Cottage cheese and other fermented milk products are essential for the normal development of babies. It should be borne in mind that all dishes included in the children's diet must be extremely fresh and of high quality. Preference should be given to homemade cottage cheese made from natural milk.
At what age can cottage cheese be introduced into the child's diet?
Cottage cheese is a fermented milk product, which contains calcium, phosphorus, vitamins A, B, folic acid and other valuable components. It also contains amino acids, most of which are essential. This means that they cannot be synthesized in the human body, but must enter it with food.
Cottage cheese plays a huge role in the nutrition of babies. It is especially important to give it to children under the age of 2-3 years. You can start introducing this product into the diet from 7-8 months. If the first complementary foods were introduced only after the child reaches six months of age, cottage cheese should be offered no earlier than 2 months after that. To begin with, it is worth teaching the baby to vegetables and porridge, and only then feed it with fermented milk products.
For the first time, it is enough to give the baby half a teaspoon of cottage cheese. This amount can be gradually increased. A one-year-old baby may already well eat several teaspoons of a fermented milk product a day.
What kind of cottage cheese can be given to babies
Children under one year old can only be given very fresh and fairly sweet cottage cheese. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find a product of such a high quality in ordinary supermarkets and on the market.
Pediatricians recommend giving babies cottage cheese, for the production of which fermented milk was used. Cottage cheese melted from sour kefir is not suitable for babies.
In order to have complete confidence in the quality of the fermented milk product, it is better to cook it yourself. It's simple enough and won't take long. First you need to pour some milk into a small saucepan and add 2 tablespoons of sour cream to it. The resulting mixture must be kept at room temperature for 3-4 hours.
Next, you need to put the pan on low heat and gradually heat its contents until the moment when it begins to curl up. It cannot be overheated, since in this case the product will have a rather tough consistency. Curdled cottage cheese must be filtered, squeezed and rubbed through a sieve.
In addition to sour cream, kefir can also be added to milk in a 1: 1 ratio. In this case, the curd will be less sweet.
If parents do not want to cook cottage cheese on their own, they can purchase it at a baby food store. Fermented milk product, packaged in small jars, must have a fresh date of production. It is advisable to give preference to cottage cheese made without the use of preservatives and other extraneous components.
