Baby Food

There are several reasons I make my own baby food.

First, it saves quite a bit of money, especially if you want to feed your baby organic.  Buying organic fruits and veggies is a lot cheaper then buying the organic jars.

Second, there are very few choices of fruits and veggies to feed your little one.  I want my babies to eat as much produce as possible.  Why don't they make broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, beets, avocado, cherries, raspberries, spinach, sweet peppers, and asparagus to name a few.  Hakan is a great eater, and I like to think it's from eating so many different things early on.  He's two, so he still has his picky moments, but they're rare.  So if making your own food seems like too much, maybe just consider making the ones the big companies don't make to add variety.

Third, I just LOVE doing this for them.  

Also, I've read that when they can the food it loses some of it's nutrients and just look at the difference in color, it kind of speaks for itself.

Obviously it takes a little more time and effort than just opening a jar.  With Hakan, I was working three days a week and was able to make it just fine.  Now I'm only working a few hours a day.  I'm not sure how hard it would be if you're working full time, but it's something that could be done on the weekend.

I usually take one day a week and make a couple big batches of food.  Today I made broccoli and zucchini and total it took less than an 45 min, steaming time included.  You need to have some freezer room if you plan on making some bigger batches.

To make it even simpler, to steam your fruits and veggies, you can use the Ziplock steam bags.  I just use this little silicone steamer basket and pot.

We have a Ninja and Bullet blender to puree the food (see this post), then I put it in these little ice cube trays with lids, freeze them and pop them into a another bag (I double bag) labeled with what it is.  You can wash the ziplock bags and reuse them, so no waste:)

Another little trick is to buy frozen fruits and veggies, they work just as well and keep longer if you don't make them right away.

When I'm ready to use them, I take a couple cubes and microwave them in 10 sec increments.  

There are times when frozen cubes just can't be used, like when we're traveling, so we do use jars of food sometimes.

If you think this might be something that stresses you out, just try it and if it gets the better of you, don't do it, it's not worth being miserable over.  There's nothing wrong with buying your baby food:)  Just remember you don't have to buy anything fancy to try it.


I use this baby cookbook a lot and really like it (even started it on fire once...on accident).

And an awesome site is wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com.

She loves her peas and black beans!

Just thought I'd share my thoughts and process.  If there is anyone who's interested and has questions, I'd love to help:)