Food groups for baby

Even young babies (from 6 months) benefit from a healthy balanced diet.

Just as for adults a balanced diet should include portions from each of the five main food groups, as your baby grows and solid food becomes a bigger part of his diet simply increase the size of these portions.

These five food groups are;

Bread,cereal and potatoes

To ensure that you baby gets enough from this food group you should try and give a portion with each meal. This could include, bread, pasta, potatoes, cereal or any other food made from cereal crops such as oats,rye maize or millet.

Fruit and vegetables

You should aim to try and give your baby around five small portions of fruit and vegetables every day (one of these can come from fruit juices). These can include fresh, frozen tinned or dried.

Milk and diary

Children of one year plus need three servings of dairy a day. These can come from foods such as milk, cheese and yoghurt. For a child between one and three years old a single serving would be 125ml glass of milk.

Meat fish and pulses

If your children eat meat and fish they need one to two servings a day. If they are vegetarian they need two to three servings of pulses such as beans lentils and chickpeas.

Fatty and sugary foods

Young children need some of these foods in their diets . This group includes butter margerine sugar sweets, crisps, biscuits , cake and icream.