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With 15 years of nutrition and cooking experience behind her, Cathe Olson brings the public another one of her much needed cookbooks for infants and toddlers. After publishing "Beyond Rice Cereal: Healthy Food Your Infant and Toddler Will Love to Eat," she now brings us, "Simply Natural Baby Food: Easy Recipes for Delicious Meals Your Infant and Toddler Will Love." This authentic cookbook is not just for the baby and toddler of the family. There are recipes that everyone will enjoy. My mouth watered while reading the Toddler Foods section of "Simply Natural Baby Foods."

Cathe begins with secitons titled How to Use This Book, Equipment, Ingredients, and Vegetarian Babies. Throughout the book are tips and fun wasy to feed nutritious foods to little ones. And children will beg for more. What I like best about Cathe's book is how simple she makes it for parents to feed their children healthy foods every day. I wish this book had been available thirty years ago when I was raising my children. At the time, there were some books on nutrition, but nothing like Cathe's cookbook to make feeding time fast and healthy.

Cathe Olson shatters a long time myth that feeding babies and toddlers a meal from a jar bought from the store is much easier. It's not. And it's not cheaper. You'll believe it once you've read and tried the simple inexpensive recipes. This book will start babies on healthy foods that will shape the way they eat for life.

I love this little book. I know a past reviewer criticised the book for being too thin but that's one of the things I like about it. I have always enjoyed cooking and bought quite a few baby cook books when my daughter was very young thinking I would potter around making her perfect gourmet meals but soon realised that there are many days when the thought of even leafing through the pages of those cookbooks is too much effort. I just find them too overwhelming and invariably reach for this book because the recipes are simple but still tasty. You don't need to be a great cook to be able to make these recipes, the instructions are very easy to follow.

Despite being a slender volume, the book packs a lot of information into its pages, and still has a great collection of recipes.

I never found it to be a problem finding any of the ingredients. I have to admit that even though I consider my cooking to be quite wholesome I had never used some of the items like dried seaweed (you only use a pinch) and ground seeds myself, but after reading in the book just why these things are included, I found myself adding them to my own food as well. They are incredibly nutritious and such an easy way to bolster your child's immune system which I found so reassuring during the winter. I'm sure you can order these ingredients online if you can't find them in a store nearby. You use such a small amount that they will last for ages. And you can always leave those items out if you prefer.

The book is written in a very friendly manner and is a nice balance between educating and guiding you as to what your baby's and toddler's developmental needs are with easy to follow recipes. A reviewer below wrote that the last thing they needed was to be making their own baby cereal. Well I guess if that's your mindset then this book isn't for you because honestly it takes all of two seconds to make the cereal, and the jar lasts a very long time when you are using a couple of tablespoons at a time! Not that you can't find good organic packaged baby cereal, (I did try that myself but my baby would never eat it). And there's nothing stopping you from using the recipes as guides and substituting purchased products for some ingredients if it makes life easier.

The book takes you right through to when your child is a toddler with tips that help you sneak vegetables into their diet and great snack ideas too. There are some lovely recipes for cookies and cakes as well, which is nice, it's very realistic in that although you want to feel that you are presenting your child with yummy healthy food, there's always a place for sweet treats in life. I'm not personally a fan of soy products which some of the recipes call for, but I just substitute the tofu or whatever with chicken,lamb or fish.

I went online to check out the authors website and was happy to see that the adorable little girls on the website who I assume are the author's daughters look like very happy and healthy children. They are a great advertisement for the book.

This is a great book for moms who feed their children whole and organic foods. The recipes range from first cereals to desserts to toddler meals. The whole family can enjoy these! There are recipes for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.