IF you are big on nutrition for babies and toddlers, a freshly-made baby food brand by a mother will be your go-to-place for nourishing sustenance
ENTREPRENEUR Ann Yeap, 37, may have started her business out of a necessity to make fresh and nutritious food for her son, but her journey has grown into one of helping mothers understand why nutrition is pivotal for their children’s physical, mental and cognitive development.
She has a valid point. Toddlers and children eat little because their stomach is small and yet, unlike adults, their brains, bones and muscles are developing — and this requires both nutrition from food and exposure to their surroundings.
“Every spoonful counts,” she tells me one afternoon at Squeeze Me Baby, the small baby cafe at Aquabubs Swimming School in Bangsar. “Toddlers eat very little so everything needs to be nutritious,”
“A few decades ago, parents gave babies porridge with some vegetables and added protein. But as knowledge about nutrition grows, we know now that we should feed children more vegetables, fruit and protein, and less grain,”
“Vegetables are especially important. That’s where all the vitamins and micronutrients are,” she says.
Yeap used to work in IT companies before she started Boat Noodle Malaysia, which gave her some exposure to the food industry. Three years ago, she started Squeeze Me Baby from home with a Beaba baby food processor because her son, who was weaning at that time, developed rashes whenever he ate baby food bought from the store or supermarket.
“So I made my own using the steamer and blender, and froze them. My friends found out and they started buying from me and that’s how it all began as a business,”
Squeeze Me Baby food contains no added salt or sugar. Naturally, the shelf life is short. It can be kept in a chiller for a maximum of 48 hours but once opened, it has to be consumed within 24 hours. In a freezer, it can last for a month but once chilled to be opened, it cannot be refrozen.
“The pouch is designed to be transparent so adults can see if the colour of the food has changed. Conventional pouches are made of foil and there have been cases where the food was already mouldy when about to be fed to a baby,”
EAT MORE GREENS
More than half of the ingredients in Squeeze Me Baby food are plant-based because Ann is big on introducing plant proteins like quinoa and lentils to parents and their infants. “There is still a lack of knowledge on protein — that it has to come from animals — when it doesn’t have to,”
Sweet potato, lentil puree and red beans are packed with protein for little ones and its vegetable-loaded marinara pasta sauce is packed with vitamins without compromising on taste.
“It’s also easier to source for organic ingredients from plants than meat,” Yeap pointed out.
When it comes to sourcing, she puts more emphasis on local organic ingredients instead of imported ones. Aside from the carbon footprint, local produce are fresher.
BROTH BASE
Yeap has just started another venture called Petite Dapur which is currently at its soft-launch stage. Petite Dapur produces broth from chicken, bone, vegetable, fish and beef cooked up to 24 hours.
Parents can use this base to make soup, noodle soup and also to give taste to porridge. This provides a perfect alternative to processed chicken cubes that are extremely high in salt. “It’s suitable for the whole family. Half a jar is good for a portion of porridge for toddlers,” she said.
“There is no salt in the broths that I make. The saltiness comes from celery,” she pointed out. Because the cooking process is long, not all broths are available every day, so it’s best to call and enquire first.
MORE CHOICES
Yeap says her food selection will grow as her customer base expands. Right now, she is experimenting with making vegetarian nuggets and full-bodied soups for toddlers, and she hopes to add more variety to the line-up.
She also hopes parents will demand better food from restaurants for their children instead of the usual pizza, fries and fried chicken that eateries typically offer. “You see many child-friendly cafes popping up nowadays, but these cafes don’t come with good food for children. Some cafe owners tell me that children’s food isn’t big with their customers so they are not willing to invest in it.
“At the end of the day, I think it all boils down to parents. If they demand for good food for their babies and toddlers, then restaurant and cafe owners will eventually comply.
“Feeding babies and toddlers healthy food is only part of the big picture, because eventually, as children grow up, they will eat what their parents eat because those things are what they see and what they can find at home.
“In the long run, if you want your children to eat well beyond their early and formative years, and if you want them to make healthy food choices when they are able to, parents have to set that example,” she stressed.
GOOD FOOD FOR LITTLE ONES
MY son Murshid isn’t a picky eater and it’s something I knew when he started weaning at six months. He loves his puree — butternut squash is his favourite. He loves banana too. He cannot speak yet but he says “ba-na-na” whenever he wants food, and that could mean a banana or any other thing.
He will eat anything, so I need to train his palate to appreciate nutritious food. I am sure if I give him a slice of cake he will gobble it up too, but nutrition-wise, the calories are wasted.
I remember taking him to a small party when he was just over seven months old and a mother actually told me that I could feed him the cream cheese topped carrot cake “because it has carrot and carrot is good for him,” I was stumped for words.
I also had mothers tell me that, “your son will eventually find junk food when he grows up and he will rebel against your food choices”. To which I say yes, I cannot control his future habits, but I can start him off on a good footing and familiarise him with fresh food instead of processed ones.
Look, all parents know their children will pick up bad words once they have friends, but that doesn’t stop us from instilling good values and best practices, does it? The same goes with food.
I started buying Squeeze Me Baby pasta sauces for him a few months ago just to expand his palate. His favourite is the Sneaky Cream Cheese with cream cheese and mushroom that Yeap sneaked into the recipe. My son would finish the portion and even ask for more.
His second favourite is the Kale Avocado Pesto which is light with a slight creamy avocado taste. He likes the marinara too, but that’s the first variant I bought for him so I guess at this point he is a tad bored with it.
He enjoys the blueberry yogurt and date smoothie, but dislikes the red avocado with banana. The sweet potato and lentil one is good too, by his standards.
I’m a regular customer of Squeeze Me Baby because I agree with the healthy food philosophy and as a mother, I appreciate having someone like Yeap, who thinks about nutrition the way I do, instead of just feeding a child for the sake of feeding.