Forty-six percent of parents wish they could do more for their children. This is no surprise to most parents, who are constantly aware of what they can do to give their children the best possible life. From making sure they are well-loved, to teaching them letters and numbers, to giving them the best possible foods.
Of all the good things parents want to provide for their children, good nutrition is perhaps the most important consideration. It sets the all-important foundation for mental and physical growth. This is why more parents are choosing to feed their infants homemade baby food as the healthiest option.
Considering Homemade Baby Food Safety
Making homemade baby food allows parents to have much greater control over what their babies are eating. It’s simple and easy to make your own baby food, and there are tons of recipes out there. If you choose to embark on a homemade baby food adventure, there are some important things to consider.
Did you know the kitchen has the most bacteria of all the rooms in the house? As long as parents and/or caretakers are taking proper precautions to keep bacteria out of baby food, homemade is still the best option. Making sure that all surfaces, tools, and hands are thoroughly clean using hot soapy water is essential to avoid germ contamination.
Storing leftovers in proper containers and freezing or refrigerating immediately to stop bacteria growth is also important. This is not hard to do and you’ll enjoy watching baby happily eat freshly made foods!
It does take consistent effort to maintain a clean and germ-free environment in the kitchen. If there are older children using the kitchen or pets in the home you’ll want to make sure surfaces and containers are thoroughly clean before prepping any food for baby. Babies’ immune systems are still developing and germs that may not make an older child or adult sick can affect the baby.
If this seems too difficult for you, try making homemade baby food on weekends or during less busy times. In cases where you cannot guarantee a clean kitchen to prepare food in, it may be beneficial to choose jarred baby food. It’s prepared in a sterile environment and packaged in a way to deter bacteria growth.
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Benefits of Food Variety for Babies
Making your own homemade baby food allows parents to offer a wide variety of foods to their babies. These are often foods that you are unlikely to find in jars on the grocery store shelves. The benefits of providing a variety of different foods are many.
According to Doctors Carina Venter and Kate Maslin, exposing children to lots of different flavors and textures from a young age can widen food preferences. It also leads to healthier eating habits later on in life. Offering a wide variety of foods also leads to a wider range of nutrients found in your baby’s diet. This helps build a strong foundation for growth and development.
The World Health Organization encourages parents to feed babies everything from fruits and veggies to meat, fish, and eggs from as early as six months of age. Keep in mind you can also find a variety of foods and nutrients in store-bought food. Busy parents should never feel guilty over taking advantage of premade baby food.
Prevention of Chronic Disease Through Healthy Food Choices
Researchers in a recent study found that babies who ate only homemade baby food had lower body fat mass at one and three years old. The lead author of the study, Dr. Elise Mok, says this could lead to lower rates of obesity and chronic illness for these children.
As stated before, children who are fed homemade baby foods tend to eat a wider variety across necessary food groups, which is important for diet diversity and nutritional needs. It creates a strong immune system and fights against chronic disease. However, the difference in body fat was very small between store-bought food and homemade.
Making homemade baby food certainly has many health benefits, but busy parents shouldn’t worry too much about the occasional store-bought food. Texture and diet diversity are the most important things that homemade food can offer, and this can still happen while mixing in or supplementing with store-bought food.
Homemade baby food tips and tricks:
You can save money and give your baby the most nutritious first foods possible by making your own baby food. Here are some useful tips and practices for making your own homemade baby food with ease and confidence.
1. Go Pro!
Buy a food processor specially designed for making homemade baby food! The Baby Bullet is formulated specifically for making baby food and comes with accessories for storing baby food, a ton of recipe ideas, and a blade that’s designed to make barley, rice, or oat baby cereal, as well.
Another option is to use a food processor that you already have on hand. Do you have an Instant Pot? You could use an Instant Pot to make baby food too! Steam fruits and veggies in less than five minutes in an Instant Pot. Place fruit or veggies in ramekins and use the steamer basket at the same time to cook multiple items at once. Then, take out the food and mash it to desired consistency. Voila!
Pro-Tip: Mix pureed baby food with breastmilk to give it a familiar flavor for your little one!
2. Eat Together!
Make a homemade baby food version of whatever your family is already eating! Your baby already wants to eat whatever is going in the mouths of the people around them. If your family is eating carrots with their dinner, prepare a puree of carrots for your little one to enjoy alongside you! Are you snacking on chips and guacamole with your dinner?
Set some of that avocado aside and mash it up nicely for the baby! This is a great way to create healthy eating habits and introduce the baby to foods your family is already eating on a regular basis. Be sure to take time to properly clean fresh foods. Even if you are peeling an item, the outside of it still needs to be washed.
3. Prep it all ahead of time!
More work up front equals less work in the long run. Because one of the most important factors in making homemade baby food is having a clean environment to make it in, you might as well limit your time of possible contamination by doing as much food prep as you can while your kitchen is safest! This method of food prep not only eliminates the possibility of germs, but it will save you a ton of time as well!
4. Freeze it!
Store homemade baby food in the freezer. Place purees into ice cube trays and once the puree is frozen, pop out the baby food and place it into a labeled and dated freezer bag. Easy! Each individual cube equals about 1 ounce, which will be plenty of food for your baby when you’re just getting started.
The easiest way to thaw frozen homemade baby food is to place it in the refrigerator overnight. That way it will be ready for the baby in the morning! Thawed baby food can be kept in the refrigerator for roughly 48 hours. So be sure to only pull out what your baby will consume within that time frame.
Consider using reusable food pouches for meals on the go. Reusable food pouches hold up to 5 oz. and are great for allowing your little ones to feed themselves. Chances are they are already trying to feed themselves anyways, right? Reusable food pouches are a great option for babies that want to do the feeding on their own.
5. Get Creative!
Once your baby has tried a few foods, you can begin making combinations with the foods they have already tried! Bananas? Yum! Peaches? Yum! Bananas and Peaches? DOUBLE YUM! You get the picture. You can also begin adding in some yummy spices to give foods some better flavors! This will introduce baby to a wide variety of flavors as well as help develop a well-rounded palate at an early age.
Note: Wait three to five days when introducing new foods (or spices) so any adverse reactions to specific foods can be easily pinpointed.
Don’t let homemade baby food scare you! Have fun, prepare ahead of time, and get creative! If baby doesn’t like one thing one day, don’t completely take it off the menu! Reintroduce it another time in the future and you just may get a different response. This is totally normal behavior and happens often. Keep trying and don’t lose heart!
Do you have a favorite homemade baby food recipe that’s a huge hit with your little one? Share it in the comments below for other readers to try for their little ones! Have fun and happy eating!
Karoline is a former nutritionist, but left a corporate environment for a more free and flexible lifestyle of freelance writing. She now uses her knowledge to create informative articles like this one!
Great tips! I am not a good cook, myself, but I did make a lot of my child’s first food purees when we were introducing her to solids as an infant. The biggest challenge turned out to be finding the time, space, and correct equipment for making purees from a wide variety of foods. But I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the roasting and pureeing of vegetables turned out to be. In fact, that experience paved the way for me to keep roasting them (now as side dishes, since she no longer needs the purees).
I found simple ideas for adding different spice combinations, and to my surprise this kid still loves and eats a variety of vegetables that way.
Loved this! Obesity is a side effect of inflammation in the body too- so it’s neat to see the dots connecting in that to lessen the risk chronic disease is to lessen inflammation inflammation in the body which higher body fat is a cause of… and it all can be curtailed by starting out w a simple, homemade or healthy food choices from birth!!