One of Widen Lab’s graduate researchers, Saralyn, has been awarded the Young Investigator Grant from the Egg Nutrition Council for her proposal on the impact of eggs as a complementary food in the first year of life on diet quality focusing on protein, choline, lutein and iron.

In her own words, Saralyn shares, “as a dietitian, I have seen families struggle with the lack of consensus guidelines on introduction of foods. Many families hold onto outdated ideas about taboo foods (such as eggs, fish, etc.) to introduce in the first year. As a parent, I know first hand the resistance given by family members when you choose to give your children a food other than rice cereal as their first food. I want work toward evidenced-based guidelines for infant feeding. There is likely more than one ‘correct’ way to choose first foods, but evidenced-based information is key. Some recent research has shown that early introduction of eggs (in the form of egg powder) has shown to have no increase on egg allergy. For this grant, we want to see if the same is true by having the families give actual eggs when appropriate. “

Again, congratulations Saralyn!