Jean Claude,

<I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. Yes, children will put
anything into their mouths
at a certain stage of their development, but it is not necessarily for the
purpose of eating it. I
wish I could remember where I read this, but it comes from an academic
source,
that children
have an inborn instinct which is designed deliberately to discourage them
from
experimenting
too much with food until they can be taught which foods are safe. I am not
making this up.
Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it.

Can you cite the references for your point of view? I am going on vacation
for
two weeks so will
not have a chance to do any research of my own for awhile, but it strikes me
that this is an
important discussion and I would hate to see it go away without an effort to
bring in any
research that's available.>

my reference is my experience in raising 2 kids with free choice of
undenatured foods for them to express their instinct.

i am curious for this reference of yours if you can remember when you comes
back
how compatible will it be for childrens at this stage to put things in their
mouth to know the world and an instinct that will stop them to put foods in
their mouth till they are taught what is safe ?

this knowledge of what is safe and what is not ( a fluctuating reality to
start with ) is hard wired in us as it is for animals . they don't need to
learn what is good , they eat what taste good at the moment that is all .
why do you think the cat is eating the grass that specific day while
disdaining it the rest of the time ?
that day this grass smell good and taste delicious to him while the other
days it is unactractive .
no academic person can discover that unless they just simply do the
experience on themselves .

jean-claude
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