Oatmeal better than rice cereal?

[alaskagrown]

Occasionally I give my baby infant oatmeal for breakfast and have never given her rice cereal because of its bad reputation. Can someone on here validate me and tell me that oatmeal is better than rice cereal? Details on nutrition would be much appreciated too (I plan on writing an article if I can get enough reasons on why )

Oooorr...maybe can someone explain to me why it's best to skip rice cereal. Reputable sources would make my life a lot easier! Thanks!! Summer Rain, I'm anxious to hear from you on this

 

[libbylou]

I've only done oatmeal too. I know there are some studies linking levels of arsenic to rice...but honestly I give my LO real rice too. Mostly I stick with the oatmeal because I've heard it has more nutrition where rice cereal is sort of empty white carbs, but I would love to see some research links on it too

 

[Noelle610]

You know, I'm not sure about why oatmeal would be healthier than rice cereal. I give Charlotte both, but mostly stick to oatmeal because she suffers from chronic constipation and the oatmeal doesn't seem to back her up as much as the rice does.

 

[summer rain]

I don't know about in the US but generally in the UK baby rice cereal is made from processed ground white rice and many baby porridges are made from processed oats; however 'adult' porridge basically just rolled large oats is wholegrain so I would always give that. You can also grind up the whole oats in a food processor to make them more finely textured, before cooking. With rice the additional worry is the arsenic aspect. This is a very interesting and evidence based report from 'consumer reports' which I am guessing is kind of like the US version of 'Which?' Magazine....? The 'cereals cause concern' paragraph addresses baby rice cereals in particular

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/11/arsenic-in-your-food/index.htm

xx

 

[socitycourty]

my doctor told me it was fine, but I only gave it a couple times and those times I used organic brown rice cereal, then switched to oatmeal, and now no cereal at all because she has very bad chronic constipation.

My doctor was surprised when I told her that I had heard so many negative things about rice cereal. My LO had it only 3 times. However my mom weaned us on rice cereal and also put it in the nighttime bottles from when I was 12 weeks old...and I'm fine.

 

[summer rain]

Research has moved on since then and in the past few years there has been a lot more notice paid to arsenic and other dangerous compounds in the soil and food has been actively tested for them. Perhaps in the past the technology wasn't there to test accurately for these things? From my understanding rice is one of the crops that absorb arsenic the most and as the link above says there are certain states in the US that have far higher levels in the soil than others, and the US in general has far higher levels of arsenic than Europe, India and Bangladesh. There have been many studies done on the dangerously high levels of arsenic in the soil in Bangladesh in particular, and its negative effects on public health so if the US has higher levels; that is alarming. The above link is very sensible it says other cereals are better but if you must give rice cereal; no more than once a day because more than this could expose a baby to levels that would be dangerous for their body weight. Research has moved on with regard to so many things, even when my eldest was little there were a whole gamut of easily available, very strong cough medicines available for babies and children. They have all now been either completely withdrawn from sale or relabelled to only be for much older children. They were not only found to be ineffective but very easy to lethally overdose with xx

 

[Dk1234]

Rice is more constipating.

 

[overcomer79]

You know, I'm not sure about why oatmeal would be healthier than rice cereal. I give Charlotte both, but mostly stick to oatmeal because she suffers from chronic constipation and the oatmeal doesn't seem to back her up as much as the rice does.

I'm in the opposite. Oatmeal bound her up for days...

 

[kissyfacelala]

I am not a big fan of rice...less nutrients and if I prepare it the way the package says it becomes really runny...like soup...my babies don't like that and so I use less formula to make it....I prefer oatmeal as it tastes better and of course nutrients....as for constipation...i have not noticed a difference in my babies BMs from just formula or when i added rice to their diet and oatmeal to their diet

just at the labels on HEINZ oatmeal and rice...the iron % daily value is 100 for both

oatmeal has more folate, protein, more zinc, more calcium, more fibre, all very important!

I give rice only so they can have a flavour for rice and one day I want to introduce mixed cereal and rice is in there....dont want them having a reaction to rice and me not knowing why

 

[Maviyildiz]

In the last week infant cereals made big news here (sweden) because so many of them have high levels of arsenic, cadmium, and lead. These were all different sorts of grains: oats, rice, spelt, and rye. Often the contamination is in the soil, so the adult versions of these foods have this problem too. So we will offer our LO occasional tastes of rice or whatever if we are eating it, but she is definitely not getting any grains for daily consumption while she is so little. I figure she will probably love starches anyway when she is a toddler. They all seem too!