How To Keep Your Baby Safe When Starting Solids

By Sarah Smith of Bayside Dietetics

www.baysidedietetics.com.au or Facebook page Bayside Dietetics

Covid-19 has put us on high alert for bugs so here is some information on bugs in food and how to keep your new baby safe when you introduce them to solids. The advice is based on expert opinion which means no one out there is experimenting by giving infants risky foods and we follow what the people who are in the know recommend to us.

Remember that bugs in food usually cannot be smelt or tasted nor do they make the food look any different. When in doubt, throw it out!

What can I do as the parent?

Keep on washing those hands! Hands should be washed thoroughly, which means soap and warm water, prior to feeding your infant.
Bugs will also be reduced by keeping food preparation areas, equipment and highchairs clean. Same goes for your child’s bowl and spoon.

What is important when I prepare food?

Fresh fruit and vegetables need a wash. Cold water is fine for this but it needs to be running rather than leaving the fruit and vegetables in a sink of water. For any vegetable with a firm skin, a scrub is recommended. This means potatoes, squash, carrots and melons.
Cook any meat, chicken or fish until it has been cooked all the way through. The Canadian Food Safety guidelines have a great temperature chart if that helps: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/general-food-safety-tips/safe-internal-cooking-temperatures.html
Make sure eggs are hard boiled i.e. both the yolk and white are firm

What about storing food?

This advice is where my empathy for new parents comes out because I know the reality of getting to clean up and put away food is good in theory and hard in reality. However, it is important to get any food that you’ve prepared for your into the fridge or freezer within 2 hours.
Same goes when out shopping – you need to get any meat, seafood, chicken or fish you’ve bought into the fridge or freezer within 2 hours, although it drops to 1 hour during summer. Sometimes it is easiest to pick up perishable items at the end of your shopping trip.
Home-made food can be stored for:
- Meat, chicken, fish, eggs – 24 hours in the fridge
- Other home-made food – up to 2 days in the fridge
- All foods may be stored up to one month in the freezer

When you serve to your child, you will first need to reheat it until steaming hot to kill any bugs that have grown, and then cool it before serving. If it is coming from the freezer, it is best to avoid defrosting at room temperature. Either defrost it as part of the reheating process or in the fridge.

Do not keep refreeze any thawed food.
Keep storage of your raw meat, chicken, fish and seafood away from ready to eat foods such as fruit.

When you buy these foods at the supermarket, keep them separate in your shopping trolley too. When you pack them into reusable shopping bags, make sure ready to eat foods such as fruit go into clean bags. This may be a new bag, washed bag or a designated fresh food bag.

Make sure your fridge is set at or below 4°C and your freezer at or below -18°C.

And commercial baby foods?

Follow “best before” dates.
Double check safety seal in the middle of the lid of commercial baby foods prior to opening the jar.
An opened jar of baby food follows the advice above: 24 hours for meat, chicken, fish and eggs or 2 days for other foods.

Any advice when feeding my infant?

Saliva contains lots of bugs so any food that has been in contact with the spoon needs to be discarded. If you want to minimise food wastage, this means feeding small amounts from a bowl (rather than baby jar or storage container) and adding more if your infant shows signs of still being hungry.

Are there any foods to avoid?

There are some foods that are likely to contain too many or risky bugs and are best not to be fed to your infant. They are:
- Honey. This includes avoiding adding honey to formula and dummies.
- Raw seafood, including sushi.
- Unpasteurised milk. Use pasteurised milk instead.
- Anything made from unpasteurised milk such as cheese and yoghurt. This includes some of the soft cheeses like feta, blue cheese and brie.
- Any other unpasteurised juice. Choose pasteurised juices and ciders.
- Cold deli salads and meats (unless you reheat until steaming hot first then cool).
- Raw sprouts: mung beans, radish, alfalfa and bean sprouts. These sprouts can be eaten if cooked.
- Home-made dishes that contain uncooked eggs. This includes no licking the batter spoon! Cooked egg in products is fine.

Who is looking out for me when I go shopping?

The Australian Government has set up an independent organisation to help keep the Australian food supply safe. This organisation is known as FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand). FSANZ develops standards about what may be added to commercial foods, food labelling and food composition including genetically modified foods. More information can be found at https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/about/Pages/default.aspx.

I hope you and your family are staying safe.

Sarah