Beets: A Study in Anticlimax

When I first started making LG's baby food, I solicited my mother's advice on what foods to try. She made a few suggestions, then said that if I ever tried beets, get ready for the strangest face I'd ever see LG make. Apparently when I was first fed beets, I screwed up my face into such a grimace, my mom never made me eat them again. Not that this sort of thing is hereditary, but I figured LG would do the same thing. I mean, who likes beets, really? (Sidebar: I still hate beets.)

We actually made beets months ago during the first big baby-food-making marathon when LG was 4 months old. I think we did beets, rutabaga, carrots and yams at that point. I later read that due to the high levels of nitrates in beets, you should wait until a baby is 8-9 months old before you give it to them.

So the beets waited at the back of the freezer.

I'd pull them out from time to time when I was rooting around for something else, every time thinking, "oh man, she's gonna hate these things."

Finally, Hollie and I decided it was time to bring on the beets. Today was going to be the day.

I'm not a sadistic person, but there's a small part of me that was looking forward to seeing just how she'd react. Another thing that folks mentioned was just how messy beets are. "Feed the kid in just her diaper! Don't even bother with a bib! Just get ready to hose her down when you're done!" (They are bright red, so much so that Hollie looked like she'd sliced her hand open when she was peeling them initially.) So figured, either way, a big reaction, or a big mess. It was going to be fun!

Want to see how it went? Check it out.



Yeah, mostly she was annoyed that I wasn't feeding her faster. Other than that, nothing. No reaction. In the video, that's just straight beet. In the picture below, I mixed it in with the rest of her food: squash, apple and rice. That's just about the closest I got to a bad reaction.

I mean, sure, it looks like she wasn't thrilled, but she immediate followed up that face with this one.
And do you see that bib? That's exactly how it looked when she was done. This might've been the cleanest meal we've had in days.

In the end, I just built it up too much. I forgot that one of the main things LG does to make me proud is that she eats everything.

Except apricots. Man... now that was a face.