No abstract

The feeding of solid foods to infants beginning at about 3 months of age is a well-established pediatric practice.1 The purpose of this paper is to report the results of feeding a variety of frozen baby foods to a group of well infants.The essentials of the processing technology by which these foods are made include 3 established procedures\p=m-\the limited application of heat, reduction of moisture, and freezing. The food is cooked just long enough to soften and permit straining. Then, only enough additional heat (never above 212 F) is used to reduce the water content. This latter procedure is carried out in a matter of seconds, as is also the reduction in temperature to 0 F. In the dehydro-frozen form, the food is maintained at zero storage until feeding time. No added colors, flavors, preservatives, or fortifying nutrients are used in the process.The retention of nutritive values, particularly those of heat-labile nutrients, by freezing is well known. Preliminary studies to test whether a combination of concentra¬ tion and freezing techniques could retain nutrients as effectively as ordinary freezing techniques were done at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. These studies indicated that contained nutrients, especially those adversely affected by high heat or by prolonged exposure to high temperatures, were effectively retained in processing and in storage at freezing temperatures.2 Bactériologie studies, including total counts, Salmonella, coli form and Staphylo¬ coccus determinations, were conducted at the University of Chicago under the di¬ rection of Dr. Gail Dack.3 No food poison¬ ing organisms were found in any of the specimens studied and all foods tested ap¬ peared to be of excellent quality. It also was found that the frozen food could be stored safely at lower temperatures (deep freeze) for a period of about one year and at the cool temperature of a refrigerator for a period of one month. Materials and MethodsThe subjects for this study were 49 normal infants (23 boys and 26 girls). All were products of full-term, uneventful gestations and deliveries and received complete medical care. These infants were from socioeconomically middle-class families of University of Missouri faculty and students. They were observed from birth, and the range of observation after introduction of the frozen food was from 3 to 12 months of age (Table). At approximately 3 months of age each infant was offered 1 to 2 oz.