As a parent of a CFer, you soon realize the entire baby food aisle is USELESS. I've never seen so many non-fat options in my life.
How to get extra calories into a toddler? Here are some items I like for older babies and toddlers with CF. What are your favorites?
Happy Bellies Oatmeal
It's a measley one gram of fat but we really like this oatmeal for its consistency. Instead of mixing it with water or milk, we combine it with a whole jar of baby food fruit and add some butter and salt to the mix. Yum - one of Lil Guy's favorites.
Earth's Best Baby Food
Earth's Best has some good options for baby food meats, which are important for the vitamins needed for little CFers. Their Seasonal Harvest Variety Pack doesn't have a lot of fat in it but again we just added butter and salt. Lil Guy loved these combos much better than straight baby food meat (ick). You'll fare a bit better in fat content withe the Gourmet Meals Variety Pack - the beef one has a whopping 7g of fat in it!
Annie's Cheddar Bunnies
With 7g of fat per serving, the bunnies appear to be a slightly better option than Pepperidge Farm goldfish.
High Fat French Fries
You don't need to run to McDonalds every time you you want high fat fries. Found these in the frozen food section - just read the labels to find the right ones. Condiments may take a while - Lil Guy didn't like ketchup until he was about a year and a half. He also didn't like dip for chips until about that time. And he still doesn't like ranch sauce. Of course he loves the sugary sweet and sour sauce!
Plum Organics Banana Pumpkin
We always make one stop in the baby food aisle and that is for Plum Organics Banana Pumpkin squeeze bags. There are other flavors but the Banana Pumpkin packs 100 calories into We love it for quick fixes at clinic - no need for enzymes because there isn't any fat in it.
Sunmaid Yogurt Raisins
I'm on the fence about these. The tiny box says 20% daily value of saturated fat - score! But when I look at the ingredients I still see a lot of sugar. Both kids love them so I can't keep them in stock.
It is such a good idea to blog about food for cystic fibrosis children, so I just want to thank you! This is exactly what I have been looking for! We are in Australia so not all brands are the same but it's still extremely useful. I completely agree that the baby food aisle is a waste of time, we add butter to everything as baby food seems to only have 1-3g of fat in it. I've also had difficulty finding a good full-fat yogurt, everything seems to be low-fat these days! I will definitely be following your blog, I need all the help I can get :)
ReplyDeleteLauren