?
Molly 6:50
I don't.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:52
I don't either. All right. No. Okay.
Molly 6:54
No, I really had no experience with feeding babies prior to having my own babies. And I would say like, I am still living on memory lane. Right now. Ames is almost 14 months. That's big baby. And I'll be talking more about about what he's into in just a minute. But all this to say with June, I breastfed until she was 15 months. And number one, she was not super into food at the age that a lot of people start introducing food. We'll talk more about that too. But I think also because I was a first time parent. I did not buy any baby food. I was that pretentious, snobby? Sure person. With Ames. Again, I am a second time parents and I'm doing all those second time parent things like buying baby food. And I'm amazed by how much stuff is out there these days. So yeah, that is the lane I am still living on. And more about that in a minute. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:56
okay. So my child is 20 years old. So like, I don't do as much spoon feeding as I used to. I wrote a whole book about feeding them from like age zero to five.
Molly 8:07
And if you listener have not yet encountered this book, let me tell you about it. It is called Hungry monkey came out in 2009. That sounds right, or 2010 or something,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:18
I think I think the hardcover was 2009. And the paperback was 2010.
Molly 8:22
Okay, all right. So this was Matthew's first book. And it is fantastic. It's basically a memoir blended with recipes along with like really good researched information. Would you say some reportage even No, I would not. Okay, but really good research. You blend it into your personal story of feeding December up to age four.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:46
Yeah, right. Okay. Through through age four, I think got it. Yeah, I, I haven't gone back and looked at this book in a long time. I think of it as being like simultaneously, like smug and not very helpful, but I'm glad you enjoy it.
Molly 8:58
I think that especially for the time when it came out. There were not a lot of books. Number one, and they're still not are not a lot of books written by informed dads who are primary parents and who are invested in feeding their children. Yeah, no, I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:14
I'm a member of informed dads of America. No. But anyway, there
Molly 9:18
are not a lot of books written by dads that are not directed at dads that are just like useful books for parents. And also at the time that you wrote it. I think there were not a lot of really approachable narrative descriptions of of what I think is more commonly known today about like, how we introduce food and how we try to not overly control what our shirts are into.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:49
Yeah, baby led weaning one next expression.
Molly 9:53
We'll talk a little bit about Yeah, the division of responsibility. Oh, yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:57
I'm big on that. Yeah. Yeah. But so So yeah, so I like my memory lane is now quite a long time ago. And so like every once in a while I will get like a query from someone saying like, you know, I'm doing an article about feeding kids and I came across your book, like, do you want to be quoted for that? I'm like, I, I've been out of that game a long time, son. Yeah, yeah, I call everyone's son.
Molly 10:16
I know, even me, even you. When did December 1, start eating like solids somewhere
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:22
in like the seven month range. And I think this is fairly typical. We're not really interested until like, close to age one. Like, you know, it was it was just sort of a like, here's, here's the thing we can sort of play around with it was not a major source of nutrition during that time. Certainly, it was just like, Isn't it fun to like, you know, be allowed to put something in your mouth instead of like having your parent like, try and stick their finger in and remove it from your mouth?
Molly 10:49
As our doctor says food before one is just for fun? That's great. Yeah, yeah, totally. And I like to say food after one is still for fun.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:59
Oh, absolutely. I've mentioned before I'm sure the kid December's friend that they went to elementary school with, who subsisted almost entirely on just milk out of the fridge through elementary school. Wow. Okay, and was totally fine and is now like six foot four. All
Molly 11:16
right, those those milk fed American boys. Okay. Well, so I remember when June was was a baby. You know, I think there have been for as long as there have been
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:27
babies, which is a while solidly solid since the seven breast milk. In my experience,
Molly 11:33
there have been parents who've worried that their kids like weren't getting enough. And so they've wanted to give themselves Oh, soon as possible. But in general, I think doctors say really no solids before four months at the earliest. Yeah. And mostly they say six months. Now. They do. They mostly say six months. I remember like the first thing we gave June was maybe some sliced up avocado and we put it on the tray of her highchair. I think she was like five and a half months. Okay. And she did that typical baby thing where she just smeared it everywhere. Oh, yeah. None of it went into her mouth. I think that is like the classic first food experience.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:11
Yeah, there was there was like a long it at the time seemed like a long period of my life where like I thought every meal was going to end with me having to like wipe food off of someone's face. Like it still does. But it's but it's just my face. Now. It's also another person. But I remember like, we used to call it a scrubber which would be most usually like a wet a wet washcloth or paper towel. And like, what's what's the temperature could talk which was pretty early. They would say scrubber squabble.
Molly 12:37
Oh, that's so cute. Oh my god. So wait, they would ask for you to come clean their face. Oh, yeah. What? Okay, well, maybe Amos will one day right now. Basically, he acts like I'm killing him every time I come clean his face. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:51
no, I think it was less about like caring about whether there was stuff on their face and more about like, I know, I won't get to like, jump down from here and play until I've been scrubbed. Okay.
Molly 12:59
I hope that I hope Ames gets to that point. Well, so June was not interested in in food really at all. Until 10 months, I would say I mean, I remember giving her like her first strawberry or something at nine months. And she you know, put it in her mouth and you could see her like tasting it and all the things but I feel like it took much longer than then I think most new parents expect for her to eat anything resembling a meal. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's crazy how how long it takes really after you introduce food, how long it takes for it to become like a primary source of nutrition.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:38
Ya know, if that doesn't happen, like before your kid is two it does. It's fine. It doesn't matter at all.
Molly 13:43
Yeah. Yeah. So I think Ames was sort of like for a while was like, why would I work hard? Yeah, of course to move food around in my mouth. Like, why should I kind of stay on this? He is yeah, he's almost 14 months. When you look at like the nutritional information on one of the baby food pouches. It's like a stupidly small amount of nutrition. Oh, yeah. It's like 60 calories or something. And we feel triumphant on days when he manages to down a hole one in a city. Oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:18
yeah, sure. No, and I remember like thinking at one point, like like that, you know, they said, like, you know, give your baby like four ounces of milk or formula and like, like, no, like, no way. Like, like, I know, they're gonna like you're gonna get to like the two ounce mark and be like, Okay, I'm done. We're doing something else now.
Molly 14:36
Yeah. Our doctor when we went for his one year old checkup was like, I would really like him to be like, off bottles and off formula by 15 months. And I was like, oh, yeah, sure. Okay, well, I'll definitely get there. And now that we're almost at 14 months, and this dude still is by far getting the bulk of his nutrition from the formula he has like a few times a day. I am just So like, don't get me wrong. I would like to stop buying formula. Oh, sure. Oh my god that stuff is so so expensive. unbelievably expensive however, we're still just not that not that into food.
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:10
Have you tried to cop yet?
Molly 15:12
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's the other thing like, yeah they want you to maybe it's just that the doctor we have this time around was sort of much more prescriptive than the doctor will have the first time around. But yeah pretty much as soon as we started introducing solid foods she was like go ahead and give him a sippy cup get him to try drinking out of cups cetera he loves drinking out of cups he thinks is the coolest thing ever. His mouth is completely incontinent. Oh, yeah. And but he loves it
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:39
December from a very early age loved drinking cold water out of a glass. Oh, yes, he did a lot of help with it. And most of it would dribble but but they just I think I think they love like the feeling of the cold glass against against their little
Molly 15:52
Yeah, totally. Just as a basic. I thought this was kind of a good guideline. Like our doctor this time around told us that Ames was basically ready to eat solids when he could sit up and fully hold his head up. Yeah, that makes sense. Which Yeah, is around six months. Yeah. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:11
I think I think like a different way of framing that is like a baby that can't do that definitely isn't ready for solids. But a baby that can do that may not be interested in solids. Like, as soon as that happens, it may not be interested in solids for a while after that. Yeah,
Molly 16:24
it's interesting. When I watched I was reading, or I was sort of thumbing back through my copy of hungry monkey. And you mentioned something about about December, like really tracking your fork as you were going. Laurie were feeding yourselves. I couldn't believe I mean, you know, I think that was in the like section where December was under one year old. And I was like, what? Because aim still doesn't really ever express an interest in what we're eating.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:52
Yeah, but you know, it aims walks, December started walking at 20 months. Walks walks everywhere now. And like, don't get me started on potty training. Like, it was like, one of the reasons we didn't have another kid. But like, again, like is potty trained now. Oh, good. So I was wondering how that was going. Yeah. So but it for a while there, it seemed like it was never going to happen. Yeah. And yeah, so so like, no baby has ever hit all of the milestones. Exactly. When the the sheet you get from the state government says they're going to
Molly 17:28
Oh, my God, those sheets from the government. Does every state get those?
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:32
I don't know. That's a good question.
Molly 17:34
I've never had a baby. Not in Washington State game. But yeah, we get those things every you know, every couple months, or maybe it's every month, I can't remember. Like
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:42
everything with babies, like they trail off after a while. You know, it's like for the first for the first couple buds. It's like, everybody's like, you know, it's two buds now, like your baby should be I don't know, like, like, starting to show. Yeah, we have the same got the same joke in mind. And then and then when it gets out to like, 18 months, you're like, Yeah, you know, the state government kind of don't give a shit about your baby. That's
Molly 18:03
right. That's right. Hang in there until your kids five and can go down can go to public school.
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:08
Okay, so with December, we did buy pretty much just one genre of pureed food. And that was pureed fruit. It was pureed fruit, so particularly the prune and pear. And I would mix them with plain yogurt and call it prune whip, which I think was an actual yogurt product or some kind of product at some point. I had pear whip, which, which I don't think was a December love to those. Oh, and had like a, you know, one of those early baby words for yogurt, which was going going, Oh, my God, I love that save you like data? You're going? Oh
Molly 18:42
my God, that's fantastic. I love that. Did you do the whole like baby led weaning thing?
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:48
What is your definition? I think yes. Okay,
Molly 18:50
I think I've probably got the definition a little wrong. But my definition of baby led weaning is basically just presenting your kid with some food and letting them bring it to their mouth. So presenting it in a format that they can access. So kind of like bigger hunks of food at first, and then maybe cubing the food up when they can pick up smaller things. But in general, not spoon feeding your baby letting them decide what and how much they're going to take.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:19
In that case? No, because we did do quite a bit of spoon feeding although for a very short, like the spoon feeding phase actually lasts a very short time. Yeah, for the most part, but you know, like when they would they would indicate like, you know, I don't want any more like we would stop and not like encourage like, no, but but but like many people do.
Molly 19:39
I think what about the I mean, I think one thing that freaks out people about baby led weaning. In fact, I was just reading somebody's newsletter where they talked about being freaked out about baby led weaning, because I think a lot of people are afraid of the choking hazard. Sure, which if you're giving your kid like let's say you've taken a whole carrot and you've steamed it and you give your baby Be a whole carrot to kind of knock on a whole steamed carrot. That
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:03
sounds so gross. But but also but also Yeah, I think I think a lot of babies would love that. Yeah. First of all, choking hazards are a real thing that like I see people disregard and I like I want to that this is like the one thing that I want to like grab other parents and shake them. Like you know, giving like a small child hold grapes or popcorn or something. Don't do that. However, babies gag a lot when they are learning to eat edit. It's terrifying to watch as a parent, but it also totally normal and necessary. So yeah, so like that baby with the whole carrot is going to be like working on it. And like, you know, sticking it in the back of their throat like I and you know, and you're like, I have to fix this situation like, and but it's fine. Like the the fact that the carrot is soft is the key thing. Yeah,
Molly 20:50
I have to say I remember I made a video of June eating blueberries. And I feel like she was maybe around a year or less. And I had not had the blueberries. And I think it didn't even occur to me. And to this day, June loves to harass me about like that. I risked her life.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:13
Pretty small. What did you not even got a blueberry? I don't know.
Molly 21:17
I have no idea. But anyway, I don't know. I don't think I've ever even given Ames, a grape. I never even buy grapes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:23
I buy grapes for making sausages and grapes. But that's about it.
Molly 21:27
Well, anyway, I think with June I did sort of baby led weaning thing. Like I have a picture of her with like a whole half an apple in her hand. Nice. Just sort of like sucking on it. I mean, in retrospect, I think a lot of people would freak out about that. Because what if she takes off a big bite of it and then chokes on that big bite? She did not? Yeah, I don't know. I give Ames off in a slice of apple. And he has just started being able to actually bite off enough of it for me to worry about. Yeah, sure. Whereas before he would just sort of suck on it or like, yeah, so I don't know. I feel like for young babies, some of the things that I now worry about with a slightly older young baby. They weren't an issue then. Yeah, sure. But yeah, I remember giving Jun more kind of like whole stuff. But she would just like suck on it. Lick
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:20
it. Yeah, no, definitely. We did. We did that. Also, like I don't remember anything in particular other than cookies. But
Molly 22:26
did you ever do like a rice cereal?
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:30
I feel like we had it in the house at some point. But we know we never we never really did that
Molly 22:35
really understood why that is like a thing. I mean, I know. It's very like old school.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:40
I mean, yeah, I think it just seems like so uncomplicated. Like like it's just like that's, that's the plainest softest food we can possibly think what baby could object to this or like have a problem with it. There are there is such a thing as rice allergies.
Molly 22:56
I remember my mom, I remember feeding June, giving her a taste of like a parsnip soup that I had in a restaurant when she was a baby. And my mom was there. And I remember her being like, Oh, don't give her that that has like such a strong flavor. And I was like, I remember saying to her at the time, like Mom, aside from like, breast milk or formula or whatever. Everything has a strong flavor. So like, let's just go for it. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:20
and like, I never really got the I like the concept of like, babies might be nervous about strong flavors, because like, babies babies don't like subtlety. They want it they want to be like, you know, picked up like picked up off the ground and held. They like books with like, you know, giant bright colors in them. They like, you know, Song songs with like, you know, a stupid level of dynamics and exaggeration. Like the idea that this wouldn't extend to food doesn't really make sense to me. Yeah,
Molly 23:49
I mean, I think it's very much a product of like, I don't know, white western culture. Probably to where like, I think sort of the the typical foods are not heavily spiced. Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:04
think you're right. Do
Molly 24:04
you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Because I have to say like, so the only food that Ames has, like fully rejected like hated was still cut oatmeal I made for him. Ah, interesting. He grimaced.
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:17
Yeah December really liked things with texture more than then smooth things and for many babies, it's the opposite
Molly 24:24
seems like smooth things but he likes a lot of flavor. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:27
I saw him eating pizza
Molly 24:37
Matthew oh my god, do you so I think we have to since you mentioned rice allergies. I think we have to talk about allergens. Yeah, let's
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:45
do it. Okay, like the the medical establishment has done a real one add on that in the last 20 years. I want to say totally.
Molly 24:51
So they used to say like, hold off on introducing things that might be common allergens, right, right. And now they're like, get them in Do your child immediately as soon as they start eating solids. So our our current doctor who again is is I think, more prescriptive than some. She basically wanted us to like, get right to it as soon as he was peanut butter, she was basically like start with peanut butter. She's like, just you know, do whatever you have to do loved peanut butter, right, like, get some into his mouth. He loves peanut butter. Men like, butters really taste many a meal for aims there especially in in his, like, earliest days of starting to eat food. He would sometimes just have peanut butter off a spoon for dinner. Oh, yeah, all of it. That sounds pretty good. But here's what I think is is weird. So, and I've heard this from friends too. So after peanut butter, they want you to do eggs, or at least our doctor did. So they want you to make sure the egg is fully cooked. Sure. And the way that this was recommended, or the way that it was recommended for me to introduce eggs, and for multiple friends in the Seattle area was we were given this like muffin recipe. And told to like break gription muffins Yes. And to and told to like make this muffin recipe and feed it to the kid it because it had a egg in it. Well, I looked at it and he
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:16
does it every muffin recipe of egg as well. So
Molly 26:19
my friend Emily, Emily, if you're listening to this, Emily made the muffin and said it was terrible. Okay, so Emily took the fall, she threw out the whole batch I think after serving it too. I think this was her son. So I did not make the muffin. I just made some like fully cooked scrambled eggs. And I have to say it's the only food I really had to kind of like force feed him. Yeah, the only time I think I've ever tried to force feed him. He hated it through
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:48
scrambled eggs are a real different texture than many other things. Especially if they're like dry. Yeah.
Molly 26:53
But yeah. Then they wanted us to move from there to trying like shellfish, fish. Sesame, like in the form of sesame oil.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:03
Yep. Did you? Did you let him loose on just like a big old shrimp cocktail.
Molly 27:07
You know, I have to say after we safely got through peanut butter and eggs, and by this point, we discovered he just was not that into eating food. We didn't really want to force feed him anymore. But you did do to cocktail sauce. Right? So what we did was the rest of the things we just kind of introduced like as they showed up. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:27
that's that's what we did. For sure. Yeah. And like when December was little like, that's, that's right. When the guidance was was in the process of changing. Yeah, I'm really glad that they that they abandoned the old guidance, not just because it was wrong, but because it was really hard to follow. I have
Molly 27:45
to say, I mean, both both you and I have been really fortunate to have children who do not have food or not. Yeah, do not have food allergies to these common common allergens. Yeah, I'm just glad that we're introducing them earlier. And also sort of like tackling that fear. Yes. Because the parents I have seen whose kids have had sensitivities that then they grew out of over time. That is just one more stressful thing with a young child. Yes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:12
Okay, I have a question for you. Is there any current sort of trendy baby snack among among parents? Because when when just everyone's little thing was veggie booty? Or veggie booty horse? I remember veggie booty so yeah, so it was like this, like, basically Cheetos dusted with kale powder.
Molly 28:31
Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:32
And it was it was actually kind of tasty. Yes, it's fine. But But like, you could give it to your kid and pretend it was vegetables?
Molly 28:39
I think I mean, this was a few years back but there are those like, have you seen these things that are like little like freeze dried yogurt droplets? Yes, yes. We bought them exactly once and Jun ate them all and aims didn't care. Okay. I'm sure there are things what I do want to say is Oh my God, there's so many trendy expensive baby foods. Oh, of course. And that has been the case for as long as there have been baby foods, I'm sure. But these days It really annoys me like the way that they get the like wellness labeling on there so early. Like there's this brand called Sara belly which, like the brands added for the baby cerebellum, the that yes, it's oh no brain booster, vitamins
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:24
and shit and helping out I wanted that to be just a dumb joke. No,
Molly 29:27
and it's like $3.69 per pouch God, whereas the pouches that we buy, which are still like organic, are like $1.89 Anyway, it makes me so irritated. I refuse to buy any of those ones that are like labeled as superfoods or having like added brain boosting vitamins or whatever. I mean, meanwhile, of course, I've got Amos doing Baby Einstein. Not really.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:54
Is that still does that still exist?
Molly 29:56
Yeah, I don't think so.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:00
Oh has Ames mastered the pincer grip? I'm still working on it
Molly 30:04
yeah, yeah, so that was why we got the little yogurt thingies oh okay like one of those like tubes of like puffed sweet potatoes or something again June preferred them to Ames hated them didn't want to eat any of these things and fed them all to the dog and I think as pincer grip is getting better fine December
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:23
like one of my favorite memories of of December being little and learning to eat food was them attempting to eat Cheerios and like had the pincer grip down like a pickup one cheerio but could not find their mouth with it. It would like kind of like smoosh it up against their like the side of their bow that it would fall. I was it was hilarious.
Molly 30:45
Matthew Yeah, we talked for a minute about the division of responsibility.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:49
Yeah. So we we talked about the first rule of baby food first or the division of responsibility for
Molly 30:54
Okay, so this is the first rule of baby food, which you might have heard of in that movie with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, that oh, yeah, yeah. The
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:01
first rule of baby food is, is there is no baby food. Oh, wait, is Was that was that the joke I was making? Yes, it was for fight. clo. Jeez, Matthew. Wait, nope. No, I know you were making a Fight Club joke. But was I making a Fight Club joke in the book? I'm pretty sure I honestly can't remember. Well, because
Molly 31:18
you said the first rule of baby food is there is no baby food. You
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:22
know what? I don't think I was thinking about fight club when I wrote this. I know, I guess I must have been but like, first of all what you said I was like, Yeah, I know. I did put something in my book about the first rule of baby food, but I cannot remember what it was. So I decided to like look at the book. And then like, at no point did I think oh, I was making a Fight Club joke. But now that you pointed out I guess I was I think you must have you for seen fight. I haven't seen Fight Club. I liked
Molly 31:48
it. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Okay, so yeah. So
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:53
the first rule of baby food is there's no such thing as baby food that like, as soon as a baby is ready to eat anything, they're ready to eat most of what their parents are eating just like chopped or smushed up. Yep. And there are certainly there are certainly exceptions, but not many. And the real excited is like anything that's really hard to chew. Yeah.
Molly 32:13
Yeah. Matthew, I really loved. So especially I remember in some of the promotional stuff around hungry monkey, you always talked about the emphasis on like, fun. Yeah. So I mean, I know that, like, you know, it's nice to be able to talk about that, especially because we didn't have kids with food allergies, or whatever. But still, could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 32:36
So so like, I don't know, like, I want to be I want to be not like, you know, smug, I want to like own my privilege in the sense that, yeah, I had a real easy kid, in many ways. And food was one of those ways, although they certainly had a long picky eating phase. And we'll probably talk about that a little bit. But you know, that when you are a person who likes to eat, which I imagine most of our listeners are, and you have like a brand new person that you can introduce to all of your favorite foods. What could be more fun than that, and like, and yet I see, all the time, well, meaning parents like doing their best to kind of ruin the fun by like, you know, having overly prescriptive rules about like, what their kids can and can't eat, about, like trying to make sure that their kids eat a certain amount. You know, restricting like, you know, this, this has like too many ingredients in it, or it might be spicy, or like, you know, they're you know, let the let the kid tell you where lightful
Molly 33:31
or like you've had too many carbs today, let the kid tell you
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:34
if they don't like something, they will let you know. Like a baby can definitely let you know if they don't like something. Yeah. So like from the very beginning. Like I remember, like, you know, certainly before December was one sharing like a large quantity of enchiladas with them. It just feels like this is so cool. Like this person has never tasted enchiladas before I get to like you to chop sub chops of off and like spoon spit it into their mouth and they love it too.
Molly 33:59
Well, and I think that one of the hardest things to learn about about approaching eating with your kid this way is even though you are really excited to introduce them to enchiladas. I don't know in my experience, I have to play it real cool of course yeah. And act like I don't care whether they like it or no Yeah, it's so hard like the fun in the beginning is sort of internal quiet.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:23
It's internal quiet fun, like you know, like Scream scream in your heart that's inside your heart and
Molly 34:28
then when you get older you get to do things like talk with your kid about how much you both love enchiladas but my god like with every new food that I've ever served to June or aims I'm always like Molly plate cool even if this is your favorite thing to be
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:41
fair like you know there were like you know like snack times and like you know on the go times when like I was not just sharing my food with this ever like one of one of their most common meals or snacks like at age one was some cubes of canned sweet potatoes with some canned black beans and like you know, just Yeah, like perfect baby food, right?
Molly 35:01
Totally, totally. So I learned from you the division of responsibility. Okay. Okay. So I want to talk about what this I
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:08
want you to explain it because I think I've will probably get it wrong because it's been so long and
Molly 35:12
I think it's an Ellen Sattar right? Okay. So here, here's the deal, okay, the division of responsibility for like, eating together as a family or for serving food to your kids. So as a parent, you are responsible for choosing what you serve. When so when you serve it, and where your family eats,
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:33
I feel like like Washington State.
Molly 35:36
I mean, I think I think if you want to get really granular about this, what they mean is like, get really granular, you should serve whole grain, like where your child eats. Honestly, I don't buy this, like, I find that my baby often eats best if he's just walking around and anyone's a bite. But anyway, you choose what you serve, when you serve it and where your family eats, then your child or frankly, anybody else at your table is responsible for how much they eat. And if they eat at
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:07
all. Yeah, that's basically it. That's the whole concept. It works. Yep. It's important. And it's so hard to do in practice,
Molly 36:14
although I think it's only hard to do in the beginning. Yeah, sure. It is truly about like unlearning all the things that at least, I mean, I think I had a pretty lovely experience of eating family meals as a kid, but even still, there were things I had to eat, or I was told, like, you've got to finish this before you can have dessert or whatever. So you know, it's tricky to unlearn all that stuff. Right? Right, that like you just put the food on the table, and then you do not get to comment anymore.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:43
Yeah, that's the hard part. Yeah, you know, and the other hard part for for many parents, and sometimes for me, certainly is like, you know, that that thinking like, oh, like, you know, my kid only ate two bites of food, like, they're gonna, they're gonna get hungry and keel over, like, you know, that the thing that you notice very quickly, while watching babies is that babies like have a much finer tuned sense of how much food they need than adults do. Yeah, like, as adults, you know, there are lots of like social factors and other factors that come into, like, you know, when, where, and how much we eat. And like, you know, you might find yourself thinking, like, I'm full, but like, I, you know, I want to, you know, make my hosts happy by finishing this or, like, I'm full, but I like this, I'm gonna keep eating it, like, you know, you see a baby turn on a dime, like, you know, I love this thing a second ago. And now I do not want any more of it. You have to trust them on that, because they know,
Molly 37:34
well, and I would say that like feeding babies this way, is really good practice for feeding adolescent, teenagers. Because, you know, then your kid gets older, well, then the next bit of work you get to do is around like, you know, battling your own like internalized fat phobia. And absolutely, and you know, and then the question becomes, like, Oh, God, like, Oh, I'm worried about my kid, taking thirds of the stuffed shells or whatever. But no, you have to sit there and be like, hey, the best that I can do is raise a person who knows what their appetite is. And it is not my job to decide for them how much they need,
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:14
right? And if you want to try and like make this the hill you die on, it's not going to work first of all, and you're going to make yourself and your kid miserable. That is right. Like, that's the most important reason to do it. Yes,
Molly 38:27
this is true. I mean, there are so many, so kids are not going to come around to liking what we want them to like, just because because we make them like it. Like that doesn't work.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:37
Yeah, no. And like, I think like my experience with December was like, extremely typical. And like, you know, the same same as my experience as as a kid, which was like, you know, a young baby, like, kind of can't really distinguish between foods, except by texture and like, just kind of eats whatever, whatever's there, you know, then they turned about to and they started having, you know, expressing opinions about food and everything else. And they also like, are not growing nearly as fast as when they were babies. And so they get much pickier about what they eat. And that could last a short time, or it could last a long time. And it's like, it's not something that like ends at a specific time. It's something that that goes in phases. And for most many kids, like, you know, their palate will broaden quite a bit once they move out of their parents house. Like, you know, not that nothing will happen before that but like, I know, as soon as I got to college, I was like, I'm gonna start eating salad now because like, I sort of like I see everyone else doing it. And I don't want to I don't want to be seen as a picky eater. It also I sort of feel like my body wants it now. And like I think December had pretty much exactly the same experience. Yeah,
Molly 39:42
yeah. No, it's amazing how much not commenting on food or not talking about how much or what food or what is good or bad or whatever. Like what an impact that absence of commentary can have on your experience of eating with your kids. Yeah, right. Like I remember watching June the First time I think we were out at a restaurant. This was when I was still together with Brandon. And there were oysters. And Jun was curious about them. She was like under three years old. We were like, Oh, do you want to try one? This is an oyster. And she was like, yeah. And so she put the shell up to her mouth. I showed her how. And She sipped a little bit of the brine and she liked it. And then she put her fingers in and picked up the oyster with her fingers. It was nasty. And I just like I was all I could do to not like freak out both with like joy that my child was interested in trying oysters, but also with like absolute revulsion. Yeah, at this thing she's holding in the air, and she ate it. I think often as parents, we set our kids up for failure. When we say too much. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, either I love this food, or now some people find this too spicy. Right? Or you know what I mean? Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:56
no, it's it's like, it's nice to let the kid it's hard. But it's nice to like the kid. Yeah, have their own experience.
Molly 41:03
I just want to say really quickly. There is a writer out there who's doing an amazing job of writing about feeding kids. So she writes really beautifully about the division of responsibility. And also just about the broad diversity of normal experiences that families can have in feeding kids. Her name is Virginia soul Smith, she writes a newsletter called burnt toast. Her first book is called The eating instinct. Her second book is called fat talk. And she's just written a lot about feeding kids with less anxiety and without like letting diet culture and your own fear get in the way. I also want to say Angela Garbus. In her book, essential labor, has a chapter called encouraging appetites, which for me, I think was really eye opening and thinking about like, what is my goal as the mother of a female child in this world? Like, I want my child to know her appetite? Be encouraged to know what she wants to eat. I don't want her to make herself small. Yeah. Anyway, I It's an incredible piece of writing again, it's the chapter called encouraging appetites from essential labor. Okay. Well, this
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:18
was kind of a serious episode. It was it was do we have to have any more Oh, wait, no, there's there's more. Oh, okay. Well, I
Molly 42:24
mean, we could we could move it along. Yeah. Okay. So what were a few things that you remember, I remember I know from Hungry monkey,
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:32
that you have to remind me I remember the enchiladas I tried to think of other Oh, ants on a tree and Sunday tree. Yeah. Which is which is like, glass noodles and, and ground pork. Chinese noodle dish. That's, that's spicy. It's got a lot of soy sauce. Really good stuff.
Molly 42:47
And you also made some like more? Not bland, but sort of less highly seasoned baby foods early on.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:55
Yes. Well, like at first December I had no problem with spicy and then like, right around two years old, like started or ever started coming to the table. And I'd say like, is there a pepper on this? Because I don't want pepper on this. Like, if there was like, you know, a visible grain of black pepper. Yeah. And then like around maybe a, like somewhere it's not six to eight pretty suddenly decided like, I like spicy food again. Okay,
Molly 43:18
cool. I remember in the beginning, something that I loved to make for June was a dish I learned about from Louisa Weiss and I guess it's a typical thing to feed babies in Italy, which is you basically bring some water with a little bit of olive oil or some broth to a boil, put in like a baby sized amount of a tiny pasta, right? You might even drop in a couple of halved or quartered cherry tomatoes into the pasta water. Yeah, because again, you're just doing this in like a little sauce pan. And then if you have it, at the end, you can stir in a little bit of ricotta or a little bit of even cream cheese. And you're making kind of this like soupy or Parmesan. You're making this kind of like soupy pastina like little little pasta. June I loved it. I loved it. It was so delicious. And sometimes we would share share it like out of the saucepan for lunch. Yeah, that sounds awesome. I have to say so Eames loves, you know, not heavily spicy Indian food. Oh, yeah. We figured that out from like offering him some leftovers we had nice. He loves butter chicken brand and makes a good chicken tikka masala and he aims loves that. One of the first things he really enjoyed chewing on was the crust of Delancey pizza. Oh yeah. Which is pretty salty. I've never been one of those people who doesn't salt baby food. Yeah, I saw I saw babies. I have salted both of my baby's food pretty much like I do for the rest of us in the house. Oh, okay. It's been fun being a little more relaxed with aims this time around. seems really likes Cheetos like he loves to basically suck all the cheese off of them
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:07
as he tried to flame in hot night. Yeah, that'd be that'd be a mean prank. Could be pretty funny.
Molly 45:12
I was once eating some dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt. And I gave him a little bite and he loved it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:20
Yeah, go figure.
Molly 45:21
Oh cow man guy.
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:23
That's that it's such a great baby food
Molly 45:26
right? Yeah, I mean if you're if your kid likes things a little bit on the less season side don't put the sauce on it. Yeah, like the more like I put a bunch of sauce on aims and stuff. And he totally was into Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:36
but it's so it's so tender. And yeah, smooth. And yeah.
Molly 45:40
Gilbert likes a peanut butter Kang and Ames does too. It rains out. So yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:47
you put up a couple times here that how gross pureed meat like baby food meat pouches.
Molly 45:53
That is like,
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:54
I don't think I ever bought one.
Molly 45:56
I've never bought one. I can't handle it. I think it's so like, no,
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:00
like, no, no criticism, like if you're a kid if your kid likes him. Yeah, that's That's great. No, it was it was it was a it was a me thing. Ya
Molly 46:07
know, I'm grossed out by the idea of meat in a pouch. Ames actually hasn't had very much meat. I think just because we haven't thought to give him very much. But we did give him
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:17
as soon as you'd like just hand him a big pouch of Jack Link's beef jerky.
Molly 46:21
That's right.
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:22
You'll see the Doritos flavored one.
Molly 46:26
No, the I think the first meat we ever gave him was a slice of like a slice from like a breaded chicken cutlet that oh shade. And he sucked all the breading off and then threw the chicken across the room.
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:38
Yeah, I mean, like the breading is the best part true. That's true. Man smart kid.
Molly 46:43
This is true. Do we have any spilled mail?
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:45
We sure do
this is not like a specific email but just an update from a listener so a couple of years ago and I think we probably mentioned this on the show at the time listener Anna who is a clinical social worker and therapist wrote into say that she uses the now but wow concept in group therapy as a check in prompt I loved it and that she had added like her therapy group had added a companion prompt owl but wow for quote things that are painful but also transformative
Molly 47:18
oh my god I love that right
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:19
and she reading recently to say to say quote we still do Albert wow every time we meet sounded it sounded like maybe now but while he's falling by the wayside like the Albert Wow proved to have more more like therapeutic value which I can totally understand
Molly 47:34
oh man we should start doing now but wow could start doing Albert wow
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:37
like as I said to Lister Anna like I have someone who liked shiz away from Albert wow moments in life and could really like probably benefit from this myself.
Molly 47:46
Wow, Matthew, your assignment for next week's episode is to find an album. Wow.
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:51
Okay, let's do it.
Molly 47:52
Alright, Matthew, do you have an album? Well?
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:55
Oh, yeah, I do.
So I've definitely recommended the YouTube channel Paulo from Tokyo before. He's a YouTuber, American YouTuber who, who lives in Tokyo, with his Japanese wife and their kid and just makes great videos about like everyday life, like often he'll go like, you know, a day a day in the life of a rest of a, you know, tonkatsu restaurant in Japan or like a day in the life of a, like Japanese comedian or video game programmer. And he did one recently about a typical day at a rural Elementary School in southern Japan. As I was watching it, I was like, you know, man, it must be so hard to get releases to film. You know, all these kids like you got to get releases signed by like every parent of every kid in the school, probably Sao Paulo found a way to solve this problem by going to a school with eight students. Okay, so it's this this school in a very rural area, like you can't get there on the train, which which in Japan is a wild thing to say. And in Kagoshima Prefecture, and like, you know, this video has it's like half an hour long. It's got some good food content. There's part of the really really I wanted to know much more about where he found the principal inspecting the school lunches anyone that everyday like inspects the school lunches for safety. And like I want to know like, with if they ever failed, there's so there's a there's a good food content the school sells its own signature box curry for fundraisers. You can get to it you got to see kids learning kanji, like, like how did you write Japanese characters and like do some calligraphy even. And also just like plenty of my favorite thing, which is like you know, kids saying the darndest things.
Molly 49:43
And so where do people find this?
Matthew Amster-Burton 49:45
It's on YouTube. We'll link to it. It's free. It's Paulo, from Tokyo is the channel and it's a day at a yet. I think it's called a day in an elementary school with only eight students.
Molly 49:54
Excellent. All right. Our producer is Abby circuito Ella.
Matthew Amster-Burton 49:58
Molly has a newsletter called I I've got a feeling that there's been on fire lately I would say, Oh, I'm getting I've been getting some good content from that newsletter. Oh, wow. You subscribe it's and Molly weisenberg.substack.com.
Molly 50:10
Matthew is making music with his band early to the airport. Matthew, you're gonna have a new EP out. So it
Matthew Amster-Burton 50:17
should be by the time you hear this. I don't think it will be out by the time you hear this, but I think it will be close. Okay, so okay, I'm doing something for it every day, including this morning. I told Molly before she came over I was playing some piano and playing piano is hard.
Molly 50:30
Yes. But listening to Matthews music is not and you can find it everywhere you find music, just search for early to the airport.
Matthew Amster-Burton 50:38
And you can hang out with other listeners at everything spilled. milk.reddit.com And I bet I bet we'll get an interesting conversation about feeding babies. Yeah,
Molly 50:47
well, you know, thanks for listening to spilled milk. The show that
Matthew Amster-Burton 50:51
in the show the division of responsibility, Molly tries to explain something and I interrupt her.
Molly 50:58
Hi, Molly. Hi, Matthew.
Oh, Kay, all right. Okay. Hey, bananas.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai