What’s good for baby, bland or tasty?

Our paed has been a very big help in sharing with us the kinds of food that are suitable for baby at each stage of his development. She recommended (and I heard the same from a friend’s baby dietician) that I should be feeding baby four types of vegetables for a start – brocolli, spinach, cauliflower and carrots. I diligently followed that. There are also 4 types of fruits that he could start with – apples, pears, papayas and bananas. Meat wise, fish and chicken are fine. Anchovies are great too. She reminded us that if we want to feed eggs to baby, he can only start consuming egg yolks from 8 months onwards. Egg whites are definitely not recommended at this stage in case they cause allergies. Only when baby is over 1-year old is egg white recommended in his diet.

Right now baby is still on the chicken, fish, 4 types of vegetables and 4 types of fruits diet. I have not ventured into giving him new food stuff. Not even eggs yet although he’s going to be 10 months old in a couple of days.

On the other hand, a friend’s baby who is about a month older than baby, has tasted a lot more food stuff. She even fed her baby ice cream already! While I would love to give baby his very first taste of ice cream and I’m sure he would love it, I’m not sure if this is the right stage to introduce such foods.

According to the same friend, she has heard that if a baby doesn’t get fed with a variety of food stuff with different tastes, the baby would grow up being picky with food. The theory is that since the baby is not exposed to different tastes, then the baby will find it hard to adapt later on and would only stick to what he’s used to. I have heard completely opposite of this. In fact, I have been advised to keep baby’s food as bland in taste as possible instead of letting him try too much too young. This theory believes that if baby’s tastebud is too varied, then eventually baby will only pick tasty and delicious food stuff and refuse whatever that’s on the blend side.

So who’s to say who is right and who is not? Or is there no right and wrong in this? Is this subjective and differs from baby to baby and from parent to parent?