Gee, I thought everybody did!  Jim Akre's "Infant Feeding:  the
Physiological Basis" says infant amylase (for starch digestion) production
is low in the early months:  "Pancreatic amylase is not secreted during
the first 3 months of life;  it has been found to be present only at very
low levels, or absent altogether, up to 6 months of age."

When I first read that, I thought, "Aha! Chewing food for the baby adds
salivary amylase to it, and helps the baby digest it!"  My nutritionist
brother-in-law says no, that salivary levels are too low to do much in the
amount of time spent chewing.  But do we maybe chew our babies' food more
than we chew our own?  I still think it can't hurt.  And what commercial
baby food grinder adds *any* enzymes?  Let's hear it for "pre-chewing" -
the easy, enzyme-active, self-cleaning baby food preparation system.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY