It sometimes seems easiest to head to the grocery store to buy your baby food, but it’s just as easy to make it at home and the benefits are amazing. Making baby food food is cheaper for your household and its also healthier. As your child moves to finger food, this can make your transition easier because they already know what an actual vegetable tastes like.
While it may seem daunting or too time consuming to make baby food, it can actually be quite fun. Here are the basics for getting started.
Items Needed
You’ll need a food steamer, blender, freeze proof containers, a marker/pen, and freeze proof labels. Some moms go out and buy baby food makers, which are great, but they can be very expensive and a blender plus rice cooker/food steamer work just as well.
How To Make The Food
Most steamers come with steaming times for popular vegetables but you can always look it up with Google. First you’ll wash and then steam the food in the steamer for the time needed. For example, green beans need a cup of water and 15 minutes to steam in my Aroma food steamer. After you are done with the steamer, place the item in the blender and blend it until smooth. Vegetables have enough juice than no added water is needed but some need a little help smoothing out. Once its all smooth with no chunks left, put it in your freeze proof containers.
Freezing Time
After your food is blended and in the container, you can freeze it for one month in your refrigerator freezer or you can deep freeze for three months. This is where the label comes in handy because you can place the label on the container with the item name and the date it needs to be used by. Example … Bananas 11/3. That way you know these bananas need to be eaten by 11/3. A helpful tip when unfreezing is do it slowly in the refrigerator so the food. Once the food is thawed (or if you choose not to freeze it) it should be eaten within three days to avoid spoiling.
Those are all the basics to make your own baby food. You can get fresh produce at your local farmers market or health foods store which are healthy, inexpensive, and can be eaten by everyone in the family. It’s amazing how much food can be made for a baby with very little produce. Five apples could be over a weeks worth of breakfast.