Hot! Alicia Silverstone Chews Her Babys Food; Premastication Is An Ancient Practice

Alicia Silverstone has taken on a new and surprising role: Mother who chews her infants food before feeding it to him.

Many people have voiced shock and revulsion at the sight of the 35-year-old Clueless star using her own mouth to feed her child, which she posted on a video to her site, .

Yum! I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup . from my mouth to his. It s his favorite . and mine.

Yet premastication, the act of chewing food in order to feed a weaning child, is actually an ancient one and one that is still practiced in cultures all over the world.

The idea is to supplement the child s decreasing breast milk with soft, chewed food, giving him more nutrients.

For impoverished cultures that have little to no access to prepackaged baby food, it may be essential to a child s survival.

Its abandonment, particularly in poor communities, has placed children at increased risk of inadequate nutrition and decreased ability to confront infections associated with the introduction of complementary foods, Cornell University researchers wrote in a study published in 2010.

The researchers found that 63% of Chinese university students received premasticated food as infants.

Adherents believe they are giving their child essential enzymes that can help their digestion and provide immunological resistance.

Passing food from the mother s mouth to a child s can also spread disease.

Scientists have noted incidents where mothers have passed HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and food-borne pathogens to their child.

There have also been studies that premastication can spread cavity-causing bacteria .

Still, most the comments on Silverstone s website, which focuses on healthy eating and a vegan lifestyle, were positive.

I did this with all three of my girls. It just seem so natural to me. I would chew, they would eat, wrote one commenter. Just wonderful antibodies.

Others just didn t understand.

Please dont take offense, wrote another commenter. but why not just process the food in a food processor or blender?