Annabel Karmel

By Kelly Burgess

Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a mother who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a woman and a mother. Above all, the Mom of the Month is dedicated to her children. Rich or poor, famous or not, she shines as an example of what mothering is all about.

Meet September's Mom of the Month, Annabel Karmel, a professional harpist, chef and mother, whose books have helped babies eat more interesting foods than ever before. Her child-friendly recipes are changing the way many mothers approach mealtime and are tackling larger problems such as childhood obesity.

Annabel Karmel is a household name in England – at least in households where there are babies or young children. Now, with the American re-issue of First Meals (Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2004), she's well on her way to becoming a respected expert in the United States, where childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions.

To begin with, here are just a few myths about feeding babies that Karmel would like to see drop off the face of the earth:

• Babies like bland foods.
• Baby food is difficult to make.
• Jarred baby food is healthier than homemade.
• There are "kid" foods and "adult" foods.
• Babies shouldn't eat/drink (choose your myth): a). beef, b). milk, c). pork, d.) eggs.

The fact is that babies, like us, enjoy variety and texture, and if they're exposed to a variety of foods, they become healthy, non-picky eaters for life.

When Karmel's first child, Natasha, was 3 months old she became very ill. Intuitively, Karmel knew her child was unusually sick, but on the advice of a doctor, did not take her to the hospital. By the time she did the next day, it was too late. Her daughter died.

After that, Karmel made some decisions. First of all, she knew she wanted another child immediately. Second, she was going to trust her own instincts in the future and not rely on anyone else to tell her what was best for her children. And last, but not least, she was going to extensively research child nutrition and health to ensure that her future children were as well-prepared to fight off any possible illness as they could be.

Karmel was well-equipped for the latter task. She had always been interested in cooking, but cooking was not encouraged by the headmistress of her school. "I went to a very academically oriented school and we were discouraged from being too interested in cooking," Karmel says. "Our headmistress said that once you start cooking, it seems as if you're always stuck doing it."

But Karmel liked being "stuck." While she studied music, she also attended the Cordon Bleu Cookery School in London. After she became a professional harpist, her cooking was confined to making fabulous lunches for her fellow musicians. After she lost Natasha, Karmel, as she had hoped, became pregnant again quickly. But Nicholas, born in 1988, proved to be a fussy eater.

"Nicholas was the worst eater, and I was in a panic because after I lost Natasha I was quite obsessed with wanting Nick to have a good start in life," Karmel says. "I began to research what children ate most and started making up recipes. I had success with them. I started handing them out to my friends who complained about how poorly their children ate."

Her recipes were such a hit with her friends and her friends' children that they suggested she try publishing them. By this time Karmel had another young tester, Lara, born in 1989. Her first book, The Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner (Ebury Press, 2004, revised) was published in 1991. She went on to write several more books, including her most recent, First Meals, an excellent guide to feeding a child – from making your own baby food, which is as simple as taking a fork out of a drawer, to packing healthy lunches that your preschooler will actually eat. Although some of her books aren't available in the United States, they can be purchased through Karmel's Web site, Annabel Karmel.com.

Although she now has three beautiful, healthy children, Karmel says that each of these books, as well as the impetus behind the books, is all part of trying to accept the loss of her first. In fact, she wrote the Complete First Year Planner (Ebury Press, 2003) to help empower other new mothers.

"After Natasha's death I wanted to do something to promote the health of other children and I saw this as a way for me to do so," Karmel says. "It was a terrible thing to come to terms with. What made it worse was that I really knew something was wrong, but the doctor told me that first-time mothers fuss and worry too much. He made me feel bad. I should have had the power of my convictions. I'd like to help other mothers develop that confidence."

In First Meals, Karmel actively questions our modern reliance on pre-packaged foods and on the insistence of feeding babies bland, smooth, highly processed jarred food. She points out how easy it is to make your own baby food, from mashing a banana with a fork to enriching rice cereal with fruits and vegetables. She also walks parents through the process of serving increasingly textured foods, until baby is eating family foods.

Karmel did her research to write this book, and it shows. She says that each recipe was tested on a minimum of 20 babies, toddlers or children. If more than five spit out the food, it didn't make the cut. While some of the recipes that are meant to be "fun" (such as several that end up shaped like butterflies or dolls) seem very time-consuming, the basic message behind the book is a solid one – everyone should eat the same foods.

"Too many parents make one meal for their son, another for their daughter, because she doesn't like what Brother's having, and another for themselves, so-called 'adult food,'" Karmel says. "In fact, it's our reliance on bland, over-processed, jarred foods that keep children from developing a palate that appreciates a variety of flavors."

If some of these recipes seem rather sophisticated, all the better. After all, what would you rather your child (and you) eat: deep fried, chemically processed chicken nuggets with a side of orange macaroni and cheese, or Tasty Chicken Skewers paired with Pasta Cartwheels with Cheese and Broccoli?

"In researching my first book, I found there were so many misconceptions about children and food," Karmel says. "Mistaken beliefs about food allergies and foods children couldn't, or wouldn't, eat. The fact is that if you withhold certain foods from children until they're older, they may never learn to eat it. They're more adventurous when they're very young and that's when a lifetime of good eating habits needs to start."