Making Own Baby Food

Hi there,
I just wanted to tell you about a book I recently found at the library on this same subject. I have an 8 month old daughter :) The book is called Blender Baby Food by Nicole Young. It is wonderfully helpful and very interesting! I hope it helps you! If you're ever up for a stroll or playdate, let me know! Take care!

I have been making my own baby food for my first son for about 3 months now and here are a few tricks that worked for me: steam most everything (except for bananas and avocados)until they are easily cut through with the side of a spoon or fork, usually about 8-10 minutes depending on the food. ALWAYS cut the food first into relatively small pieces, but not so small that they will miss the blade of the food processor. For harder foods such as carrots, rutabaga, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, beets, etc. I would grate them using a cheese grater or the grater attachment of my food processor. This makes it faster to cook and easier to blend into a smooth consistency. As most of the other responses have said, make sure to add some water, I use the water left over from the steamer so I am adding back in some the nutrients lost in steaming. Also, I found that some of the foods take a lot longer to puree in the food processor than others....so, even though I looked like ti was done, there were still chunks so I would just leave it running for a few more minutes and it would really smooth it out.
Also, as most have said, I have found that it works best to dedicate an entire Saturday afternoon and I cook, puree, and freeze everything into ice cube trays. Once they are frozen I pop them out and put them into labeled zip-locs and keep them in the freezer. My son is 9 months and he now will eat three cubes at a sitting. This makes it fun to mix and match the cubes to create fun dinners :). This also makes it easy to not try and make combo dinners in advance, such as carrots and broccoli. I just make it all separate and then combine it when I decide what he is going to eat for that meal.
Lastly, my two "bible" books for homemade baby food are:
Homemade Baby Food Pure & Simple by Connie Linardakis
Naturally Delicious Meals for Baby by Gerrie Hawes (this one is my favorite!)

Good luck and good for you for making you own baby food...it is cost effective, better for the environment, better for your baby, and, I think, its fun :)!!

A. :)

You can always get a baby food grinder. I got one 5 years ago for about $11 at Burlington Coat Factory. It was a hand grinder, but did a really good job. As long as your son is doing okay, though, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The advantage I found with the grinder was that I didn't have to cook everything. It would even do apple peels and such so that the baby could eat it.

I found that the foods that don't blend smoothly will blend fine if you mix them with a food that works well for you. The kids don't seem to mind. Obviously you have to be careful about introducing the foods first, but once they have some and seem to tolerate it, just mix them up to get the texture you want. Also, you can add some rice cereal or tapioca powder along with liquid to get the food to blend more smoothly. Good luck.

I made a lot of my own also, for the most part I just made sure that some of the things I was making for my husband and me were things that my son could eat when I blended or mashed them, I didn't worry too much about getting it perfectly smooth because I always checked his bowel movements afterward and noticed that he digested them the same as long as it was pretty well mashed. I also seasoned his food the same as I do my own with very few exceptions and so I don't have the problem of having to make bland versions of my food for him and he really likes it.

Don't make it harder than it has to be, being a mom is enough work without trying to live up to commercial standards. Your food will never look quite the same as theirs but it'll be a lot healthier and more realistic as long as you get a good variety in.

Good luck, and have fun.

I made my own food. Steam or cook the veggies until they are mushy. I used a hand baby food grinder, as some one else mentioned. I also pureed mine in my blender. The veggies had to be super soft, and I had to add a little water. If you are doing large quantities, you can freeze the food in ice cube trays and then put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. This works great for small amounts at a time. If you are doing small amounts, you can usually just mash it well enough with a fork too. Good luck!

Pick up a copy of Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. She's a bit over the top on doing some supermom over-the-top things, but taken in moderation, she gives great instruction on how to successfully make homemade baby foods, cereals and snacks as they get older.

On the sweet potatoes -- they are actually among the easiest for me to do. Perhaps you just need to cook them a bit longer. I think the book suggests 400 degrees for about 45 minutes -- depends on how big they are. They should be VERY soft when they come out of the oven. I also let them sit for about an hour to cool a bit before working with them -- they'll continue to cook during that time. Also, I slice mine into the food processor in about 1/2 inch rounds to help them get started (and come away with orange mush all over my hands because they are already so soft). If you can feel the slightest resistance as you slice, they aren't cooked well enough.

Seriously, get Super Baby Food -- I've used it with both my kids and just love it! Good luck!

For the vegetables that don't grind down as smooth I use a little bit of vegetable broth to smooth it out, and for fruits I use a little bit of apple juice, no matter what fruit it is. This seems to really help, and do large batches like one mom suggested and freeze them in ice cube trays.

Good for you D.! I also made my babys food, and he just loved it..yes sweet potatoes did tend to be lumpy,sometimes due to not being cooked quite ewnough and I just used a spoon to mash them up, and I added organic vegetable borth to the food, while mixing in food processor! hope your baby loves it as much as mine did!

I was at Williams-Sonoma the other day and saw something called Beaba Babycook. It does everything, steams, blends, warms and defrosts (and cooks the food in less than 15 min) I don't know if it would be any better at getting the chunks out, but it sounds really neat. It's around $140, but if you can afford it, it might be worth checking out.

Dear D.,

Another mama just posted a very similar question, regarding eight month old twins. You can read her responses at:
http://www.mamasource.com/request/12116071574461743105

Here is some of what I wrote:

You have gotten a lot of advice, books & websites, and I'm sure they are all great. Maybe I'm just a lazy mama, but I think "baby food" has gotten way too complicated because moms think they need to "keep up" with commercial baby food. You don't really need any special recipes. There is no medical reason why babies have to eat bland boring food.

It is a good idea in the beginning to introduce foods one at a time for allergy issues, but once you know what foods are safe for your boy, there should be no problem introducing wholesome table food. With my children, we bought a hand-crank babyfood mill and milled up whatever we were having for dinner that night - spices, salt and all! Obviously if we were having something grossly inappropriate for a baby, like spicy enchiladas, we got them something plainer, and I don't use a whole lot of salt when I cook for the rest of my family either. The foods you feed your children are the flavors they will get used to. If you want them to eat table food with you guys as they grow, give them table food now.

As far as getting the puree consistency of jarred baby food, I don't think you need to worry about it. I'm guessing your son is ready, or close to ready, for small chunks of soft-cooked food. I would start him on some of your chunky blends. Watch him to see how he handles the texture. If he is doing fine, then see how he handles small chunks of soft-cooked food. If he can eat cheerios, he should be able to eat soft chunky food. It is way easier at meals when babies can feed themselves rather than needing to be spoon fed.

You will get thick, but not chunky food with the handmill. If you really want to thin it down, use breastmilk or formula rather than water or juice, to keep up the nutrients.

Another poster mentioned avoiding carrots & beets. The concern there is nitrates in baby food. By about six months their gut develops to fight that problem. [For a six month old baby, I would avoid the concerned foods for a couple more months. Or buy organic; many of the nitrates in the food come from commerical fertilizers.] However, be warned that commerical baby foods do NOT take care of the nitrate issue. They advertise that they SCREEN for nitrates, but nitrates are naturally occuring in some foods and commercial manufacturers cannot REMOVE them even when they screen for them. It's a nice bit of deceptive advertising there! Here is the article:
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/nitratearticle.htm

Best of luck with your kiddos,
S.

Have you tried a baby food mill? They are cheap, and you can get them on line or in most baby stores. They grind the food so it is a puree. We had a lot of luck with ours!