The Recommended First Complementary Foods: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

During infancy, adequate nutrition is essential to warrant healthy growth and development of infants to their full potential. Nutritional deficits particularly iron, during this critical period increase the risk of illness and long-term developmental impairment. Therefore, international organizations including Health Canada recommend that infants should be primarily introduced to iron rich complementary foods (CFs) such as iron fortified cereal and meat in order to meet their iron requirements and prevent growth faltering. This review aims to provide an overview on the available research of the recommended first CFs and their effects on various health outcomes including iron. Although the studies on meat presented in this review showed inconsistent findings regarding improvement of iron status, however, consumption of meat had promising positive effects on growth and other health outcomes. Studies on the fortified cereals reported improvement of iron status and possibly growth. Further large scale, multicenter trials are needed to support the current findings and to investigate the long-term benefits of these recommended CFs.