Prunes, Prunes The Magical Fruit: Not Just For Old Ladies

Izzy was introduced to prunes very early on, right after he started eating solids. I soaked them, pureed them and added them to vegetables, cereals and other fruits. They are a great source of iron and fiber, and a natural sweetener to boot. His taste for prunes served him well, a couple of years later, when they became required eating for the obvious reason...and they worked!

The best part is that now he views prunes as a treat. His dessert is often a small bowl of dark chocolate chips (4-6 chips) and a couple of cut-up prunes.

Prunes are on my mind because of today's snack incident. Izzy and his friend O. were playing together this afternoon when the snack urge hit. Izzy had a banana, a granola bar and I had also brought along a container of organic pitted prunes. Izzy was happily munching on his prune when I offered one to O... He gladly accepted, sniffed and licked it and then said, "I don't like this," and handed it back..and then an amazing thing happened. His Mama, instead of just allowing that to go by unnoticed, took the prune and broke it into smaller pieces, handed it back to him at which point he snarfed it down...a mini-food triumph in my book...Long live the prune!

p.s. Some people don't know that a dried plum is the new way to market prunes... A prune is a prune is a prune...