Every 5 years, the USDA updates and revises the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The most recent 2020-2025 guidelines were published on December 31, 2020. Good nutrition leads to better health for Americans.
Experts in different areas of nutrition, medicine, and agriculture review the scientific advances of the last five years and recommend updates to the guidelines. The Dietary Guidelines only change or make new recommendations if the science is incredibly strong.
For the very first time, the Dietary Guidelines provide new guidance for infants, toddlers, and pregnant and breastfeeding women. Here’s what they said in Chapter 2: Infants and Toddlers
- Feed breastmilk for the first 6 months, if possible. It doesn’t have to be exclusively breastmilk.
- Give every baby supplemental vitamin D starting soon after birth.
- Begin solid foods with nutrient-dense foods around 6 months old.
- Introduce potentially allergenic foods, like nuts & eggs, regularly along with other complementary foods.
- Encourage infants and toddlers to eat a variety of foods. Diet diversity is important.
- No sugar for infants.
- No sweet drinks. Only unsweetened water or milk.
At Lil Mixins, we make the regular addition of peanuts, tree nuts, and eggs to the infant diet incredibly easy. This helps with exposure to potentially allergenic foods as well as diet diversity. Mix it up!