This little book has it all. The message from a whole food plant based nutritionist about food, culture and the Standard American Diet (SAD) will raise your awareness on why our diets have changed dramatically and how big food focuses on enticing toddlers to want their products even before they can read.

Time tested recipes from the kitchens of Italy will make you feel as though you have your own Italian Nonna Raffaella in the kitchen with you. Although this way of feeding babies and infants has been around for centuries, you will be delighted to see how very modern they are with their natural flavors and minimal processing.

The chapter from the pediatrician on giving your baby the right start provides sound advice for avoiding the perils of chronic illness later in life for your child.

Endorsements from Leading Experts:

Carol Amendola D'Anca's work, Real Food for Infants and Toddlers is a gift for us all.

The strength of this work is the reminder that the healthful blessing of real food begins in utero and continues through our lifetime.

Carol also outlines how cultural influences play a role in staying healthy. The Italian traditions she describes in the opening narrative, such as garden produce cooked and served with nurturance, harken back to a time seemingly lost in recent decades.

Through beautiful photography and compelling reminiscence of times before processed food and high sugar additives, this book showcases the vibrancy and importance of garden food, cooked, and shared as a famiglia event. Readers come to understand real food for our youngest becomes real food for life.

The prescription is healthful food and nurturance from cradle to old age. I am all in.

Kevin Fullin MD FACC

Interventional Cardiologist Froedert South

Kenosha Wisconsin

How can you stack the deck for your child's success? The missing element is often the lack of real food that sustains and cultivates the good health they entered the world with.

That's the secret ingredient in this masterful new guide by Carol D'Anca, a passionate and authoritative nutrition thought-leader, joined by Dr. Barbara Deal, a forward-thinking pediatric cardiologist, along with expertise from a chef of distinction, Raffaella Florio, who applies old world wisdom to show us how to thrive in the 21st century.

Stephen Devries, MD

Preventive Cardiologist Executive Director, nonprofit Gaples Institute

Associate Professor, Northwestern University

This little book offers readers an easy to follow scientific explanation of the link between food sources, nutrition, and health along with simple recipes for tasty and nutritious dishes for infants and toddlers.

What sets the book apart, though, is its call to return to a simpler time, to our immigrant forebearers, specifically to "Nonna," the iconic Italian American grandmother, whose ability to create delicious meals from the simple ingredients she had at hand has been praised by culinary luminaries such as Jamie Oliver.

Readers will enjoy both reading about the importance of eating well and the recipes themselves, which though geared to children are equally appealing to more mature palates

Carla A. Simonini

Paul and Ann Rubino Endowed Associate Professor and

Founding Director

Italian American Studies Program

Loyola University Chicago