Honeysuckle berries are a good alternative to pharmaceutical medicines for a wide variety of diseases. Plus, they're delicious on their own. In this article, we will tell you if babies are allowed to eat honeysuckle and dishes from it and at what age you can give it to babies.
About product
Honeysuckle is a berry shrub that grows mainly in Southeast Asia, which is their historical homeland. But the efforts of modern breeders were not in vain, and varieties have already been created for the north of Russia, for its southern and central regions. For its unusual appearance, the shrub is appreciated by gardeners, and therefore today honeysuckle on the site is not uncommon, and the berries on the table are not exotic.
Berries contain many minerals - such as calcium and potassium, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus, as well as iodine and vitamins A, C and B.
Elongated berries of velvety blue color attract the attention of the child. The length of berries of some varieties can reach 10-11 centimeters.
But not every honeysuckle is suitable for baby food and for consumption in general. You can collect and use in the kitchen for its intended purpose only the fruits of edible shrub varieties.
Benefit and harm
The beneficial properties of honeysuckle for a child's body are numerous and multifaceted.
Berries, rich in vitamin C, are recommended during colds, viral infections occurring against a background of high temperatures. It is believed that honeysuckle helps to reduce fever, strengthen immunity. Also, the berry is credited with a moderate diuretic effect.
Honeysuckle strengthens the walls of blood vessels, improves blood circulation, helps to normalize the stomach and intestines, and has a beneficial effect on metabolic processes. For liver and gallbladder diseases, honeysuckle is especially recommended.
For skin ailments, infusions of leaves and branches of honeysuckle are used locally, and decoctions from them are useful for gargling during a sore throat. Berry juice is considered a powerful antioxidant.
Contraindications are few and far between in quantity. If you eat too much honeysuckle, a sharp increase in the number of red blood cells in the blood is possible, which is also not beneficial, and digestive disorders may also appear. Berry rarely causes allergies, but such a possibility is not at all excluded. Therefore, children are given fruits with great care.
Age restrictions
No matter how useful honeysuckle is, earlier than from 7 months, it is not recommended to introduce it into complementary foods for young children. Initial doses should be minimal - no more than a third of a teaspoon of grated berries.
If the baby suffers from atopic dermatitis or has a tendency to allergies, then the baby should wait with honeysuckle for at least a year. To a one-year-old child, complementary foods begin to be introduced with an amount not exceeding half a teaspoon per dose.
At 2-3 years old, a child may well eat about 100 grams of honeysuckle at a time, but you need to go to this amount gradually, increasing the amount eaten in stages. At any age, the appearance of an eating disorder, diarrhea, skin rashes after eating a berry is an indication for the immediate exclusion of honeysuckle from the diet and return to such complementary foods after a few months, because children tend to "outgrow" their allergies.
For babies, honeysuckle can be an excellent source of vitamins, but it should only be given with the permission of a pediatrician. At 1 year old, parents can make their own decision about the introduction of honeysuckle into the diet.
How should you give it to your child?
As the first complementary food, it is better to give berries in the form of puree. You can prepare it with a blender, it will not be difficult, because the berries are soft and have no seeds. Do not add sugar, sweet puree is not suitable for the first feeding.
Honeysuckle berries rubbed with sugar can be harvested for future use, for the winter. They can be added to tea for a child, made fruit drink. You can cook compote from fresh berries - the taste is a little unusual, but very pleasant.
For the winter, you can dry the fruits. Then from them you can make decoctions for colds, add to tea for diarrhea, prepare water infusions for rinsing the throat and mouth.
Freezing is an excellent storage option for the winter. Thawed berries can be used to make fruit drinks, add to baked goods and cook compotes in winter, when vitamins are chronically lacking in food.
Honeysuckle is added to curd mass, baked goods and homemade soufflés. Juice is squeezed out of it, which can also be given to the child. From elongated large berries, excellent jam and jelly are obtained, but they are given to children in limited quantities due to the high sugar content.
Reviews
According to mothers, as the first berry, honeysuckle is perfect for a baby. Of all the berries that can theoretically be introduced into complementary foods after six months, it is honeysuckle that causes allergic reactions less often than others. Not all children immediately perceive the taste of this berry with delight, but they gradually get used to it, and already at 3-4 years old they themselves pluck the fruits from the bush on the site and eat with pleasure.
You can learn even more about honeysuckle by watching the following video.
Find out if your child's weight is normal using the following calculator.
