Comments on: The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Baby Food Edition

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:04:12 +0000

I have made my own babyfood for 2 of my kids so far. I made the decision because I thought it would be healthy and cheaper. For my second child it seemed easier. I used ice cube trays and baby food jars from a friend instead of the more expensive fancier things. The only problem I had is that neither of my kids would eat store bought baby food after they ate the stuff I made. So I had to make their food until they ate with us. No big deal though. The second time around I knew what was coming.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:09:55 +0000

We also use the ice cube tray approach. I also don’t think it’s necessary to use fresh veggies: Frozen is a lot more convenient and the resulting food will still be far less processed than the Gerber variety:
http://cleverdad.blogspot.com/2008/03/baby-food-cubes.html

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:45:05 +0000

I used the magic bullet for my pureeing when my son was eating pureed food. It worked great, and I froze the food in ice cube trays just like most everybody else. It only took 30 minutes for everthing, less time than it usually is to make dinner. We saved so much money, and my son loves green peas to this day!

By: Alexandra

Alexandra — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:45:27 +0000

I feel very fortunate to have come across this site. I was am expecting my first child at the end of July and I was wondering the best way to puree the food? Would it be food processor, blender or is there a specific kitchen tools for making baby food? Thanks for the ice cube try idea, I would have never thought of that. What would be the best tecnique for thawing and heating besides a microwave?

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:23:37 +0000

I am yet another person who made most of my baby food! I also used the ice cube trays and then put the cubes in freezer bags once they were frozen. I didn’t make any of the meat. My son loved it fresh, but once it was frozen and thawed the texture was weird and he hated it.

One of our favorite fruits was peaches. I actually peeled them, cut them in half and removed the pits then baked them cut side down until they were soft. It brings out the natural sugars and was really tasty. My son is over 2 years old now and still eats veggies really well. My second child is due any day now and I absolutely plan on doing this again!

By: momof4

momof4 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:19:58 +0000

All of my kids went from breast to table food., when a child can sit upright and go hand to mouth they are ready ( usually ) for soft foods to feed themselves. Usually around 9 mnths or so. ) grated apple, soft bits of well cooked veggies and fruits go over well. I’ve seen lots of parents spoon feed baby food that gets pushed out of the mouth by the baby’s tongue ( natural reflex to protect baby)then the parents scrape the food off of the face and spoon it back in. it totally cracks me up. I’ve never had a kid in daycare though so I didn’t even need to think about supplementing their diet with pureed foods. have fun!

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:01:56 +0000

I made all of my son’s baby food except meat, because I couldn’t get the meat a fine enough texture that he would eat it (he still doesn’t really like meat). Pureed meat is fairly disgusting, and it made us slip further towards the vegetarianism that we’ve been drifting towards for several years. Down to meat 2x/week. We should just give up and go vegie, but I’m lazy and am only adding other cooking alternatives gradually.

I agree, the ice cube method is best. Each cube is approximately 2 Tblsp. Freeze them solid and put the cubes in gallon freezer bags. Defrost only what you’re going to use. We used the microwave, but some people shun the microwave, in which case, save your little glass jars to use with your steam heater thingee.

We also used the microwave to cook the vegies. It was by far the fastest method, and fast preserves the most nutrients.

Just remember not to make your own carrots until your daughter is over 7mo. I forget what the exact problem is, but something that there’s varying amounts of in fresh carrots can build up in bodies <7mo. Comercial baby food carrots is tested for whatever it is.

Oh, and we made our own baby food because it was more like real food, and we found it more convienent. The daycare teachers were constantly raving that our food looked better and smelled better than jarred food, and our son loves his fruits and vegies now. You can also make it chunkier as your daughter gets older, which allows a natural transition to soft foods.

Also, I agree with MES, that kids probably don’t need baby food at all, they had kids for thousands of years before they had blenders and food processors, not to mention comercial canning operations. But purees are highly convienent before kids can effectively self feed.

By: Mel

Mel — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:00:43 +0000

Word of caution: before you freeze a ton, make sure your daughter will eat it! My daughter ate the food when it was fresh or refridgerated, but spit it back at me when it’d been frozen. Tried a couple different things and then gave up and just mashed whatever we were eating that night & gave it to her.

By: MES

MES — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:20:46 +0000

We took a great class all about solid foods for babies. The idea that babies need pureed/strained foods seems to be based on information from decades ago when babies were fed solids starting at a few weeks of age. Based on that, we gave up on purees and went for soft foods that were either chopped or mashed. I still pre-cooked and froze various things, but saved myself the trouble of all the extra processing (and cleanup!)
If you do go with the purees though, take a look at a couple of cookbooks – “Sneaky Chef” and “Deceptively Delicious.” Both provide recipes that incorporate pureed veggies into all sorts of foods to boost the nutrient content and get kids to eat more veggies.

Good Luck!

By: Mary Beth

Mary Beth — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:11:38 +0000

I have four kids (17, 14, 10 and 8) and never bought a single jar of baby food. I just bought fresh fruits and veggies, steamed them (usually in the microwave) and then pureed. I put the frozen puree in ice cube trays then transfered to freezer bags when solid. It makes it really easy to defrost as much or as little as you want and also to make combos like apple/sweet potato etc. Just add cube(s) of whatever you want to combine. You can also bake veggies like butternut squash, acorn squash and sweet potatoes and then just mash and freeze. My kids all loved these.

By: dina

dina — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:21:27 +0000

I made apples, pears, mango (just until it softened – about 2-5 minutes). I also gave my daughter berries by buying them frozen (they are healthier than the fresh ones) and putting them in a non-stick skillet or sauce pan on low until they thawed and then I mashed them. And, it is not true that adults don’t eat this stuff. When I would run low on veggies and wanted to make soup, I would throw some of my daughter’s food cubes into the pot. And, any of the frozen fruit cubes go wonderfully over ice cream or in oatmeal.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:14:13 +0000

Trent, will you please change the clock on your server?

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:33:51 +0000

Our children didn’t eat much baby food either… (but they might have if I had frozen tons of it!) I liked serving them cold frozen petite peas when they could manage finger food, and mixing them with full-fat plain yogurt to feed it to them with a spoon. Definitely simple, easy, healthy (as part of a balanced overall diet :).

By: Alison Scott

Alison Scott — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:23:20 +0000

I too was in the make your own food camp (as others have said, using ice cube trays; flexible trays from IKEA are £1 each and are ideal for example); but with both our children they transitioned relatively quickly from these cube meals to eating first puree’d, and then lumpy, versions of whatever the family was eating. Between the two children I doubt we used more than 20 jars of purchased baby food in total, mostly in conditions of extreme travelling complexity.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:34:05 +0000

I agree with partgypsy about making a little and trying it first…no one else in your house is going to want mashed and strained green beans. :)

I love making homemade baby food. Try baking apples and sweet potatoes whole. You get to keep a lot of the flavor and value over boiling. Steaming works too of course.

By: Dariaclone

Dariaclone — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:30:13 +0000

@moonimus: Really, people think you have too much time because you make your kid’s food? I’m pregnant now and kind of looking forward to it. But we’ve been cooking and freezing food for ourselves more as well, so it makes sense that we would try to make food for the kid as well.

And we use the ice cube or muffin tin method for ourselves.

By: partgypsy

partgypsy — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:08:55 +0000

I wanted to add before you spend alot of time making pureed babyfood, neither of my children liked baby food much at all, practically refused to eat it. So they pretty much transitioned from milk (and some instant cereal) to eating cooked to soft food such as sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, potato, etc that you could cut or mush up on their tray. If your baby is the same, you may not want to invest too much time in making alot of jarred baby food.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:50:05 +0000

We did this for our kids. I froze it in ice cube trays and then bagged them up and pulled out what I needed each day.

You can do some great combinations too. Apples and sweet potatoes are good, carrots and brown rice are good too. Great job planning ahead.

By: Susan in CA

Susan in CA — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:41:42 +0000

I used the ice-cube tray method for pureed baby food for my daughter. Once frozen, put in freezer bags. Microwave on a plate and you are ready to go. Squash or pumpkin, spinach, lentils make a balanced meal. One cube of each was usually enough. Even as a teenager, she prefers healthy food.

By: moonimus

moonimus — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:35:33 +0000

We are also in the make baby food from scratch camp even though some people think we have too much time. We use apples, sweet potate, peas, squash, pears. Boil, puree, and use vinyl ice cube trays. The vinyl use ice cube trays work great since we can just pop the cubes of food out instead of using a plastic or glass tray. We also give our child sliced avocado, steamed carrots and of course Cheerios!