How to Make Your Own Baby Food at Home

You're walking down the grocery aisle, looking for baby food. Did the prices kind of scare you? They should. Imagine how much baby food you'll be buying when it's time to introduce solids in your baby's diet. If you're a stay at home mom on a limited budget, you don't want to be wasting your money on jarred baby food products that are extremely overpriced. There is another solution. You can simply make baby food in the convenience of your own home. Commercial baby foods are convenient and safe, but they often contain more water, starch, and sugar than homemade ones.

Another reason to begin making your own baby food at home is because the selection that the grocery store offers isn't varied enough. But for starters, while you're at the grocery store, take notes of what kind of food combinations the baby food companies are making. Cherries and Apples? Mashed potatoes and peas? Whatever it is, write it down for later use.

Now the important tool comes in: you have to buy a food processor. Not a blender...a food processor. Blenders will not thoroughly blend the food in a way that pleases your baby. After you choose one of your liking, grab a metal streamer, tons of ice cube trays, decent freezer bags, and foods that your baby is ready to eat.

This guide is an approximate timetable which shows you when it's the appropriate time to give the baby certain foods:

CEREALS: 4 to 6 months
VEGETABLES: 7 months
FRUITS: 8 months
MEATS: 10 months
EGG YOLKS: 10 months
CHEESE AND YOGURT: 10 to 12 months

Now you're ready to make you own baby food at home. First you have to prepare the food. Wash everything thoroughly. Special care should be taken when preparing foods for babies because they are more vulnerable to germs than are older children and adults. If you have apples, peel them. Remove all seeds, bone, stems, pits, and skins from all vegetables, fruits, and meat. Cut everything into chunks. Steam/boil the food. If you can, steam everything. Boiling can minimize the amount of nutrients a food has. All the water that is left over from the steaming/boiling process - save it. This water will be useful later on. Put the cooked food into the food processor until the food reaches a semi-solid state. Add as much of the leftover water that resulted from the earlier steaming as needed to contain the desired consistency. Pour the liquefied food into ice cube trays and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, remove the cubes and put them in the freezer bags you bought earlier. Put the date on these, and return to the freezer. Its best if you do this process with enough food for two weeks, that way, you don't have to repeat this process every three days.

To make your job easier, you should buy foods that are ready-to-serve. For example, if you plan on making a carrots and peas concoction, buy a bag of already peeled baby carrots and a frozen bag of peas. All that you need to do is wash them and steam them. You can also buy big jars of unsweetened applesauce, which only needs to be frozen. If you can get your hands on good quality peaces and pears that are canned, all you need to do is rinse them in cold water to remove the sweet syrup. (Never add sugar, honey, or any form of sweetener to your baby's food!) You can pretty much process anything you eat, which can include casseroles, pasta meals, soups, stews, and even lasagna, in the food processor...as long as tons of salt and spices aren't added. When you have a lot of foods processed, you'll soon find out that the combinations are endless. If everyone at the table is eating steak with mashed potatoes and peas, your child can have the same. Just grab a cube of steak, peas, and mashed potatoes from the freezer, zap it in the microwave for a minute and thirty seconds, and presto! Healthy, natural, home-made baby food is immediately available! Just as a warning, though, use extreme caution when using a microwave. Microwaves cause uneven food cooking which cause 'hot spots' in the food. For example, if your baby is trying to dig into his mashed potatoes, one spoonful may be cold, and the next one could burn your baby's mouth! Always stir the food well before giving it to your baby. If you don't want to use a microwave, you can always use a small saucepan to gently warm the foods over the oven.
As another word of caution, avoid using beets and spinach. They contain high amounts of nitrates which can negatively affect your baby's' blood. Don't use these until the baby's first birthday.

Good luck making your baby food. I hope that by using these tips, you can enjoy a healthy baby, a heavier wallet, and a vast variety of foods for your baby to enjoy!