Slow Food Baby
Slow Food Baby supports families to make informed choices about food during the important phase of introducing first foods to infants. With increases in diet-related diseases, such as childhood diabetes and obesity, Slow Food UK is keen to help parents and carers gain the skills and confidence to make healthy decisions about what to feed children and how to make mealtimes fun!
Slow Food Baby was launched in spring 2011, with an initial training for 12 facilitators who delivered Slow Food Baby workshops across the UK. Further trainings for facilitators are planned to increase the number and location of workshops. The SFB Team is working in partnership with NCT, the UK’s leading charity for parents, to deliver the project.
Studies show that babies introduced to a variety of foods choose a wider range of foods throughout childhood; this can encourage a healthier diet in the long-term. Many of our food preferences stem from what we are exposed to and not the existence of inherent preferences, beyond a fairly universal love of sweet flavors. We hope to help families as they start their children on a taste adventure to last a lifetime.
Slow Food Baby has been designed as an interactive, multicultural workshop entitled ‘Happy Eating: A Slow Food Family Approach to First Solid Foods and Mealtimes’. Our trained facilitators deliver this workshop across the UK in local communities to groups of parents. The 90-minute workshop helps families to understand how their own behavior can encourage good food and mealtime experiences for their children.
Slow Food Baby demonstrates how family shopping, meal times and food preparation can support the new lifestyle that a baby brings. Recipes, meal planners and tips to ease planning around feeding a baby are provided in the workshop, alongside an introduction to the Slow Food ethos of eating seasonally, shopping locally and understanding where and how food is produced.
Slow Food Baby’s core partner is:
