Homemade Baby Food

   

I have another guest post for you today.  Megan is going to be sharing how she makes baby food from scratch, something I'm hoping to do.  Thanks so much for taking over my blog for the day Megan!

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Hey there! Poekitten asked me to write up a little blurb for her awesome readers, while she is out having a baby, and stuff! So hey! My name is Megan and I blog over at The Memoirs of Megan. My husband got out the Navy back in 2009, and we have finally settled back in his home state of Colorado. It's a big change for this Southern California gal! I write about my daily family life, and anything else that pops into my head, which is usually fairly random. Thanks for having me!

I love looking back into the parent that I thought that I would be, once upon a time. I never dreamed that I would be a breastfeeding advocate type, or a cloth diapering type, or an organic baby food making type. Most of my decisions start off with money, I have to admit. Formula is crazy expensive. Hence why (initially) I was so pro-breastfeeding. (Now, I couldn't imagine feeding my child anything else. It's been so special for us.) I had a major case of sticker shock the other day when I had to go buy a pack of diapers at Target. (Usually, we order them subscription from amazon.com, so I never really noticed how expensive they are. I have a bad habit of thinking that money is more like monopoly money when I purchase things from the internet.) So I ended up purchasing cloth diapers right away, after that whole fiasco.

 But one thing was always clear to me, I was going to make my own baby food. Now, I don't have anything against feeding a baby something from a jar, don't get me wrong. The important thing is checking the ingredients with jarred foods, as many times baby food companies put many forms of artificial ingredients/preservatives/food coloring/"vitamins" into baby food. I have found some really great organic baby food companies, however, a typical "meal" consisting of a jar (many come in plastic packs or pouches now) usually will cost upwards to $1.25 per item! Times that by the three times a day she eats, and that's looking pretty pricey. So I will take you through my process of making baby food, for a fraction of the cost.

 


Step one: Read up! Educate yourself to know about nutritional components of certain foods. Many times frozen veggies are an awesome option available, if you don't have fresh produce available. I HIGHLY suggest this book, it's amazing. It tells you the Top 20 fruits/veggies that you should always buy organic. It also has a ton of really awesome combo recipes for once your baby is at that point.

 


Step Two: Prep time. Have your plan of attack ready. I will typically "bang out" 5-6 different fruits and veggies at one time, and have enough food servings in the fridge/freezer to last her about 2-3 weeks. I also love my Baby Bullet, though any food processor will work. Give yourself plenty of time to do this. Have your husband watch the baby for a while- nothing sucks more than having a baby who is screaming louder than the food processor.

Step Three: Delivery. It took a while for me to be "ok" with the fact that my daughter hates certain foods. For example, I've been photobombing you with my beautiful peas. What I won't show you is my daughter making a horrible gag face and *literally* grabbing the spoon and throwing it on the floor. She HATES peas. And you know what? That's ok. Lesson learned, don't make 2 weeks worth of peas without a trial-run first. It hurt my cheap soul to dump the peas down the drain after the first week of her hating them

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Step Four: Having the right equipment to make it as portable as possible was key for me. Being able to throw a serving of food in my diaper bag was key, because I am all about convenience. That's why making a batch and separating them into smaller servings is super important to me, and having this be a successful thing in my house. So these are just some things that I think about: $1.25/jar x 3 meals a day x appx 6 months of feeding "baby food" = $675 total. So far, I have spent about $100 total, and she's been eating food for 4 months. And there is one huge ingredient that comes in my purely organic baby food that Gerbers doesn't have: love.

Have you made your own baby food? 

Was it a fun experience, or something you'd rather never do again?

Is this something you'd see yourself possibly doing?