Comments on: Raise Good Eaters: Make Your Own Baby Food

By: Magi

Magi — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:18:23 +0000

There seems to be virtually no attention paid to exactly what kinds of foods a baby can actually digest and when. BREAST MILK is the only food that a baby really needs – they need more of it than anything else and there is no replacement. If you think about it there may be very good reasons for not rushing the food thing. Humans develop teeth at the perfect age when a child can digest food well. We are in a huge hurry to fill our children with adult foods including sugar, salt and spices. Doctors don’t usually have much knowledge about infant nutrition as they recommend solid food much too early and they tend to favor cereals as a good food for babies. Humans cannot digest grains until 24 to 48 months of age, they don’t have the right enzymes before that. It is well known that problems like ear infections are caused by introducing dairy too early in a child’s diet. Folks, thinking logically – don’t you realize that we are naturally designed to eat food when we are able to chew and digest it? It may be important to note that when a baby is ready for food they will demand it and actively choose to eat with gusto. If you need to spoon the food into a child’s mouth, they spit some out and are basically a bystander in the the experience – you need to understand that you are feeding them to fulfill your own need for control (”To be in control of my son’s first start with solids I knew I’d have to make his baby food from scratch.”). Perhaps you might consider allowing your child to be an active part of this process instead. Believe me a baby lets you know when they really want food. Sooner or later, while observing others eating, kids get curious then they eventually they will become insistent upon eating food. When a child begins to aggressively grab the food and actually eat it themselves – they are telling you that they are ready for simple foods. Before that point you are likely feeding them out of insecurity, convenience or because you were told to do it by a Doctor who has not studied this issue and is repeating what everyone else does. Ever wonder why so many children end up with food allergies and digestive trouble? Here’s an answer. Do some research yourselves and find out the real truth about human nutrition instead of just following the crowd.

By: Happy Baby Foods are the Healthy and Nutritious Alternative to Baby Jar Foods : Eco Child’s Play

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:13:30 +0000

[...] many mothers idealize the thought of making all their baby foods, for some it’s not an option. This is a great alternative to processed foods. Not that we are [...]

By: 54 Tips For Green Living - Earth Day 2009 |

54 Tips For Green Living - Earth Day 2009 | — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:01:06 +0000

[...] Consider making your own baby food instead of buying hundreds of those pesky little [...]

By: adiaha

adiaha — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:14:26 +0000

Thank you for this informative post. I really received lots of great info. adiaha

By: Brenna

Brenna — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:54:05 +0000

It’s so interesting to me how many people fear making their own baby food. It really is not that hard and soo much cheaper!

I am not sure it correlates to any healthier choices, or being less picky, later on in life. At least I haven’t seen that in my own experience.

By: Make homemade Baby Food For a Non-Picky Eater | EcoSilly

Make homemade Baby Food For a Non-Picky Eater | EcoSilly — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:04:03 +0000

[...] Everyone knows a young child who subsists on chicken nuggets, tater tots and ketchup or some other minimal combination of foods because “they just won’t eat anything else.” The best way to avoid that is to introduce children, as infants, to a wide variety of foods. [...]

By: Heather Dunham

Heather Dunham — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:51:02 +0000

I’m with you Cindy. I did the whole cereals and purees thing (made my own 90% of the time) with my first son, he’s now (at age 10) your stereotypical fussy eater kid, just like macaroni and hot dogs, nothing spicy or “real food”.

With my daughter we followed Gill Rapley’s suggestions on baby-led weaning (really baby-led solids, it’s not ‘weaning’ in the North American usage of the term). She always had real food, whole food, solid food, nothing bland or mushed to death. She fed herself from the beginning, she was in control, sometimes she just wanted to experiment and check it out rather than “eat” and that’s all part of it.

She’s now 2 and eats EVERYTHING, she’s always loved spicy Indian curries for instance. She likes “kid food” too of course, but she doesn’t snub her nose at “grownup food” either. She’s also perfectly competent with her own knife and fork, and has been since before age 1, because she was never dependent on being spoon-fed.

What we’ve forgotten as a society is that the rationale for “first foods” being purees and cereals is a throwback to when babies were started on solids at, like, 3 weeks old. Foods HAD to be turned into liquid because babies that age are not physiologically developmentally ready to eat, so they had to be ‘tricked’ into downing this liquid stuff.

We now know to wait to start until they’re around 6mo, at which point they’re able to actually eat real food (for example, if they HAD started at 3 weeks, they’d have graduated to ‘finger foods’ by about this time). And yet we still follow the very same schedule, with NO modifications, as was first prescribed for early-start solids.

There’s actually even more to the story, but I’ll save it for now.

Anyway, if you ARE going to do purees, certainly homemade and organic is best, and isn’t as hard as people think. I know that BLW is still seen as a bit of a “radical” idea in our society, so until more parents are willing to accept it, they should indeed be encouraged their own healthy baby food. But 99% of the time it’s not necessary… And BLW requires just about NO extra prep, so it’s even easier still!

By: cindy

cindy — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 04:59:23 +0000

I never pureed any of my 1st child’s food, just cooked and mashed with a fork or minced if needed. My next baby is almost ready to eat and I am considering babyled weaning. No blenders needed and minimal storage for days that you aren’t eating baby friendly foods.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:58:54 +0000

Please be sure to visit wholesomebabyfood.com to stretch your dollars even further! No need to buy a recipe book when our site offers oodles of free recipes and solid food information. Enjoy!