Eating with Beauty with Bidii Baby Foods

By Alexandria Bipatnath

Left: Zachariah Ben with his son, Yabiito, inside an underground oven. Middle: Bidii Baby Foods. Right: Corn before roasting. Photos courtesy of Bidii Baby Foods.

With my background in culinary arts and nutrition, I was instantly intrigued by the idea of a Navajo-owned family business in Shiprock, producing organic neeshjhizhii (steamed dried corn) from Navajo white corn—for babies! Bidii Baby Foods specializes in creating greater access to traditional foods in the early childhood years. This baby food company can be enjoyed by the whole family, with their finely ground corn being a staple breakfast food.

Zachariah Ben, a sixth-generation Diné farmer, and his wife, Mary Ben, a first-generation American from Hungary, founded Bidii Baby Foods in 2021. Their farming journey began on fields that hadn’t been farmed for more than twenty-five years, where Zachariah and Mary began implementing traditional Diné farming practices. Without the use of pesticides or insecticides, their crop is completely organic. Once harvested, the corn is placed in an underground oven, where it is pressure- and steam-cooked for twelve hours. Once it’s taken out, it’s dehydrated and shelled; some is kept whole and some is finely ground. When it’s ready to be eaten, the finely ground corn is rehydrated with water or milk, while the whole-kernel corn can be added into soups and stews, paired with mutton, bison, or beef—staple foods for the Navajo people.

After hearing Zachariah explain both their harvesting and preparation processes, I was even more excited to sample their cereal, which is prepared by boiling with water or milk at a 1:4 ratio, much as oatmeal is prepared. My tastebuds were jumping with joy when I had a spoonful of their Neeshjhizhii Doo Nayizi Bi’taa’Niił (Navajo dried steamed corn and squash cereal) last November. With its smoky and nutty aromatic notes, I caught myself fondly recalling childhood memories of being elated with a cob of corn in hand. Bidii Baby Foods is an agriculture cooperative incorporated and registered with the Navajo Nation. “This was the example [of forming a cooperative] that we wanted to set,” said Zachariah.

It all started when Mary met Zachariah on another farm in Shiprock, where the two later had their son. Bidii Baby Foods was conceived with the goal to provide highly nutritious and accessible food not only for their son but on the Navajo Nation as well.

Left: Bowl of Neeshjhizhii Doo Nayizi Bi’taa’Niił, photo by Alexandria Bipatnath.
Right: Zachariah and Mary Ben with their son, Yabiito, photo courtesy of Bidii Baby Foods.

“It was our son’s first taste of that food that put away all worries,” Zachariah said. “It instilled in us the power of parenting to say that we’re on the right course and this is the course we want to take. These are the types of resources we want for the rest of our families. When we fed it to our son, he loved it! He was taking in all that time and effort that we put into the field. Going out there and irrigating and triumphing [on] hot days. All the discipline and love that is implemented into the seeds, to where and how you grow, just nurturing, caring, and loving that farm is what your child is tasting during harvest season. That’s the type of food we need, especially nowadays.”

Zachariah shared that their business approach isn’t for capitalistic gain but rather to share their personal story and how it has nourished their son’s mind, body, and spirit. “He doesn’t crave processed foods. He craves steamed corn. That’s the type of reaction we want from the rest of our community, [and we thought,] why don’t we make that available, and it just snowballed from there.” Bidii Baby Foods, which can be ordered online, has seasonal blends with other traditional ingredients mixed into their finely ground steamed corn cereals, such as amaranth and squash, all grown organically on Zachariah and Mary’s farming plots. They also have bison jerky sourced from the Brownotter Buffalo Ranch, a Native American–owned and –operated company in South Dakota—a tasty snack for the whole family to enjoy.

It’s “40 percent non-Native, 60 percent Indigenous,” Zachariah said enthusiastically when I asked what their customer demographics look like. “Everybody loves it. They love the growing practices and methods we implement into it.” I began thinking about my own community, the Anishinaabe Ojibwe peoples, and manoomin—one of our people’s first foods, also known as wild rice—and how it’s the first food you eat as an infant and the last food consumed just before you pass. I asked Zachariah if the Diné people have a similar type of ritual with eating food in this way. Smiling, he began sharing about the Diné Yébîchai ceremonies. “In [this] ceremony, we have twenty-four different foods, from wild spinach, carrots, onions, [and] parsley [to] corn of all colors. They’re cooked in different ways—from a tamale to a kneel-down bread, or pureed down. You take it in small portions, and you communally share that with the others who are participating. The medicine man sings to awaken the masks and [they] are fed those first foods to begin the ceremony,” said Zachariah. “This is what we’ve started to do with our son. Showing him those first foods by going out to forage and to see what type of seasons and elevations they grow in. He’s so small but he understands, and he’ll let you know he understands because he partakes in those activities. And that’s the type of relationship that we have and what we want to share. It starts with the farm because that’s the foundation for life.”

The Bidii Baby Foods farm has been a place of healing, education, and knowledge sharing, not only within Zachariah’s family but with and for the community at large. I’m looking forward to visiting the farm to help them plant in spring, and I encourage both our Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members to volunteer at the farm during their planting, growing, and harvesting seasons, supporting their incredible efforts in making traditional foods more accessible.

bidiibabyfoods.org

Alexandria Bipatnath
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Alexandria Bipatnath is Anishinaabe and Guyanese from Toronto, Canada. She is a clinical integrative nutritionist and chef who specializes in First Nation fusion foods. Bipatnath founded The Wholesome Conscious in 2018, beginning as a catering company, and now offering a wide variety of services.