At what age can babies eat oil?

1.6-12 months baby

A small amount of cooking oil can be added for cooking
More than 99% of edible oil is fat, so the amount of edible oil you eat is the amount of fat you eat. Fat is an essential nutrient for growth and development, and it is also the most powerful nutrient among the three major nutrients.
Infants have much higher fat requirements than adults, and infants have higher fat requirements than adults. Therefore, low-fat diets are generally not suitable for infants and young children.
Of course, it does not mean that edible oils can be added arbitrarily to complementary foods for infants and young children. For infants and young children, the first source of fat intake is breast milk or formula milk, then the ingredients themselves, and finally the cooking oil.
Common fat-rich foods are usually animal foods and seed foods. Ensuring the amount of milk and the frequency and quantity of such foods in complementary foods also ensures the normal intake of fat.

For example, suppose a healthy 6-month-old baby weighs 8kg and needs 640 calories per day. Calculated according to the fact that fat provides 40% of the total energy, the daily fat requirement of this baby is 256 kcal, or about 28.5g fat.

Calculated by drinking 700ml of breast milk per day for 6 months of age (the fat content in breast milk is about 3.4g/100ml), the fat provided by breast milk is 23.8g per day. After subtracting the fat supply in breast milk, the remaining 4.7g of fat is obtained by the baby in the complementary food.

What is the concept of converting 4.7g of fat into actual food? 1 small egg, 15g of pork belly, 50g of pork loin, 10g of black sesame seeds or walnut kernels... That is to say, giving your baby an egg every day can fully meet the fat requirement in complementary food.

Therefore, when making complementary foods, there is no need to deliberately add more cooking oil to eat oil. For babies who have just started to add complementary food, cooking oil is also a new type of complementary food, and should try to choose the cooking method of steaming and boiling. (If vegetable oil needs to be added due to the cooking method, generally 2-3 drops are enough, and the method should be followed from less to more.)


If the baby's complementary food is mainly based on plant foods such as grains, vegetables, and fruits (no meat and eggs), it is necessary to add about 5-10g of oil, such as flaxseed oil, walnut oil, etc. are recommended.
If the baby has eggs or meat in the complementary food every day, it is also possible to add no additional cooking oil within 6 to 12 months.

2.1 year old baby

Regularly add appropriate amount of cooking oil
One of the functions of solid food is to gradually transition the baby's eating pattern to that of an adult. As babies get older, their chewing and swallowing abilities improve, and chopping and chopping food no longer appeals to them, nor does the taste of steamed water. Therefore, the processing method of food materials needs to be changed.
After the cooking and processing methods are changed, it is the stage where edible oil is added normally. The main energy source of infants before the age of 1 is still breast milk or formula milk, and after the age of 1, it is changed to "complementary food" as the main energy source. Therefore, edible oil can be added according to the cooking method as appropriate, but it is not eaten for the purpose of "eating oil".

3. What oil is better for baby

There are many kinds of edible oils on the market, and the prices vary. It is not the expensive ones that are suitable for babies. The price of various edible oils depends on the price of the raw material.
In terms of composition, edible oil is nothing more than two kinds of fatty acids, saturated fat and unsaturated fat, of which unsaturated fat is divided into polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat.
The fats in common animal foods are usually saturated fats, such as butter, lard, etc.
Seed foods contain more unsaturated fats, such as peanut oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, and sesame oil.

So why do some types of edible oils always say that they are more suitable for babies to eat when they are promoted? In fact, the main concept of merchants is linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid in unsaturated fats. These two fatty acids cannot be synthesized by the human body and can only be obtained from food, so they are also called "essential fatty acids".

Linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid are not well-known, so I believe most parents know about ARA and DHA? ARA is a derivative of linoleic acid, and DHA is a derivative of α-linolenic acid. Therefore, it can be simply understood that ingesting linoleic acid and α-linolenic acid can be converted into ARA and DHA to a certain extent in the body.
Let's take a look at the common edible oils rialoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid.

4. Edible oils rich in linoleic acid

Soybean oil, peanut oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil, walnut oil, etc. are all edible oils rich in linoleic acid.

5. Edible oils rich in alpha-linolenic acid

There are few edible oils rich in alpha-linolenic acid, currently only flaxseed oil and perilla oil.

Flaxseed oil contains 45~50% alpha-linolenic acid, and perilla oil contains about 65~70% alpha-linolenic acid.

6. Common infant oils

In walnut oil, the most popular walnut oil, the content of alpha-linolenic acid is only 10~20%, which is only slightly higher than 8% of soybean oil.
Olive oil and some types of edible oil merchants always advertise the word "healthy" when promoting, such as the famous olive oil. Olive oil has a very high proportion of monounsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats do have a good effect on lowering blood lipids, but this is not a desired effect for infants and young children. Therefore, olive oil is not the long-term preferred oil for infants and young children.
The same goes for rapeseed oil and tea seed oil. After reading the above content, I believe you will no longer be obsessed with expensive cooking oil.
Regarding the principle of using edible oil, it is recommended to rotate the type of edible oil regularly, rather than staring at one type of edible oil for long-term use.

7. Small workshop pressing oil is not recommended to buy

Buying cooking oil is relatively simple. Whether it is a traditional offline channel, a large-scale supermarket, a chain supermarket, or an increasingly popular e-commerce channel, it is a very reliable choice.
However, it should be noted that some offline small workshops or online Taobao individual sellers sell teaseed oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, etc., which are squeezed by themselves. They do not have the site and hygienic conditions for producing and processing edible oil, and the quality control is unstable. Due to the fact that there are many magazines in the pressing equipment, and the strong carcinogen aflatoxin is easily produced during processing and storage, it is really not a good choice for buying edible oil.

8. Different types of cooking oil

Edible oils suitable for quick frying usually include: soybean oil, corn oil, peanut oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, etc.

Edible oils suitable for cold salad are usually: olive oil, walnut oil, linseed oil, sesame oil, perilla oil, etc.
When making complementary food for the baby, it is a smart parent to switch various (small bottled) edible oil tankers to eat, and make the best of everything.
Of course, families that cook less rice and vegetables can also consider blended oils that are mixed with a variety of cooking oils.