At six months of age, babies have the ability to accept solid foods and have the need to do so, so it’s time for moms and dads to start adding complementary foods to their babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the first complementary foods introduced to babies are cereals and pureed meat, and gradually add vegetables and fruits, etc. Very few Chinese mothers introduce pureed meat first, and generally choose cereal first. There are already various types of baby rice flour on the market, but there are still many parents who make their own rice flour at home, using ground rice to make the powder, and some also add various other so-called “spleen-building” ingredients, which really surprised me. Because of food safety issues, some parents feel that commercially available rice noodles have additives that are unhealthy, so they overly advocate “natural”, please ~, food and drug is not a lotus flower “natural to decorate” is beautiful, if natural is the best, then is not the primitive society most natural? I’m afraid no one wants to go back to a primitive society. In fact, natural is the most uncontrollable, in line with national standards of rice noodles on the choice of raw materials, preparation environment, pollutants and bacteria have clear health requirements, homemade or handmade workshops are difficult to ensure. Moreover, the nutrient content of homemade rice flour is low and fluctuates greatly, so processed products can “take the best and remove the worst” to make it more suitable for children according to their needs. According to the definition of national food safety standards, infant and toddler cereal supplement is one or more cereals (such as: wheat, rice, barley, oats, rye, corn, etc.) as the main raw material, and cereals account for more than 25% of the dry matter composition, add the right amount of nutritional fortification and (or) other auxiliary ingredients, made by the processing of auxiliary food suitable for infants and toddlers over 6 months of age. There are standard requirements for the content of various nutrients such as protein, vitamins and minerals, and “additives” are actually improvements to rice flour to give it higher nutritional value. Data source: Food Safety National Standards Data Retrieval Platform. Of particular importance is the fact that infant rice flour is fortified with iron (extra iron added). Why is iron fortification particularly important? Healthy full-term infants are born with iron reserves in their bodies and can usually have enough iron for 5-6 months after birth with exclusive breastfeeding. after 6 months of age, exclusive breastfeeding cannot meet the infant’s needs for energy, protein, iron, zinc and other nutrients, especially depleted iron reserves, which may cause iron deficiency and iron-deficiency anemia if not supplemented. Iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency in children. In the United States, the prevalence of iron deficiency among young children aged 1-3 years is about 9%. In adults, about 5% of the daily iron requirement comes from dietary intake, but in infants and children, due to accelerated growth and weight gain, about 30% of the daily iron requirement must come from dietary sources. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the recommended intake of iron for infants: As can be seen, the demand for iron in infants increases dramatically after 6 months of age because the body’s iron reserves are depleted. The iron content of breast milk is only 0.3-1.0mg/L, and only 1mg of iron in 1000ml of breast milk a day (formula has a higher iron content), which cannot meet the demand for iron and needs to be supplemented by supplementary food, so the first thing to do is to add iron-rich supplementary food, which cannot be done with homemade rice flour, which needs to be fortified with iron.