Olive Oil Works Wonders for Babies

Summary

Olive oil and breast milk share sim­i­lar nutri­tional prop­er­ties, includ­ing omega 3 and 6, mak­ing olive oil a ben­e­fi­cial addi­tion to a baby’s diet for brain devel­op­ment and diges­tion. Despite its ben­e­fits, olive oil should not replace breast milk or for­mula, as those pro­vide essen­tial nutri­ents for a baby’s healthy growth and devel­op­ment.

They don’t look or taste alike, but olive oil and breast milk are sur­pris­ingly sim­i­lar.

Extra vir­gin olive oil con­tains omega 3 and omega 6 in sim­i­lar por­tions to breast milk fat and the same per­cent­age of linoleic acid, mak­ing it an indis­pens­able food for the myeli­na­tion of nerve fibres and brain devel­op­ment. It is easy to digest and helps gas­tric func­tion­ing, pre­vent­ing con­sti­pa­tion and colic.

Olive oil helps absorb vit­a­min D, which is impor­tant for grow­ing babies and chil­dren because it reg­u­lates cal­cium and phos­pho­rus and encour­ages the intake of min­er­als essen­tial to the process of ossi­fi­ca­tion. This pro­tects chil­dren against bone frac­tures in their ten­der years and the risk of osteo­poro­sis in old age.

In recent find­ings, there has been a rise in cho­les­terol lev­els in chil­dren, a great con­trib­u­tor to obe­sity that affects one out of three chil­dren between 6 and 9 years of age. Since olive oil low­ers total blood cho­les­terol lev­els, LDL-cho­les­terol and triglyc­erides, doc­tors have rec­om­mended replac­ing ani­mal fats with olive oil to help com­bat the ris­ing obe­sity in chil­dren.
See Also:Olive Oil Health Benefits
A lower risk of asthma has also been reported in moth­ers who have con­sumed a con­sis­tent amount of olive oil through­out preg­nancy. Their babies have been found to have a more devel­oped immune sys­tem, and lower risk of rhini­tis and aller­gies.

Olive oil is even said to be effec­tive in cur­ing cra­dle cap. Applied to the parts of the head affected by cra­dle cap before nor­mal cleans­ing, olive oil’s hydrat­ing prop­er­ties can act as a nat­ural rem­edy.

In Italy, doc­tors strongly rec­om­mend using olive oil in solids for babies being weaned off breast milk. They even rec­om­mend adding it to a baby’s bot­tle of expressed or even for­mula milk to gain the ben­e­fits of the sub­stance, espe­cially for babies suf­fer­ing from colic. This is because olive oil can facil­i­tate the nat­ural gas­tric process and con­tains oleu­ropein. This nat­ural anti-inflam­ma­tory sub­stance repro­duces the nat­ural effects of ibupro­fen, the active ingre­di­ent widely used in the pro­duc­tion of pain med­ica­tion.

Saverio Pandolfi from the Italian Institute of Plant Genetics dis­cussed this in depth. The researcher said olive oil is the most sim­i­lar food to breast milk for babies, and he rec­om­mends start­ing with a tea­spoon-full of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil in every meal pre­pared for the baby.

“Olive oil is not only pleas­ing to every child because it reminds him of breast milk, but even to those who have never had oil in their diet,” said Pandolfi, such as Eskimos or Africans.

While olive oil may offer nutri­tional ben­e­fits, it is cru­cial to under­stand that it should never replace breast milk or infant for­mula. Breast milk and for­mula are specif­i­cally for­mu­lated to pro­vide all the essen­tial nutri­ents a baby needs for healthy growth and devel­op­ment. While con­tain­ing some ben­e­fi­cial com­po­nents, olive oil does not offer the com­plete and bal­anced nutri­tion infants require. Consult with your pedi­a­tri­cian or a reg­is­tered dietit­ian before intro­duc­ing new foods to your baby’s diet.

Plasmon, one of Italy’s most pop­u­lar baby food com­pa­nies, pro­duces olive oil exclu­sively for wean­ing babies. It is made with olives pro­duced and pressed in Italy only and using tech­niques that the com­pany says ensure the oil main­tains more of its health ben­e­fits.

The Mediterranean diet starts young in Italy.

• Olive oil is good as breast milk


• Extra vir­gin olive oil: healthy as breast milk due to the omega 3 and omega (esseredonnaonline.it)


• Olive oil is like moth­er’s milk (TGCOM24