Like all good mummies I started out by being a bit obsessed about salt and sugar. I would have liked my little cherub to dine on nothing but pure organic vegetables and meat from locally produced sources, but unfortunately I earn less than a squillion pounds a month so I set a new standard for myself: fresh, home-cooked meals wherever possible with no added salt or sugar.
Oh no, my little one wasn't going to be begging for sweets and Maccy Ds - at least not until he was old enough to go to school, when I believed the other kids would corrupt him.
I spent hours lovingly boiling up veg and processing it down, I only bought healthy organic snacks - Organix Carrot Sticks are like cheesy wotsits without the cheese - or any flavour at all really. Although the kid loves them. I spent ages in the baby food aisle reading the small print on porridge packs trying to buy the unsweetened kind.
As for the dreaded Petits Filous pots - I used to refer to that as 'baby crack' - the gateway drug that gets them hooked on sugar.
But the dude had other ideas. He stopped eating. He rejected my delicious mashed veggies and refused to eat anything but those Organix corn snacks. His weight plateaued, his development stalled. Exasperated I called for help and was referred to a dietician.
"Stop worrying about salt and sugar," she said - there was a tiny tinge of weariness in her tone.
"Wha- what?" I wondered if there was a fault on the phone line. "But... it's bad... sugar... addictive... salt... poison..."
"Look" she said. "At the moment the important thing is to get him eating food, enjoying food and putting on weight. High calorie, high-fat foods that he will actually want to eat. Have you tried cake?"
Later that week I interviewed Sarah Beeson MBE, a health visitor with four decades' experience, and she told me there's something the HVs call "Muesli Belt Malnutrition."
Parents - usually middle-class over-anxious ones - are so desperate to instil healthy eating in their young ones that they'll start them on adult style low-fat, low-calorie diets right from the start. Banning white bread or pasta, choosing low fat spread instead of butter.
While that's pretty extreme and rare I can see how people end up in that situation. It's so hard to figure out what's right. You stand in the supermarket aisles paralysed, trying to work out a complicated algorithm of cost+taste+nutrition+ethics. Organic or mass produced? Added sugar or no flavour at all?
Enough.
That night my beloved made a chocolate cake (see above, it was bloody lovely) and we fed it crumb by crumb into our little boys mouth. It took ages but boy did he enjoy it.
He actually enjoyed something! Bring on the baby crack.
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