For most babies at around 13 months, breakfast, lunch and dinner consists of cereals, toast, pasta, sandwiches, and the occasional sweet – but not for Grace Cooper.
The Daily Mail has heard the story of a13-month-old baby girl from Brisbane who follows the paleo diet… and has since birth.
Baby Grace, who has reportedly ‘never had a carb before’, only eats meat, vegetables, nuts and fruits –foods that a ‘caveman might eat’ according to her mum, Shan Cooper.
The diet, which was made famous by celebrity chef Pete Evans, restricts its followers from eating processed foods, dairy products, sugars, salt, legumes, grains (although it has been proven that ‘cavemen’ ate both grains and legumes), and oils.
Grace, who has been on the diet since birth in addition to being breastfed, has reportedly only been sick once in her life because of her ‘nutrient dense diet’.
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“She spends a lot of time around other kids who are sick all the time – who have snotty noses, coughs, colds – but she just doesn’t pick it up,” Shan told The Daily Mail.
“It’s certainly not because I’m shielding her from any of that stuff,” she said, “I absolutely think a nutrient dense diet is giving her a strong immune system.”
“(What she eats now) is not weird, not anything strange, that normal people wouldn’t eat. She loves it,” she said.
“I don’t feed her toast or cereal or anything like that. Again I think, ‘Sure that stuff is not going to kill her,’ said Shan, “If she eats a piece of bread I’m not going to have a conniption.”
“I’m not going to not let her go to kids’ parties,” said Shan, “She’s going to go to kids’ parties and eat what’s there.”
“I’m never going to go to Grace, ‘You can’t eat anything at this party – but I packed you some kale, here you go’.”
But cutting out dairies, grain, legumes and oils out of a child’s diet might not be a safe and healthy option, a nutritionist suggests.
“The only good thing about it would be that the child would not get any junk food,” independent nutritionist Rosemary Stanton told aww.com.au. earlier this year.
“But I really think not to let a child have any dairy or grain products is not a good idea. Without any proof that this is a safe way to eat, I think it’s particularly unwise to do it with children.”
“Specifically with kids, wholegrain are important because they are burning a lot of energy and they also provide fibre, essential fatty acids and B vitamins,” she said.
“Often there’s some ignorance involved when you leave out any of the main food groups,” Dr Stanton says.
