# Alicia Silverstone's baby eats like a bird . . . literally.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 28, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041 "2012-03-28T15:02:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/1 "2012-03-28T15:02:00Z")
[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749\_162-57405700-10391698/alicia-silverstone-feeds-her-son-from-her-mouth/](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-57405700-10391698/alicia-silverstone-feeds-her-son-from-her-mouth/)
Alicia has been throwing up into her baby’s mouth. Not actually throwing up: she chews her food and then Frenches her baby, Bear Blu [_!!_], transferring the food into his little pie-hole like the birdies do.
_Now_. This may be very healthy and vitamin-full and . . . _oh gosh I just can’t._ I am practically vomiting myself, just thinking about it, and there is not even a baby nearby I can vomit into.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/2 "2012-03-28T15:09:11Z")
Ew.
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/3 "2012-03-28T15:13:31Z")
I don’t see the problem. It is an respected tradition in low-tech countries. Many anthopologists say that is even how french kissing originated.
I have done it myself when I was out with my baby and we ran out of baby food. All I had were dry crackers. I chew the crackers, and gave my baby a pat of it on my fingers in his mouth. No problem, happy baby instead of fussy hungry baby.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/4 "2012-03-28T15:16:03Z")
Instead of laughing at this poor girl and her baby, maybe we could all chip in and get her the help she needs.
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### Author:  [@Corcaigh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corcaigh)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/5 "2012-03-28T15:17:51Z")
> [@Maastricht](#):
>
> I don’t see the problem. It is an respected tradition in low-tech countries.
Agreed.
There are places in the world where you can’t go to a supermarket to buy baby food, or have a blender, how else would you introduce solid food to a baby?
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### Author:  [@Tarwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarwater)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/6 "2012-03-28T15:18:18Z")
This gave me flashbacks to when my mother did this to me as a child. She wasn’t slobbering all over the food and then _spitting_ it into my mouth, but she was chewing it up so that I could eat the resultant masticated bits.
I must have buried this memory deep because it’s the first time I’ve recalled it in my adult life. It’s a minor trauma, thinking about it now. I don’t know what to say.
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### Author:  [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/7 "2012-03-28T15:19:06Z")
Probably clears a blocked nose by sucking the snot out as well.
No problem with it actually. Wouldn’t fancy it myself but if that’s the way she’s happy feeding so what?
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### Author:  [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/8 "2012-03-28T15:22:55Z")
My family did this with french fries. Used to gross me out so much.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/9 "2012-03-28T15:23:51Z")
> [@Corcaigh](#):
>
> There are places in the world where you can’t go to a supermarket to buy baby food
She lives in Los Angeles.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/10 "2012-03-28T15:25:31Z")
When my dad was a child of sharecroppers in the 30’s in Georgia that’s exactly how Granny introduced solid foods. What, exactly, else could she do?
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/11 "2012-03-28T15:27:38Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> _Now_. This may be very healthy and vitamin-full and . . . _oh gosh I just can’t._ I am practically vomiting myself, just thinking about it
There there, just don’t think about it. If it’s any consolation, the idea of [premastication](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premastication) doesn’t really bother me at all, although I wouldn’t be eager to try it myself. (Although for all I know, maybe I **have** tried it myself: I’ve never stringently interrogated my mother on exactly what feeding method(s) she used during my infancy.)
However. Is it appropriate for Silverstone to be, in essence, using her celebrity status to “advertise” this method on her healthy-living website? If this were merely her own private parenting choice I’d say the celebrity-watchers and gossip hounds should just mind their own beeswax.
But if she’s deliberately publicizing and promoting this idea, then as far as I’m concerned she’s totally within her rights to do so but anybody who finds it distasteful is also totally within their rights to publicize and promote their revulsion at it.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/12 "2012-03-28T15:29:02Z")
I draw the line at moms who put Junior on the other side of the room in his high chair, masticate a mouthful of food, then put the bolus into a slingshot and yell “open wide!”
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### Author:  [@Rhiannon8404](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhiannon8404)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/13 "2012-03-28T15:29:30Z")
Eh, there’s worse and weirder things out there. However, it seems to me that the child in the video is old enough to chew his own food. Maybe not meat, which they don’t eat anyway, but certainly soup vegetables.
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### Author:  [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/14 "2012-03-28T15:44:59Z")
> [@Corcaigh](#):
>
> Agreed.
>
> There are places in the world where you can’t go to a supermarket to buy baby food, or have a blender, how else would you introduce solid food to a baby?
MORTAR AND PESTLE!!!
Failing that, a wet twisted up handkerchief. Failing that, literally any clean container. I’d sooner stuff bread and water into a bottle and shake it up than pre-chew.
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### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/15 "2012-03-28T15:49:30Z")
“I just threw up a little in my mouth.”
Aw . . . baby’s first tweet.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/16 "2012-03-28T15:54:51Z")
At least it’s not predigested.
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### Author:  [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/17 "2012-03-28T15:59:09Z")
It would be pretty darned efficient if she were bulemic.
StG
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/18 "2012-03-28T15:59:35Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> At least it’s not predigested.
Well, there is amylase in saliva. It actually _is_ predigested to some extent.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/19 "2012-03-28T16:06:02Z")
I hope I never catch my mother masticating.
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alicia-silverstones-baby-eats-like-a-bird-literally/617041/20 "2012-03-28T16:17:55Z")
It’s…it’s…just too gross to think about it.
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