Many mothers recognize the importance of baby care in the spring. Only by properly caring for your baby and ensuring adequate nutrition during this season can you help them grow happily and healthily. Eating more fruits in the spring for your baby can not only prevent illness and promote well-being but also replenish the various nutrients their body needs, allowing them to seize the opportunity for a growth spurt. Let's take a look at how babies should eat fruit in the spring!
Principles for Eating Fruit in the Spring
1. Pair Cold and Warm Fruits
Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasizes the balance and harmony of yin and yang. Therefore, babies with a constitution偏向于热 (heat-dominant constitution) should eat more cooling foods, while those with a constitution偏向于寒 (cold-dominant constitution) should eat more warming foods. The same principle applies to eating fruits.
Warming fruits mainly include: cherries, peaches, oranges, kumquats, etc. However, eating too many warming fruits can easily lead to "heatiness" (上火).
Cooling fruits mainly include: bananas, sugarcane, mangoes, loquats, apples, pears, strawberries, grapefruits, oranges, etc.
Neutral fruits mainly include: pineapples, starfruits, papayas, lilies, etc.
2. Eat Sour and Sweet Fruits Separately
Among spring fruits, sour and sweet varieties are more common. Sour fruits mainly include oranges, grapefruits, loquats, hawthorns, pears, etc. They generally have effects such as astringing sweat, stimulating appetite, promoting fluid production, and aiding digestion. "Gan" (甘) means sweet, and there are many such foods. Common ones include sugarcane, pears, peanuts, watermelon, bananas, cherries, oranges, black sesame, chestnuts, red dates, lotus seeds, longan pulp, goji berries, etc. They typically have effects like nourishing, tonifying deficiency, and relieving pain. Some foods are slightly sour and slightly sweet, such as apples, papayas, starfruits, pineapples, strawberries, lilies, pine nuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, raisins, etc., and are mostly classified as neutral.
Spring Fruit "Red List": Four Fruits to Boost Your Baby's Immunity
Eating fruit not only supplies the body with essential vitamins and water, but some fruits can also enhance the body's resistance. Spring is a season with many illnesses, but also a period of rapid physical development for babies. Eating more of the following 4 fruits can help boost your baby's immunity and replenish energy! Let's see which spring fruits can enhance immunity.
1. Mango
Mango Double-Skin Milk
Mangoes are nutritious, and eating them has benefits such as cancer prevention, skin beautification, preventing hypertension and arteriosclerosis, preventing constipation, relieving coughs, and cleansing the intestines. Babies with allergies should not eat mangoes. When feeding mangoes to a baby, mothers should cut the flesh into small pieces and place them directly in the baby's mouth to avoid contact with facial skin. After eating, the baby should rinse their mouth and wash their face to avoid residual juice.
2. Pear
Dried Tangerine Peel and Pear Soup
Pears are a fruit that can make one feel vibrant and energetic. They are full of water and rich in vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and trace elements like iodine, which help maintain the health of cell tissues, aid in detoxification and purification of organs, soften blood vessels, and promote the delivery of more calcium to the bones. However, pears must be chewed slowly for better absorption.
3. Cherry
Sweet Water Cherries and Cherry Jam
The various nutrients in cherries are very powerful. Every 100 grams of cherries contain up to 59 mg of iron, the highest among fruits, and 4-5 times more vitamin A than grapes, apples, and oranges. In addition, cherries also contain vitamins B and C, as well as mineral elements like calcium and phosphorus. Although cherries are nutritious and have a sweet, refreshing taste, eating too many is not good for a baby's health. Cherries are "warming" in nature, and excessive consumption can cause heatiness, nosebleeds, and lung damage. Eating too much at once can also lead to stomach pain, acid reflux, and even abdominal pain and diarrhea. Furthermore, it's best not to eat cherries on an empty stomach to avoid aggravating damage to the gastric mucosa. The daily intake should not exceed 12 cherries.
4. Orange
Orange Jelly
The carotene (vitamin A precursor) content in oranges is second only to apricots and higher than other fruits. Citrus fruits also contain various vitamins, as well as elements like magnesium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and silicon. When giving oranges to babies, mothers should pay attention to the following points: Oranges should not be eaten before meals or on an empty stomach. At the same time, control the amount your baby eats. Eating 3 oranges a day can meet the daily vitamin C requirement. If your baby gets "heatiness" from eating too many oranges, stop giving them oranges for 1-2 weeks.
Spring Fruit "Black List": Don't Give These Fruits to Your Baby
Eating fruit is the most direct way for babies to get vitamins and other nutrients. However, fruit consumption should also follow the season. As spring arrives with its unpredictable weather, you need to be more cautious about giving your baby fruit.
1. Pineapple
Pineapple and Sweet and Sour Pork
Some people experience allergic reactions after eating pineapple, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, numbness of the lips, and itchy skin. This is because pineapples contain glucosides and bromelain. Pineapple should be soaked in light saltwater for over ten minutes after cutting to destroy the bromelain before eating.
Pineapple is a tropical fruit rich in dietary fiber and bromelain, which is very beneficial for preventing constipation and indigestion, making it a great choice for summer fruit. Street vendors often sell pineapples soaked in saltwater in glass jars, with a chopstick stuck in each piece. This is a reminder to consider: how long has the saltwater in the glass jar not been changed? Are the chopsticks new? This is not only unhygienic but can also cause secondary contamination.
2. Banana
Banana and Egg Pancakes
To make banana peels look yellow and attractive, some unscrupulous merchants use excessive sulfur dioxide to ripen them, but the flesh remains hard and not sweet at all. The correct method should be to ripen them with heat.
Bananas are a nutritious tropical fruit, sweet in taste and cool in nature, with effects of moistening the intestines and clearing heat. Their natural ripening season is in the summer.
3. Grape
Grape and Milk Cookies
Some unscrupulous merchants and farmers immerse unripe green grapes in a diluted solution of the ripening agent ethylene. After a day or two, the green grapes turn purple.
The ripening season for grapes is August and September every year. Grapes are sweet, slightly sour, and neutral in nature, with effects of nourishing qi and blood, strengthening muscles and bones, and promoting urination.
4. Strawberry
Strawberry Daifuku
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, strawberries have the effect of relieving summer heat and clearing heat. In the spring, people's liver fire is often more vigorous, and eating some strawberries can have a suppressive effect. Also, it's best to eat strawberries after a meal because they contain a lot of pectin and fiber, which can promote gastrointestinal motility, aid digestion, improve constipation, and prevent hemorrhoids and colon cancer. Strawberries that are hollow, irregularly shaped, or excessively large are generally the result of excessive hormone use.
Strawberries are very appealing fruits with a high vitamin C content, so eating fresh strawberries is a good choice. The natural ripening period for strawberries is late May every year.
5. Sugarcane
Sugarcane and Water Chestnut Drink
Most sugarcane available in the spring is from the autumn harvest. After being stored for a whole winter, it is highly prone to spoilage, with white, cottony or fluffy material appearing at the end, and red, thread-like substances appearing on the cut surface. Sugarcane is an excellent "fire-extinguishing" food, sweet in taste and cool in nature, with effects of clearing heat and promoting fluid production, lowering qi to moisten dryness, and harmonizing the stomach to reverse qi. The ripening season for sugarcane is November. In addition to spoilage due to improper storage, unripe sugarcane can also become moldy after being cut.
grape crisp
Orange jelly
Mango doubles