I’m sure you’ve heard the recommendations. White rice cereal should be your baby’s first food. And the reasons they give you can sound pretty logical too.

"White rice is hypoallergenic and easy to digest."

"We have even added iron to give your baby all their iron needs!"

But did you ever step back and think about white rice? As adults, many of us tend to avoid processed white grains as we know they can cause weight gain, blood sugar and hormone imbalances, and aggravate the gut lining (especially in already-sensitive guts). Why do we think white rice has the potential to be less harmful for our babies?

How is baby white rice cereal made?

Brown rice is bleached to white rice (which removes a lot of the nutrients found in rice).

White rice is ground down to cereal.

The cereal is fortified with iron and other nutrients (extra processing).

The next step onwards from your baby’s cereal? Sugar. With a bit of added iron.

In fact that’s what your baby’s body does to white rice cereal the moment it enters their mouth – turns it into glucose. This process occurs very rapidly, and most of their cereal has been converted into glucose by the time they swallow it.

The problem with having a food rapidly turn into glucose in the body is that it triggers a spike in blood sugar, putting additional stress on the pancreas and blood sugar system to deal with the glucose.

While blood sugar will rise and fall with every meal, it is the speed of the sugar spike that is the biggest stress. Particularly in a baby’s immature digestive system.

Baby nutrition advocates say you may as well be giving your baby a spoonful of sugar, as there isn’t really that much difference between sugar and white rice cereal.

Is rice hypoallergenic for my baby?

Rice in general is hypoallergenic, and it is very rare for someone to have an allergy to rice. It is also very rare for someone to have an allergy to most vegetables or fruits (of course there are some exceptions to this rule).

There is no evidence to suggest starting with white rice cereal is best for your baby’s tummy and potential allergies. And this was proven long enough ago that your nurse and paediatrician should know about it.

Starting with alternative hypoallergenic whole foods that are nutrient dense, and don’t spike blood sugar, is a much healthier choice for your baby’s first foods.

What are the side effects of giving white rice cereal to your baby?

Increases the risk of rapid (unnecessary) weight gain

Did you know that obesity is a major issue before 12 months of age? I mean, how baffling is that! The one and only factor in infant obesity is their diet. The majority of infants do that same amount of activity, they don’t sit at a desk all day (like us adults), and they don’t have access to high sugar foods like soft drink and chocolate bars. The one factor is the solid food diet that we as parents feed them. And considering white rice is a food many adults try to avoid (especially when trying to lose weight or control metabolic diseases), it is such a paradox that we are taught to feed it to our babies as their first food. It makes sense that white rice increases the risk of weight gain during infancy. It is almost a bowl full of sugar.

Develops a strong preference for white refined grains

Your baby’s first foods set up their food preferences for the rest of their life. Let me repeat that. For the rest of their life. When you feed your baby white refined grains, it changes the way their brain develops, and causes it to develop in a way that prefers said foods. You can imagine, a lifetime of desiring and craving (and most likely eating) high GI, refined and processed grains, which have a low nutritional value and negative effect on hormones, is going to lead your child down the path of chronic disease.

Stresses out the hormonal system to deal with a high glucose load

The pancreas has the important job of maintaining stable blood sugar. When you feed your baby white rice cereal, you’re giving them a huge hit of glucose. It has basically been turned into glucose in their mouth, before it reaches their stomach! So the pancreas then has the task of reducing the glucose in the blood and storing excess sugar for future use. Consistently high levels of blood sugar puts undue stress on the pancreas, and can lead to the body needing high baseline levels of blood sugar to function. This is a stepping stone towards insulin resistance, diabetes, metabolic diseases, and obesity.

Feeds pathogenic bacteria in the gut, leading to imbalances (or dysbiosis)

Our gut bacteria are essential to our body’s proper functioning. Having healthy bacteria in our gut (and our entire microbiome) are essential to our health. In our modern environment, with high usage of antibiotics, poor diet, excess chemicals and medications, high stress levels, and use of products such as triclosan anti-bacterial hand washes, it is increasingly common to have imbalanced gut bacteria populations. Often pathogenic, or bad bacteria over-ride the gut ecosystem. The issue with this is that it means the function of the entire gut and digestive system is reduced. In fact, the pathogenic bacteria can even produce metabolic by-products that change the way our entire bodies work. Our brains, our liver detoxification, our kidney filtering - the list goes on. The great thing about babies is that their gut systems can be easily altered with diet. The gut population does not become stable until at least 3 years of age! So early diet has the ability to literally create a healthy gut, or an unhealthy gut (and therefore unhealthy body). White rice cereal as a first baby food is not the option for a healthy gut.

Does white rice cereal contain arsenic?

Unfortunately, all rice contains arsenic. The rice takes up the arsenic from the soil and water it is grown in, and keeps it! You can also find arsenic in much lower doses in barley and wheat, but rice seems to be the best at uptake from the soil.

A little bit about arsenic.. Inorganic arsenic is classed as a group 1 carcinogenic. It has been linked to skin, lung and bladder cancer.

In 2009, the European Food Safety Authority assessed the risk of arsenic in food to humans, and here's what they found. Children under the age of 3 years have the highest exposure to inorganic arsenic (2-3 times that of adult exposure), and dietary exposure to inorganic arsenic is directly related to the intake of rice-based products.

When researchers compared the daily intake of inorganic arsenic by body weight, they found that infants aged 8-12 months are exposed to more arsenic than adults who drink 1L of water a day.

Keep in mind, as your baby grows, their exposure according to body weight will reduce. Plus, after their detox systems really kick in, they will be able to tolerate larger exposures. So this is not something you need to worry yourself with for the rest of their life. But it's certainly not something to be giving to your precious child as their first food.

This goes for rice milk and rice malt syrup too (arsenic is even more concentrated in these!).

What about giving my baby other grains?

I'll be straight with you. There is no need to give your baby a grain as their first food. It isn't about the gluten, or the rice. (I’m not saying avoid grains forever, I’m talking specifically about baby’s first foods here).

It's about starting your baby off on the right foods from the beginning (and if you want to know what I recommend, you can have access to my Top 12 recommended first foods below).

How to safely introduce grains to your baby.

The main goal with grains is making them easy to digest, so that your child can absorb their nutrients without stressing out their digestive system, or triggering inflammation.

Ensure grains are adequately soaked overnight to remove phytins, and aid digestion.
Buy germinated grains where possible (did you know you can get germinated rice?), which also aids digestion.
Go brown/wild/natural. Don't go for any bleached, white varieties.
Rotate your grains. Don't give the same grain every single day. Give their body a little break after a few days of one grain.
- This might mean you alter what bread, pasta or crackers you buy, or what you use with meals (eg. rice vs quinoa).
Ensure your child has a healthy gut before introducing grains. If they are displaying any signs of gut inflammation, it’s best to hold off on too many grains.
Don’t give them grains everyday. There are many paleo and grain free options available so it’s very simple to make switches. Pulse pastas, paleo pizza bases, grain free breads. Many of these have nuts and legumes so it’s best to start slow as these are also difficult foods to digest.

How to ensure your baby gets enough iron.

Iron requirements of babies increase rapidly from around 6 months of age, and this is why it is a common suggestion to give babies fortified white rice cereal, or even meat as their first food. However it is a myth that your baby can't get their iron elsewhere in their diet.

The best sources of iron from a whole food diet include green leafy vegetables, nuts, liver, meat, and mushrooms. I also love to add blackstrap molasses into my baking which gives a great additional dose of easily digested iron.

And these are just some examples - there are tonnes and tonnes of foods you can give your baby that have iron and other vitamins and minerals, all in one! Whole foods are a good place to start. Best part is, they don't cause blood sugar spikes, gut issues, or contain high doses of arsenic!

Long-term implications of baby white rice cereal

We are raising a generation of children who are overweight or obese, and who have a myriad of chronic health diseases by the time they finish primary school.

The food we give our children early on has a massive impact on their lifelong health.

Lets make sure we are raising our babies on foods that nourish them during a time of rapid growth and development.