Building a healthy foundation with first foods
For every child, nourishment that grows at home
In Barangay Banlot, a remote community in Sibonga, Cebu, Hannah Jane Cabardo raises her baby, Caedhen, on food grown just a few steps from their home. Alongside breastfeeding, she prepares simple purées using vegetables and fruits from their family garden—carrots, upo, and bananas, steamed and mashed by hand. These home-cooked meals mark the start of complementary feeding at 6 months, when a baby begins to eat solid food while continuing to breastfeed. The garden was built through the SUGBUsog program, a provincial initiative that provides seedlings and farming support. Maintained by her parents, it is both a food source and a shared caregiving effort. Even during the lean period when vegetables become scarce or expensive in the market, the family can still harvest what they need from their own backyard to keep Caedhen nourished.
Hannah’s approach to feeding Caedhen has been shaped not just by what her family grows, but by what she has learned. Through the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP), the Barangay Nutrition Scholar taught her how to prepare nutritious foods from a variety of products, using the vegetables they harvest at home. Her parents now help ensure they grow enough so nutritious meals are always possible. With support from both SUGBUsog and PMNP, her family is able to provide the kind of early nutrition that helps children grow up healthy—starting with simple meals, made at home.
Complementary feeding works best when families have both the knowledge and the means to provide the right variety foods at the right time. Yet a UNICEF-COMMIT study found that only one in three commercially produced complementary foods in the Philippines meet nutrition standards. This makes it even more important to support families who prepare safe, nutritious meals at home.
In remote communities like Banlot where families face increasing climate-related threats, sustainable practices like home gardening help them feed their children even when markets are far and weather makes travel difficult. But these practices alone cannot meet all the nutrition needs of young children. Reducing child food poverty, which happens when children lack enough diverse and nutrient-rich foods for healthy growth, demands stronger systems. This includes support for small-scale local food production, training for frontline community workers, and community-based programmes that link agriculture, health, and nutrition where they matter most: in the first 1,000 days of life.
About PMNP
UNICEF, through the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project (PMNP), is dedicated to ensuring all children receive nutritious diets, essential nutrition services, and nurturing care during their First 1,000 Days and beyond. With USD $178 million from the World Bank, the project works with local governments in 275 municipalities across Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare and Development are leading this project to provide a coordinated package of nutrition services and promote healthy practices at the household level to improve nutrition for every child.
