Your baby’s diet is incredibly important, and making the switch to solid food can be a challenging time for any parent. Organic produce is preferable, and can be made at home. Here are five reasons to make your own organic baby food:
Organic Baby Food is Healthier
When it comes to your baby’s health, there’s no doubt that organic baby food is the better choice. It’s free from artificial colors, preservatives and flavors, so you can be sure that your baby isn’t taking in any harmful ingredients. Not only that, but organic produce has been found to contain more nutrients – the vitamins and minerals that support your baby’s growth, building the immune system and contributing to the healthy development of your infant. If your child’s health is important to you, choose organic produce wherever possible.
Organic Baby Food Tastes Better
Not only is organic baby food healthier, but research suggests that it tastes better, too. This is really important when it comes to baby food, as your child is getting used to all of the different flavors and textures available to them. The better a meal tastes to them, the more likely they will be to try it, and develop a healthy relationship with food.
Making Food at Home is Affordable
There’s a misconception that organic baby food is expensive. Whilst this might be true for some prepackaged baby food on the market, it isn’t the case for homemade organic baby food. Buy seasonal, local produce to keep costs down and get high quality ingredients for your creations. Babies don’t eat much, so it’s just a case of adding a few extra items to your weekly shop. If you already eat lots of organic fruit and vegetables, it won’t make much difference to your overall shopping budget. In fact, if you’re already buying prepackaged baby foods, it’s likely to reduce your overall spend on food. When you make your own baby food, you’re paying for the produce, not the packaging.
Making Food at Home is Easy
Another widespread misconception is that making baby food at home is difficult, and time consuming. Again, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Making baby food at home is incredibly simple, and you don’t need to have any particular skills in the kitchen in order to create tasty, wholesome meals for your child. There are lots of resources available online, such as this handy resource from Parent Guide, which contains lots of creative recipes to get you started. In order to make a basic meal for your baby, simply steam or bake hard fruit and vegetables, before blending in a food processor or blender. For softer fruits and vegetables, cooking isn’t required, and you can go straight to the blending. Easy! You can even puree any leftovers or a small portion of your own meals to provide your baby with a taste of your own food.
Provide Your Baby with a Varied Diet
The options available when feeding your infant prepackaged baby foods is limited, and can lead to your baby eating the same meals over and over again. This isn’t a good idea, as you need to expose your baby to as many different flavors and textures as possible, to ensure they develop wide and varied food preferences for later in life. When you make the baby food at home, the options are endless! Try to introduce something different every week. When introducing a new type of food, combine it with something you know your baby already likes, to increase the likelihood they’ll want to try it. There are a number of foods you should avoid feeding to young babies, typically under a year old. These include common allergens, such as nuts, dairy and shellfish, as well as things like honey and eggs. Check out this useful guide for a comprehensive list of food to avoid.
The Baby Bullet is a great product to have if you plan on making your own baby food for your baby. You can buy it here on [amazon_link id=”B004V5BTUA” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”]Amazon[/amazon_link].
Photo Credit: Flickr via Creative Commons
How did your store your child’s baby food?
