[Magic_Mikki]

I've been having strange thoughts. I am really considering making my own baby food for Devon! I have a really nice Food Processor that I LOVE, and I started growing my own vegetables and whatnot (although they are not ready yet). Anyway, I don't know a single thing about it, and I don't really know anyone who does it. My mother and father in law think it's such a waste of time because "Organic baby food is only a couple bucks a jar"! First of all, we are NOT an organic family! Second, a couple bucks a jar times two jars per feeding times three meals a day... you do the math! That's more than I spend on myself in one day for food!

DH thinks it's a good idea and we started washing and saving the old jars and containers from his Gerber baby food for storage. I'm concerned that it really is time consuming, and I'm sure it will cost more than I'm expecting. Even if it costs the same as buying the jars, I think it would be fun. I feel like it would be a bonding thing (kind of like breastfeeding?? only different! LoL!)

Does anyone make their own baby food? What do I need to consider? How do I do it? Do you know of any websites out there that are helpful? Thanks!!

[Magic_Mikki]

I think I'm just going to start playing around with it tonight. Throw in a banana, an apple (don't worry.. I already considered seeds and skin), mix in some water, etc. Do I need to de-seed strawberries? How long is the food good for?

[2girls]

The fresh food should be good for a day or two, you could also freeze it. I've heard of people doing it in ice cube trays.
Strawberries I would wait on for a while, they are more likely to cause an allergic reaction in babies.

[Samual]

We make, for main meal baby food we make sure the main ingredients are fat and meat, veg coming very last unless it contains pasta as toddlers are designed to live on a very high fat diet. What ever you make will last about three months frozen until it gets freeze bites, at first make a small amount of different flavours so if Devon doesn't like it you only have a small amount of waste.

With seeded fruits Pippa wont eat it if she feels seeds, so we cook the fruit until it is totally mush then run it through a colander and mix it in with mashed banana, plus mixing it with banana means you don't have to add any sugar.

This is what we put in a 'lasange' baby food if the whole thing consists of ten units.
4 minced beef, don't drain away the fat.
3 tomato sauce, you can make it easily from tinned plumb tomatoes and a little bit of cheese sauce made from, grated cheese, flour, butter and milk.
2 veg, we use carrot and peas.
1 pasta, we find it best if you use actual pasta sheets or tagliatele then cut it up so its flat to chew and hard to swallow whole.

[mollymae]

We used to just whizz up what we eat.

We steam all veggies and don't add salt when we cook so i just used to bung it all in the blender then freeze it into little cups or ice cube trays.

[kalhayd2]

There are some good books with some healthy recipes. I did read to make sure you don't overcook the fruits and veggies because they'll lose their nutrition that way.

We did Earths Best Organic foods mainly and I wish I would have made our own. We spent about 40 a week on baby food! I was SO happy when she gave it up!

[purelegance]

you should wait until they're 1 year before giving strawberries. i'm not big on following those rules, but honey & strawberries are 2 of the biggies.

you might find that puree-ing the fruit by itself is enough, and adding water/formula/breastmilk makes it too watery.

one of izzy's favorite things (for the week she ate purees) was kiwi. odd i know.

[LovingJesusinAZ]

I'm with Lisa---I was spending $40/wk on Earth's Best, too with my son. With my daughter I'll probably end up making most of hers (if she ever starts eating solids--she'll be 7mo tomorrow and hasn't started--long story I posted in bfing. Hopefully soon)

You're right, though---I was spending as much (if not more!) on food for my son than I was for me and DH. Not this time around, though

[abrahamalegre]

My mother always tried to make her own baby food recipe as much as possible. She enjoys the thrill of creativity and flexibility

[DK615617]

I made all of Tiffany's baby food. It is sooooo easy to do. And you can introduce them to so many more foods than what is available by jars.
One of the best foods for them is Plain Organic Whole Fat Yogurt. Like Samual said they need lots of fat for their brains. Yogurt is great for their digestive tract, as well as calcium. If it is whole fat that also makes it good. And it should be organic as with it being full fat, if it isn't organic any "bad" things in it will stick to the fat. (I didn't do a good job of explaining that)
Another great full fat food for babies is Avacado. It took Tiffany about 3 or 4 tries to like it, but she absolutely loves it. (Don't give up on the first try.....it can take up to 10 or more tries for a baby to acquire a taste for a new food.)
I would steam a whole broccoli and then chop it into a few pieces and stick it in the blender. Then I would poor it into ice cube trays. 2 cubes is one serving I think.....
But then you have food ready to go and aren't having to cook a whole meal every time baby is hungry!!! I also would cook cauliflower, carrots, peas, gr beens, asparagus, sweet potatos, and have them all frozen into cubes and then put into big gallon freezer bags with labels so I knew what was what.
I got a lot of ideas and direction from a book:
SUPER BABY FOOD by Ruth Yaron
It is an awsome book, it tells you what ages (in months) to start certain foods. It gives suggestions as to what foods to introduce. It tells you how to cook each veggie, how to pick out ripe ones. It gives you recipes for toddlers, and cleaning tips for your home, and it also has a section on toddler crafts. I cannot stress how helpfull this book was on helping me come up with ideas on how to make the baby food.
I would spend a few hours one day making food for her and getting it all frozen and then I didn't have to cook for her again for weeks at a time. Just pull a few cubes out of the freezer and thaw, or nuke them in the microwave. As she got older she at more and more of what we were eating. But if we were havine something unhealthy, she got her cubes.
Good luck to you!!!!