The time to start proper nutrition for your children is from the start. So why is it that at a time when diet is so crucial should most of our child's food come from jars and boxes. There is no great mystery to making your own baby food. It's easy. Nothing could be better for your baby then home cooked fruit and vegetable purees. It is a common misconception to the new parent to think that there is something special about the store bought baby foods that somehow makes it more appropriate for your baby. I made this mistake myself. I remember with my first child buying banana baby food, thinking somehow it is better then just squishing up a banana myself, it is not. Don't be mislead by the labels on the store bought baby food with long lists of nutritional benefits, yours will be just as nutritious only without added starches (such as maltodextrin which is the stuff they use for the glue on envelopes and stamps)!
Not only is home made food better for babies, it is MUCH cheaper. Even moms who don't have the time to cook and puree can give their babies a good start with foods like mashed banana, avocado, and papaya, which make excellent no-cook baby purees.
You can plan all your babies foods ahead. Just pick a day and spend a couple of hours cooking and you will have your baby's food for an entire month. There are many deceptive gadgets out there for the mom who wants to make their own baby food. I have even seen a device that cooks and purees all is one that went for several hundred dollars. I have seen baby food making kits that sell for $40 or more. You do not need any of this. All you need is a few items that you already have in your kitchen, such as pots and pans to cook in and ice cube trays to freeze in, and that's it.
Before I go into how to cook and freeze your puree, a note on picking out your produce. You should pick the best produce possible. Farmers markets, and farm stands are an excellent source also if you have an organic farm box delivery service near you many of them offer a baby food package which has a mix of produce that makes great baby food. If it is the dead of winter and none of these are an option for you then whatever you can find at the market is still better then the canned food. If organic eating is not your lifestyle, please remember the organic dirty dozen. These are the produce that tend to retain the most pesticide residues: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries (not for children under one year), cherries, pears, grapes, spinach, lettuce and potatoes.
It would take forever for me to give you all of the cooking techniques for all of the different fruits and vegetable so I will just give you the resource that I use when I am cooking my own. It is an excellent site that gives instructions for every fruit and vegetable imaginable www.wholesomebabyfood.com
For cooking and storing my baby food, this is the technique I use. I used butternut squash for this example.
Step One: Cook fruits or vegetable according to the instructions on the wholesome baby food site.
Step Two: Puree in a food processor, blender, or food mill.
Step Three: Fill ice cube tray with puree.
Step Four: Cover tray and freeze for a couple of hours until frozen solid.
Step Five: Break out of the trays into storage bags and store in the freezer.
Each cube is one ounce. To serve remove the desired amount of food and put in a bowl. Then either let is defrost in the fridge or microwave on 50% power for 15 second per cube.
When your baby is ready for more complicated flavors I highly recommend this book The Healthy Baby Meal Planner
No comments:
Post a Comment