When my son was little – eight months old or so – he would feed me. I’d put a Cheerio in his mouth and he’d let it get all soggy, then he would take it out of his mouth and feed it to me. It would gross my husband out, but when my son did this, I’d let him and begrudgingly eat the soggy Cheerio. After all, he was my baby, he didn’t know, and he was trying to feed me. Thankfully this phase didn’t last long.
This week, we learned that actress Alicia Silverstone chews up her 10-month-old son’s food for him, then feeds it back to him like a mama bird feeding her baby. This story is true – there’s a video of it that’s gone viral.
As you might imagine, this is causing some controversy. Silverstone, who’s son’s name is Bear Blu (which ranks him right up there in the odd celebrity baby names category), wrote on the website for her vegan cookbook “The Kind Diet,” that she had eaten a “breakfast of miso soup, collards, and radish steamed and drizzled with flax oil, cast iron mochi with nori wrapped outside, and some great daikon.”
(This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)
Now, call me a Neanderthal, but I am not even sure what half of that sentence means. Anyhow, Silverstone went on to say “I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup … from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite … and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating. This video was taken about a month or 2 ago when he was a bit wobbly. Now he is grabbing my mouth to get the food!”
Pre-chewing or premastication, as it is called, actually occurs in some places in the world, just not normally the U.S. and most Western nations. We are not talking about a mom biting off a small piece of hotdog when a fork or knife isn’t available – we are talking about fully chewing up the food. Doctors don’t recommend parents do it because it can pass disease and infection to the child.
Silverstone may be among those that think this can pass helpful enzymes to the baby, but doctors say this can pass on microbes that the child’s immune system just isn’t ready to handle.
I saw the video and my opinion may not be a popular one, but I thought it was just too weird. First, maybe it was just the angle, but it looked like she was French kissing her son. Second of all, she’s a vegan and raising her son as a vegan. It’s not like she’s chewing up meat to feed him. And even if she were, that’s what food processors are for.
What do you think about pre-chewing?