What age can children eat spice?

 * Image from http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/dietandhealth/healthnews/791258/spice-whirl

I will never forget this story:

One of the girls from TAFE told me this one which happened to her on placement. Something I promised myself I would never do.

We were all on babies placement birth-2yrs.

"A little boy aged 10 months had a specific diet. This was because his parents had culturally specific beliefs. The family would provide food to the centre, believing it would be easier for the cooks in the centre. The team leader had left specific instructions to only feed him the food in the container that his parents had provided. A relief worker who was in the babies room opened up his lunch which was heavily laden with spice. She threw it in the bin and went to the kitchen and got him a beef sandwich (which culturally he could not eat).

She then proceeded to feed him the sandwich, just as the team leader entered the room. She grabbed the sandwich out of the relief workers hand and asked what the hell was going on. The relief worker said he couldn't eat the food the parents had packed, it's far to spicy for a child his age.

The team leader flew off her handle at the worker, who burst into tears. The team leader asked what gave her the right to make a decision based on her own beliefs about what a child can and cant eat.

This baby had been eating this kind of food since he began eating solids at 6mths old. He would gulp down the food.

The baby became violently ill because he had never had beef due to the family's cultural beliefs. The team leader had to ring the parents and explain what had happened. Needless to say that relief worker never set foot in the centre again.".

It is my opinion that it's a Western Society belief that infants food needs to be bland. My own belief is to introduce foods as the child is ready. Our little man eats mustard by the spoon full and was eating curries and hot Indian foods at 2, when we would visit a lady who lived downstairs from us whom everybody in our apartment block had affectionately called "Auntie" she would give us all kinds of Indian delicacies to try. In turn we would bring "Aussie" foods to share, to return the plates she would send home with us.