Born to Eat: Whole, Healthy Foods from Baby's First Bite

by Wendy Jo Peterson, Leslie Schilling

Eating is an innate skill that marketing schemes and diet culture have overcomplicated. In recent decades, we have begun overthinking our food, which has led to chronic dieting, disordered eating, body distrust, and epidemic levels of confusion about the best way to feed ourselves and our families. We can raise kids with confidence in their food and bodies from baby’s first bite!

We are all Born to Eat , and it seems only natural for us to start at the beginning—with our babies. When babies show signs of readiness for solid foods, they can eat almost everything the family eats and become competent, happy eaters. By honoring self-regulation and using a family food foundation, we can support an intuitive eating approach for everyone around the table.

With a focus on self-feeding and a baby-led weaning approach, nutritionists and wellness experts Leslie Schilling and Wendy Jo Peterson provide age-based advice, step-by-step instructions, self-care help for parents, and easy recipes to ensure that your infant is introduced to solid, tasty food as early as possible. It’s time to kick diet culture out of our homes!

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Health, Nutrition, Cooking, Cookbooks

258 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 16, 2017

About the author

Well hello there and thanks for popping by. My name is Wendy Jo Peterson and I am a culinary trained registered dietitian nutritionist. I’ve been practicing as a dietitian for over 20 years and have been teaching culinary arts since 2003. In 2012, my career turned more toward professional speaking and writing, from television appearances to speaking around the globe. I have since published 11 books and have written for many magazine publications. Professionally today I work mostly on recipe development, collaborating with culinary-focused brands, writing, speaking, and food styling for other cookbooks.

Work doesn’t define me. I also happen to be a mama to an adorable daughter and a golden. My husband and I have been a team since 1994, and I’ve enjoyed supporting his near 30 year career in the military. We’ve lived all over the US and in Europe, and have enjoyed traveling the world together.

Currently we live in Germany and are frequently exploring the Alps in our campervan, Olaf. When I'm not recipe developing you can find my nose in a book or my boots on a hiking trail.

Reviews

[Valen Warner]

I’m new to this conversation and we haven’t started solid food introduction for our baby yet — don’t know how it will work with daycare and multiple caregivers — BUT I loved the ideas here and felt so empowered learning about intuitive eating, healthy body trust, joy in food, and self-regulation. This book challenged me to examine my relationship to food, American diet culture, and the American tendency to value efficiency and time in food over joy and connection. Made me want to read more about intuitive eating and circle back to some of Michael Pollan’s work that I’ve read in the past. Good stuff!

[Chloe (Always Booked)]

I really enjoyed the beginning of this book that explained the theory behind Born to Eat and what the benefits of baby led weaning are. The middle goes in to abilities at different stages and I enjoyed reading about where my daughter is and will reference the later parts when we get there. The end was recipes and the importance of the family table and while I think some of it was very helpful, the recipes are very meat focused and it didn’t seem very sensitive to people with whom a family table may not be possible. Overall I liked this a lot and will refer back to it as my daughter grows.

[Kayla]

This book is more like what I thought Baby-Led Weaning by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett was going to be when I read it. The information is better and more up to date, the book is less repetitive, and the authors cite research to back things up. For those interested in BLW, I would recommend skipping straight to this, even if the illustrations and the tone are a little cheesy at times.
Read on eBook and paperback.

[Hannah Russell]

Really good concepts that are presented well. I liked how research-based the approach was and good reference materials and making it doable. I don't agree with every aspect of their approach, but will probably use the basic concepts overall with my children.

[Cherie]

Lots of background info on WHY BLW and the nuts and bolts of it…I didn't find the recipes super inspiring but got some good ideas.

[Saifuzzaman]

Born to Eat is an encouraging and practical guide for parents who want to introduce their babies to real, wholesome foods from the very beginning. I enjoyed the book’s relaxed approach to early feeding and its emphasis on helping babies become comfortable with different tastes, textures, and family foods.

What stood out to me was the focus on making mealtimes an enjoyable experience rather than turning food introduction into a stressful routine. The guidance offers parents helpful ideas for preparing foods in baby-friendly ways while allowing little ones to explore and participate in family meals.

I also appreciated the practical perspective on developing positive eating habits. Introducing a variety of foods and giving children opportunities to experience new flavors can make the early feeding journey feel more natural and engaging. The book provides plenty of useful inspiration without making the process unnecessarily complicated.

Born to Eat is especially appealing for parents who want a fresh perspective on introducing solids and incorporating babies into family mealtimes. It is informative, approachable, and easy to revisit as a baby develops new eating skills.

Overall, this is a thoughtful resource that combines practical guidance with an encouraging philosophy about early food experiences. I would happily recommend it to parents preparing for their baby’s first foods. A well-deserved five stars.

[Lindsay]

It’s a good overall introduction to Baby Led Weaning/starting solids with whole foods.

I haven’t even started solids with my baby yet, so I was mainly looking for info on those very first few weeks. That’s only a small part of this book. There are lots of recipes at the back. but most of those are for older babies. I was hoping for more detailed instructions on how to prep their very first foods. It does talk about steaming vegetables.

I found some of this information contradicts other BLW resources. Katie Ferraro, for example, says their first meats should be shredded beef/pork/etc, never steak or things you have to cut into pieces. This book has a steak recipe and says to give it to beginners.

It’s still a good reference and I’ll probably continue to use as my baby gets older.

[Chris]

This was actually a really good resource. I do feel like the beginning of the book had an over abundance of fluffy “you can do this!” But by part of 2, it really dove in to the technical nutritional info about why it recommends the foods that it does.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that it isn’t just nutritional info for your kiddo. It is a lot of that, but it also talks about the importance of parents/family having a healthier approach towards food. Feel like I actually learned a healthier approach towards food in addition to learning how to help foster a healthy environment for my kiddo to approach food.

Also - I listened to this - I’d recommend it sped up, but sped up southern accent works real well for the narrator 🤣

[Jeremy Duke]

Got kids? Feed them real food. Food you made. The same food you're eating. This book does a great job at breaking down the common sense above with rationale as to why and advice and ideas on how to achieve these goals. Coming up on two years old, our little buddy has been off the boob for a full year and eats what we eat, with us (generally). A lot of credit for that goes to this book.

[Ruth]

If I had to recommend one book on self-feeding, this is it. Super easy to read (albeit a bit cheesy with comics at times), split into sections to reference based on age/feeding development, recipes with tips on serving based on feeding development, AND very recent research. This book is based on the OG BLW book, which I also read, and just seems like a more accessible, helpful guide.

[Joshua]

Don't get me wrong, the message is great. But the book is fairly simple. At times, it sounds like a sales pitch. I think the whole book could have been reduced down to 5 chapters and would have been just as effective

[Natalie]

A decent resource for baby led weaning. The book covered what I was hoping it would in the first half. After that, I feel the book tried to cover too many other nutrition topics and didn’t keep me interested.

[Niccola Clark]

Read as a Dietitian and first time mum in preparation for introducing solids to my baby.

So far this book is a little bit preachy rather than summarizing facts and evidence. I am hopeful of some practical advice.

[N N]

Helpful starter guide. Would have liked them to give more specific instructions on how to prep certain items (eg beans, lentils) to reduce choking hazard for infants. Some of the content was very very basic general nutrition info for anyone (not just babies) that I could have done without.

[Stephen Filippone]

not so useful. in the end of the day, eating is not that complicated to figure out and this book can be distilled to a short article.

I went looking for a book and found this. but concluded that it's not necessary.

[Aliz]

Essential book for new parents who want to know how to progress from milk/formula feeding to solid foods. The book is easy to read with practical suggestions.

[Nina LC]

if you're weaning your baby this is the book to give you confidence and stay away from all the nay sayers

[Kari Heggen (checkedoutbooks)]

Good intro to Baby-Led Weaning

[N]

Skimmed. Bit light on information

[Kennedy S]

Repetitive about the “why” you should BLW. I am already sold on that - skip the how!

With that in mind - really good charts and easy to understand and use in practice.

[mraziyen]

An interesting and informative read about baby led weaning. I feel more confident to start feeding my baby solids when the time comes.

[Emily Pryor]

Thank freaking gosh for this book!!!! My BLW Bible!!!!!

[Annie]

I read this looking for tips on how to encourage my 8 month old to feed himself, but I did not find it helpful from a practical point of view.
It would be a useful book for someone who can't cook or eats a lot of junk food, but it recommends foods such as Nutella, ketchup and marmalade, so would not be so good for someone who already knows how to eat healthily.

[Grace]

This is the quickest I’ve read a non-fiction book. I think I finished it in about three sittings. It was easy to digest & covered everything you could expect and more. I’m grateful to have this book & to be able to use it as a guideline when I have kids. I feel solid about my knowledge on this aspect of parenting now ✅

[Emilie]

Fantastic! A good follow up to the book “Intuitive Eating.”

[Kelsey Mouacheupao]

Very practical and informative.

[Jef]

For anyone who is about to have or looking to be a future parent this is a simple yet powerful insight into healthy eating habits and attitudes towards eating.

Provides some fun and easy recipes as well and an interesting read for someone who isn't yet considering becoming a parent