Baby Food, a very hot topic among parents. For our kiddo - I thought, what the heck, lets make some baby food. We were already 'granola-ing' it up with cloth diapers and breastfeeding, let's just take it that obnoxious step further?!
No, really though, kidding aside - after our experiences with nutrition, Rick and I both felt a sincere obligation to feed our budding son 'good' food. So, thus started the research, how can we do this to the furthest extent possible? First - our food.
During the pregnancy, we BOTH made some pretty big diet changes. We were already farmer's market fans, but we started using a grocery service here in town that really accessed local produced - Green BEAN Delivery. We started cutting more and more meat out of our diet (now vegetarian and bean/legume fanatics!) and began the search for the obscure, strange...vegetable. Well, some anyway. I soon became a huge collard green fan and Rick and I found ourselves bingeing on spinach and chopped carrots like potato chips!
Then Soren was born and the first five months of grocery shopping was easy, well almost, as some of you may know how much I loathe my pump. But I love nursing - and has been well worth the bouts of mastitis, plugged ducts, bite marks, pink milk and chapping. So worth it. Well - then came the drool and our first set of teeth. Soren was sitting upright and grabbing for food - it was time.
First up, bananas (well pureed!), then avocado, then sweet potato. From there, winter squashes, carrots, and so on. The list of vegetables this child has tried (steamed, baked and raw) is astounding! I have discovered new foods from just making baby food alone, an absolute win/win for this family.
So making the food - that's a pretty simple task. Steam, bake or raw - puree to baby's ability to chew and water down to desired consistancy with either purified water, breast milk or in our case - water used in the steaming process (to preserve as much of the nutrition as possible). Then to storage - we found these AWESOME ice cube trays at Bed, Bath and Beyond with covers over top so I could label what was inside the trays and the date they were frozen. Then the cubes went from being a serving a piece to 6-8 cubes in a single meal! A great way to store food. Then we moved on to his breast milk containers from Avent for storage and at 15 months - he's on table food. I still make his applesauce though ;).
I aboslutely loved making baby food - and honestly miss a bit of it, but am delighted to see our little eater always up for trying something at least once and eating full servings of Kale and Whole-Wheat noodle Alfredo or asking me for another Portabello mushroom melt sandwich.
Not being an aboslute about the baby food, we have had our instances when we needed quick food on the go and food that would stay in any temperature scenario (like our visits to Coney Island). Here are few that worked wonders for us and Soren still eats to this day for snacks:
Ella's Kitchen
Peter Rabbit Organics
Plum Organics
Bebo Naturals (my favorite - but temperature sensative)
I also understand - sometimes breastfeeding doesn't work out with baby (there was a point with Soren I myself was prepared to make formula) and you need to supplement or use formula. Finicky stomachs, from what I understand like a few of these. I am not an expert on this, but just in case - these might be worth looking into:
Earth's Best Nature's One
These are just a couple - and I am no expert, so if anyone else has any other
suggestions please note! Also, you can even make your own formula, there is
even a recipe and how-to in the the Super Baby Food Book, which is
an absolute must!!! Even if you don't make your own baby food, this is a great
guide into the toddler years and even healthy habits to start with your family
(and it's never too late to start!). I even started making Soren's own baby wipes!
We move to gardening in the spring - so on with our foodie adventures!
