I need your help. I go through this with every child. I get the itch to do homemade baby food. I feel like there are a lot of fruits and vegetables not available in the pre-made baby foods. But with each child, I try to do it at first then always fall back to the store bought stuff mostly for convince. Do you or have you made your own baby food? I have lots of questions for you moms as to why you make your own or why you go the store bought route.
- Does it really save money? The cost of buying the vegetables and fruits and even meats. It costs even more if you do the organic thing. The equipment needed – blender/food processor, strainer, ice cube trays, freezable containers and tray, ziplock bags and more.
- How do you keep and defrost it? I am a last minute kind of person. I need to have the convince of it being ready-to-go at meal times. So my problem is heating it. Zapping it in the microwave gets rid of some of the nutrients, right? But warming it up in a cup of water takes too long. Do you make a batch to last the week or the month? Do you freeze it in cubes or freezer storage containers
?
- How much of your time does it take to make the food each week? Is it worth the time?
- What equipments do you use? Do you use a blender, a food processor or a specific baby food maker?
- How do you take it on the go? More specifically, how do you heat it on the go. And keep it fresh if you are out and about for several hours or even traveling long distance?
» Tell me… If you don’t make your own baby food, why not?
I used to buy baby food for my older daughter. After five years, I had my second one and organic produce became readily available and I decided to make my own baby food. Making it is actually cheaper because we also use the organic stuff we buy. No, I didn’t use special equipment. I mashed the cooked food with a fork because they are soft anyway. I only buy ready made food for emergencies or trips.
I don’t know if it is cheaper, because we never bought any pre-made food. We buy organic produce, so that is a bit more expensive. We did buy 4 extra ice cube trays with lids. We already had a food mill, blender and food processor so that helped with the expenses. It is definitely more work to make your own baby food. We found that it actually caused us to eat a lot healthier, a wonderful unintended side effect! We would make a bunch of food. Freeze it in the ice cube trays. Pop it out and put it into bags. Then if we were going somewhere, we would put a couple of cubes in a container to heat up later. It actually became a unit of measure, “Bobbie ate two cubes today!” I’m not sure how much making our own food helped with this, but our son is a great eater and devours broccoli, asparagus, etc. I would definitely do it again. Or maybe try baby led weaning? I’m still on the fence about that…
I started making food for my son as I found that a lot of the store bought stuff had hidden ‘baddies’ in them. I enjoyed the whole process of peeling, chopping and steaming everything. However at that stage my son wasn’t mobile yet, so I could leave him on the floor (on a mat) with a toy or 2 and he was quite content. Once he started moving though it was a bit more complicated but by then I was into the swing of things. I only used the ice cube trays right at the beginning. Usually I just used little containers. And I already had a hand held blender so didn’t buy anything except a little steamer that fits into one of my pots.
I usually just used to defrost his food in the fridge for the next day, then heat in the microwave. When we use to go out I just use to buy baby food that only contained fruit/veggies and no preservatives etc. Much easier that way!
I always wanted to do that–but never had the time, etc. I did always feed them sweet potatoes and bananas of course since they easily mash into the rice cereal..
I am making food for my almost 8 month old just like I did for his sister…my main motivation was the smell of store bought food::
I incorporate making his purées into my cooking dinner and make it in the food processor that I already had. More and more now he’s trying finger foods and that makes it even easier:)
One benefit I found about making my own food was that it was easier to transition from ‘baby’ food to ‘table’ food. I would make the food chunkier as she got older (which she liked). I found it cheaper to make it for a few reasons: 1. I already had a food processor and extra ice cube trays 2. If I had leftovers I would tend to throw it into something else I was making (spaghetti sauce for example) 3. A lot of times she would never eat a lot so the small ice cube tray portions were perfect and I could just defrost a little bit at a time and not worry about the rest of a jar going to waste if it wasn’t a food she was ‘into’ that week. As for taking food out with us – we have a Foogo thermos that worked great. My oldest now uses it for her school lunches. Oh and as for time – usually if I was making veggies I would just make extra to put in the food processor and then it was done. HTH
I do microwave my cubes…I figure that 15 seconds in the microwave can’t be worse than the processing they do to make it shelf stable:/ For on the go I usually put the frozen cubes in small containers and into an insulated bag. Usually by the time we’re ready to eat they are thawed and ready….
Also, favorite foods right now: thawed peas, black beans, diced tofu and prune purée mixed with canned pumpkin:)
I think it was way cheaper for us, even with buying organic food, because my DD always ate really small amounts. we would have been wasting a lot if we used the jars. we actually only used 2 jars the whole time we did baby food, because making it was really easy, in my opinion. i would just buy a bag of frozen veggies or fresh, depending on what was in season, steam them like i would anything else, blend in our regular blender, and freeze in ice cube trays. Then i’d pop them out of the trays and store in freezer bags or other containers. For defrosting, i’d either just let it defrost on the counter or in the fridge, or microwave, depending on what it was. i figured microwaving it wouldn’t remove any more nutrients than all the processing that goes into store bought jars anyways. but the biggest motivation for me was that i could make stuff the way DD liked it. she was super picky, so that was key. she ate pretty much only mashed avocado with or without banana for many months. with my next baby, i will probably do baby led weaning, or just mash up whatever we are eating for him…and probably keep some frozen mashed avocado on hand, since it’s great for them, and super easy. My DD really wasn’t into baby food, and preferred breastmilk as her main food, until she got to table food age, so i really didn’t have to make that much. that’s probably why i remember it being really easy….we really didn’t do much food with her, and we didn’t do meat at all until she was eating table food. she was getting everything she needed from my milk, so food was just a fun learning experience for her, and not really so much about nutrition.
I found the easiest way to make it is to steam the veggies (use a steamer basket in a pot on the stove). Once they are soft enough put the veggies in a bowl and use an immersion blender to puree (add some of the steaming water to get the right consistency). Put in ice cube trays and freeze. I would do a bunch of different things in one session (just wipe out the bowl and rinse off the blender in between veggies). It was easy and would last forever. Once frozen dump the food cubes in a ziploc to store in the freezer. It is so easy to grab a couple when needed – just defrost in the microwave or set out on the counter to defrost. And if we were going somewhere I would pop them in a bowl with a lid and throw in the diaper bag…defrosted by the time we needed them.
In my opinion, they taste better than store bought and since I use the veggies I normally cook with it prepares the babies for the table food they will soon be eating.
looks like you’ve already gotten some good comments! I made my own baby food too. I thought it definately saved money. I did peas, carrots, green beans, bananas, and sweet potatoes. I either boiled them or baked them and then froze them in ice cube trays. It was so nice to just be able to pop out 1 or 2 or 3…depending on how much my daughter was eating at the time. I always microwaved them or I when I was making lunch I would take some out to defrost for dinner but I would still warm them up before I fed them to her. I didn’t use them on the go which is kind of a bummer but I love HappyBaby food http://happybabyfood.com/ and these were great for on the go. Let me just say I’m not like a crazy organic or healthy type of person. I just the food for fun and to save money. Good luck!
I wanted to make my own but I do not have the time. We have very generous family that always brings us baby food. I know not having time is a poor excuse but my husband and I both work full time with long commutes to work. So anytime we are home we dedicate the time to our twins!!
I got a book from the library called Blender Baby Food that I used for a while. Each recipe makes 2 cups of baby food, so you can just use your regular blender. I got a 2 packages of 3 ice cube trays at the dollar store for $1 each. They’re perfect, because each cube is almost exactly 1 Tbsp, so I felt like I really had a handle on how much my daughter was eating. I’d make 3 different fruits/veggies each time then fill all 6 trays, freeze, then transfer to Ziploc bags. When they’re small, they don’t eat much at a time, so they lasted a while. You can buy fresh or frozen, depending on prices and availability.
Of course jarred food is easier, especially when you’re on the go. I was on WIC, so after a while, I mostly did jarred. And despite what some people say, jarred baby foods only have the fruit/veggie and water or meat/meat broth in them. I don’t know why people freak out about how they have all sorts of crap in them, because they DON’T. If you’re buying Gerber though, they’re almost a dollar per jar, which REALLY adds up if you’re feeding exclusively jarred food to your baby.
Not to sound weird…but my Aunt works for a produce company. And they take the left over produce that is not sellable, that would normally be thrown out and make the baby food out of that. Totally grossed me out!
I made my own baby food by steaming it and putting in the blender to puree. I froze it in different sizes depending on how much my baby was currently eating. The night before I would pull out what we would need for the next day and let it thaw. I didn’t heat mine in the microwave, instead I added a little bit of rice cereal that I mixed with hot water to warm it up slightly. Works for on the go since you can usually find hot water somewhere.
As far as how often, I think once a week I would do a couple different veggies or fruits, I just made extra so it would last longer. I never did meat…it grosses me out, but that’s just a personal thing. Good luck!
I think I could handle blender baby food but that’s about it. I didn’t want to buy any fancy equipment, we didn’t have freezer space- only the freezer above the fridge that was already full, and my daughter was always crying unless she was being held. Maybe I’ll try if I have another child.
I made my own baby food.. for the most part. I bought rice cereal and jar unsweetened applesauce. I used freezer veggies, cooked them and blended them in a blender with some water and stored them in silicone muffin tins in the freezer. Once they were frozen they went into freezer bags. I only did fruits and veggies, no meat.
so if you make your own peas, buy frozen peas, cook in microwave, throw in blender and puree. I am seriously a lazy person and I did it. I would make 2-3 different foods a week and make enough of it that it would last a few weeks.
Fresh foods: banana, avocado, sweet potato. All of these are easy to mash yourself or with the sweet potato, cook and mash with a fork.
Make blends. Once she has tried many foods start blending them. Sweet potato, apples and butternut squash with a little cinnamon tastes like pie. avocado and banana together babies like. Start adding spices after you have tried all the foods. I added garlic powder and cinnamon to a lot of m son’s foods. When he started eating beans i added a little chili powder to the mix, he loved it. He is a really adventurous eater now.
good luck it is definitely a personal choice, but if you have a blender and an ice cube tray or silicone muffin tin, i think it is worth it. I only spent about 40 minutes a week doing it. It is also definitely cheaper. good luck!
I have been making my son’s food since he started eating solids. He is a year now. I love it. I make food about every three to four weeks. During the summer I can stockpile about 2 months worth; I hit the farmer’s market and buy as much as I can cook in an afternoon. I freeze it in rubber ice trays; they pop out so easily. He used to eat 2 cubes each meal. Now he eats 4 cubes. I just heat one minute in the microwave. I think it has really opened up his taste buds; he will try anything. There are some great baby food cookbooks out there, and recipes online. I have a ninja (about $50) that purees anything & everything. I have taken recipes from magazines and just cut the salt. I make my own broths to flavor his food. If you like to cook it is a lot of fun & rewarding knowing they are eating healthfully.
I thought it was pretty easy, but I didn’t make ahead. I just used a baby food mill http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=baby+food+mill on whatever veggies/fruits we had for dinner. Just a few minutes and baby food was ready. Bananas and avocados are great go-to foods as well as they can be smashed without much effort. It was so much cheaper than with my older two when I bought tons of the little jars. You can also control how chunky the food is, moving towards little bites as they age. Good luck! Remember, whatever you choose for your child will be fine.
I didn’t make baby food in a blender or food processor, once the baby was around 8 or 9 months and past the baby cereal and apples stage I used a baby food grinder like this one to grind up what we were eating. It just made sense. I’d lightly season our food, including meat, and make sure there was a little liquid to grinder it with. I could take it along to visit friends and family for meal time an use it there, so I didn’t have to worry about storing or freezing/thawing food. Or I could make extra at home when we had veggies or fruit and freeze it for later. It’s dishwasher washable, so easy to clean, too.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0030AHK5A/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=baby-food-processors-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B0030AHK5A
This sounds so, so crazy if you’ve only seen the normal baby food routine done before, but we skipped purees entirely and went straight to soft finger foods. I know. I sound like a crazy granola mom (only a little bit true!), but really we tried it because it was SO much easier than carting around purees for months. My daughter loved it and is healthy and eats anything now at almost 3. If you are curious there’s a website with a great explanation at babyledweaning.com — seriously, the name baby led weaning sounds ridiculous, but it was a fantastic system for us. Just another option!
We made our own and found it saved money. Part of this was because we did want to go organic for some of it, or at least the “dirty dozen”. All you really need is a blender or food processor, ice cube trays and ziplock bags. We actually bought one thing of gallon-sized freezer bags and then used cheapo fold and close sandwich bags. We put a portion into the cheapo bag, and then put all of a batch of food into the freezer bag. It kept our freezer tidy and we could reuse the freezer bag for the next batch.
We kept things in the freezer, but you can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days. I got into the habit of taking out a days worth of food in the night when doing dishes and letting it thaw in the fridge. We would warm it in a cup of water, which does take a little time, but it heats it much more evenly than the microwave. Plus, you’re talking about small amounts. You’ll likely want to heat the baby food even if you get the can, so there’s no easy out from that.
For a new food, I would only make 1-2 fruit’s worth. Once I knew our son would eat it and liked it, I would make 5-6 fruit’s worth and freeze it as I mentioned above – initially in ice cube trays, and then when frozen into cheap baggies into a freezer bag.
I would say I maybe spent an hour each week doing it. I thought it was worth the effort as I knew where the food was coming from and it saved money.
We just used a blender, though my MIL also got us a baby bullet. The bullet was good for small quantities, but the blender worked better for large batches. Plus, potato mashers also worked well once food was cooked.
For on the go, we would make it a point to take food with us that didn’t need to be heated – usually fruits. We also got our son used to having rice cereal made with cooler water, so he didn’t always expect a piping hot meal. It wasn’t a problem for us. I still kept one of those squeeze pouches of purees in the diaper bag though in case we were out longer than intended. To keep it fresh I would just use a small insulated lunch box.
I made my own too. I’m creeped out by food that comes in plastic (because of BPA and phthalates) and the cost of purees per pound is significantly more expensive than buying them fresh. I would always keep avocados, bananas. peas, and a big jar of organic applesauce and yogurt on hand. (Things that I could “make” quickly.) For the most part, though, I just pureed what I was eating. I did this with my twins because I could not handle anything complicated either!
When my girls were babies I made my own, and because I was working 2 jobs and the with my last 2 girls being about a year apart I was thinking I didnt have time to do it. But I found the best way for me was to take an item I was preparing for dinner that night anyway and then process it for them while the rest of dinner was cooking. Anytime we were going to be out and about, I would put my cubes in a baby jar, I put in in the bottle bag and it would slightly defrost, I used to have a car adapter for a coffee warming device (archaic I know lol) but I just put the jar on warmer and stirred til defrosted. I was able to make most of their food this way. The biggest advantage, I think, to making your own is that you dont have jars everywhere, though the new containers that stack are so much more convenient than back then, and we all know that our children dont like everything right off so it is trial and error, and lasts longer in the freezer, which on its own saves money.
The safety factor was my biggest concern, glass jars break and if you drop one and it didnt break you pretty much had to throw it out anyway because you couldnt be sure it didnt chip inside and get in the food.
A friend asked me if I did it to save money, and if so, how much did I save? I don’t know the exact answer, but I figure what I did save in money I surely lost in time. Making baby food is, in the truest sense, a labor of love. I have to believe that my passion for breastfeeding evolved into my passion for homemade baby food.
My support for homemade baby food grew as I developed an awareness for farmer’s markets, organics and other natural products. Several years ago I read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, The Poisonwood Bible. Excellent, excellent read. I liked the author so much I took a look at her other book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. A non-fiction family journal of sorts, I was skeptical as I read the first chapter but quickly became engrossed learning about the benefits and possibilities of consuming food products from local and sustainable sources.
Ultimately, my hope is that the perseverance in the early years of providing healthy food will serve as a lifelong gift- the ability to make wise food choices long after we are there to guide them, and to live long and healthy lives.
Its been a while but I used the steamer/ice cube method. I also heated in the microwave, but surely that small amount wouldn’t take that much out. Later on I used Earths Best soups. I think the pouches would be a great alternative though.
I did the same as Cori. Avocado is a one stop food. You can add apple puree to avocado too. Fruit puree is soo easy. My son loved apple and pear. They are so easy to do. The worst part is peeling them. I liked cooking my own food as then I knew what was going in his food. I only had a stick blender. My son was late to solids and didn’t really take to it until 7 months. When he got past the puree stage he loved a chicken and mushroom risotto. We could all have that. Yoghurt was handy to have too. I bought that though. I wanted my son to get a taste for good simple wholesome food and build from there. At our local supermarket there was organic puree’s you could buy. We would buy one of those for one easy meal night. He loved these. One of my sons favourite recipe was a small tin of baked beans (about 1 cup) and 1 cup mashed pumpkin and a small amout of cheese. you can puree this. You can’t freeze it though (well thats what the recipe said). It lasts a couple days in the fridge.