Homemade Baby Food: Yes or No

I've seen so many pins on Pinterest about making baby's food at home. These pins link to many different sites and blogs that share a common theme: home-made is better and cheaper. So I thought to myself "heck, why not give it a try".

A friend of mine gave me a Baby Bullet machine along with a set of freezable trays and a baby food cook book. I must say that after skimming through this cook book a few times over the past year, it seems like a good one. It is broken down into different stages of life/months on what your baby should eat. Of course every baby is different and if they're like mine, won't have teeth until they are over a year old! Yes, you heard correctly. Jase was 13 months old before he popped his first tooth. We were shocked! So each baby might eat different foods by month six or twelve.

Randomly, on Sunday morning, I read through the puree section of the cook book. I took mental notes and headed off to the store. My mission was not to completely take him off of store-bought food, but merely to compare home-made versus store-bought. I grabbed some fresh apples, pears, bananas (okay, those were for me too), carrots, strawberries, and a mango.

When I got home, I turned on the TV (Packers were playing and I couldn't miss that!). I started peeling the apples first, then the pears. I had two of each. I chopped them and put them into a small pot over low heat to soften. After about six minutes, I removed them from the heat and placed them in the Baby Bullet. I added a dash of cinnamon and blended away. Superb! That machine works well! It only took a minute and the food was done. I separated the mixture into the silicone freezer tray and moved on to the next concoction.

Cinnamon Apple Pear Mixture

When I was ready to feed Jase the next morning, I just popped two frozen blocks into his bowl, heated in the microwave for about 25 seconds and mixed with Gerber oatmeal. It looked just like the Gerber or Beechnut glass jar stuff and he loved it!

 

There was one post in particular that I recall reading online that was how you can cook and freeze a one-month supply of baby food for $20 in an hour. I don't know where this lady shops or how much her child eats, but I can tell you that does not sound right. I made three different blends and it took about two hours to steam/boil, puree, wash the machine, and separate the mixtures and that was not even a weeks worth.

 

To compare, the frozen tray sections only hold about 2 ounces of food while the normal Gerber packs hold 3.5 ounces and Beech-Nut jars hold 4.25 ounces. For every meal, I had to use two of the home-made frozen blocks which disappeared quickly! So it turns out, although it is definitely better for your baby to have home-made food so you know exactly what goes in it, the cost is not better. Does that mean I'll stop making some food...no. I will probably still mix in home-made every once in a while, but won't rely on it. I found that the Gerber and Beechnut all natural baby foods work just the same and are safe.