Comments on: real life test kitchen: d.i.y. baby food

By: Angela N

Angela N — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:02:17 +0000

I also used avacado early on with my daughter. She loved/loves them. I was specifically looking for a way to get some healthy fat into her diet. She has food sensitivities to dairy, soy, gluten, pork, canola oil, eggs, and all artificial additives. I felt I was living a nightmare while breastfeeding and then beginning foods with her. She also never liked peas at first, but now, after repeating her exposure to them, they are one of her favorite veggies. I also wonder, for those who have ground up grains for cereals and healthy additives for food, could anyone advise me as to how I could go about attempting that with Quinoa? I have another baby on the way, and I want to be prepared for this one to have a cereal source. (Because of the gluten, and my daughter’s inclination to poor plumbing, I coudn’t do rice cereal either.)

By: shelterrific » Blog Archive » five things we learned last week

shelterrific » Blog Archive » five things we learned last week — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:14:11 +0000

[...] 1. Peas + avocado can = baby food. “Have you tried mixing the peas into the mashed avocado?” asks Marcy. “I do this when I make guacamole for the adults, anyway, and thought it might work as a covert mission to get baby to eat some peas :)” Sounds good to us! See other DIY baby food ideas here. [...]

By: Marcy

Marcy — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 13:34:54 +0000

Have you tried mixing the peas into the mashed avacado? I do this when I make guacamole for the adults anyway and thought it might work as a covert mission to get baby to eat some peas :) My mom made all of my food the same way growing up and I can’t wait to do the same for my children some day. It just seems like such a better alternative to feeding them all of the bad stuff in processed store bought foods.

By: shoshana

shoshana — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:21:19 +0000

I have been making my own food for my twin girls who are the same age as yours Angela but I wonder if anyone else finds themselves obsessed with it as I do. So far they like everything except nectarines but I worry that there’s not enough variety in the freezer, that if I don’t give them zucchini for a week they’ll stop liking it and that I haven’t yet given them, say, edamame.
It doesnt help that I have an extremely picky 4 year old and I’m trying to avoid that wiht my girls by exposing them to good wholesome tastes as early as possible.

By: Cassie

Cassie — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:19:16 +0000

We made a lot of the girls’ baby food, but It didn’t seem like anything new, we just mashed whatever we were already having for dinner. I didn’t have a cook book but it probably would have made the meals more interesting. It seemed easier with our second child because we were already making food less spicy for the first. Although I will say my first, who ate whatever we were eating, has delevloped a very spicy palette.

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:55:57 +0000

avocados…the best baby food ever!! full of fat for their brains. Great mixed with cottage cheese and yogurt. If you are eating out or picnic..its a great food to take if you have a really ripe one, only need a spoon.

By: kat

kat — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Yep we make almost all of our son’s food (he just turned 10 months) – it gets much easier – less time consuming around 9 months once they can eat/are more interested in finger foods. We still have a lot of frozen cubes in the freezer. We live in Japan so I try to use local ingredients. He eats a lot of tofu. Big favourites after the 9 month mark are little chicken hamburgers with grated apple and carrot, french toast also with grated carrot, potato, pumpkin and carrot cakes with lots of spices like garlic, black pepper etc. I’ve been surprised by how much he’s into stronger flavours. We pretty much eat yoghurt every morning with added oatmeal or wheatgerm, flaxseed oil and some type of fruit. He also loves blueberry smoothies with apple juice, wheatgerm, banana etc. We do keep a couple of jars of Earth’s Best handy though for when we are going out – it’s so hot that I either take a jar (so things don’t go off) or put frozen cubes in a used baby food jar and by the time we are ready to eat they are defrosted!! I always taste the jarred stuff and it’s yum…

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:37:34 +0000

One more thought about those peas, Angela – our pediatrician always reminded me that it can take some crazy number of exposures to a food for a child to finally get used to it. So it’s worth continuing to try it! Especially if you can mix it into other things she already likes. Good luck!

P.S.
None of my kids ever ever ever liked peas and not a one of them will eat peas to this day. Kale, edamame, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini – bring it on. But not peas. I’m just sayin’. :-)

By: Holly

Holly — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:33:12 +0000

I made all my kids’ early foods as well. It was super easy, and I liked having such control over what went into their bodies. I bought whole, organic foods and usually steamed or lightly boiled them. Sweet potatoes were a big favorite with all my kids – after a while, I didn’t even puree them but would just dig out little blobs of cooked potato and let it be “finger food.” My first daughter loved avocado and also tofu (though I waited til about a year on that). We would also grind organic whole oats into a powder to make our own grain cereal. I can’t remember now if I actually cooked that or just added warm water. I do remember that I experimented a lot with combining things they already liked, even if it turned out some kind of weird results … i.e. as toddlers, my girls loved a spread made of tofu, organic dates and a little peanut butter.

None of my babies liked strong-flavored veggies til much later. I would sneak them into things as best I could, but was never really successful at that. But at 14, 13, 8 and 4, and they all eat at least a few veggies, even green ones. And so far, none of them have come down with rickets or scurvy. :-)

I got great nutritional info from “Vegetarian Baby” by Sharon Yntema. Seems to me that info would be helpful to anyone, not just vegetarians, as it helps you understand and plan for balanced nutrition. We froze the food in ice cube trays for easy storage, just like other have said. I miss the days of having a freezer full of orange and green ice cubes! To this day, I don’t really understand why anyone would buy jarred baby food except for traveling.

By: DJ

DJ — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:47:32 +0000

We made all of our baby food… it was so simple and easy. Usually we made what we were going to eat and took out some before adding any spices, to turn into mush. Or we’d add an extra veggie or fruit to cook and mash that as well.

Now they are teens and are really reluctant to eat veggies, oddly enough. Maybe I should return to the thrilling days of yesteryear and offer them mashed boiled sweet potatoes, a former favorite.

I can just see the eye-rolling now.