Preservatives and Chemicals? No, Thank You.

Alyssa is now 7 months old. About a month ago, I began my journey into the art of making baby food...for the 3rd time. Yes, I have successfully made baby food for all 3 of my children. It is really not that hard and a hell of a lot cheaper (and better) than that jar stuff.

When I was pregnant with Paige, I attended a baby fair sort of thing at Sports Basement in the Presidio. You know, because that's the kind of stuff you do when you are expecting your first baby. There happened to be a woman speaking there that day about her cookbook regarding making baby food. I was extremely intrigued. I had already been thinking about making my own baby food, but hadn't done any research yet and didn't know where to start. Her little seminar was about 30 minutes long, if I remember correctly. She touched on so many positive reasons for doing this. By the end, I was completely inspired and handed her cash immediately to buy her book.

The Petit Appetit, by Lisa Barnes

Buy it on Amazon!

Below are a few reasons the author pointed out in her seminar and I discovered were true, to making your own baby food:

1. Cost: It is so much cheaper. Those jars can cost almost $1.00 per jar. Organic ones are over $1.00. Each jar is one serving, basically one meal. Now take one bag of apples, make it organic apples at $4.99 per bag. Turn that entire bag into pureed apples. Now you have a full ziploc bag of many many meals for baby. For $5.00!! One large butternut squash yields a full ziploc bag of meals also...for like $1.69.
2. Waste: There is virtually no waste with making your own food. Say you try butternut squash...your baby doesn't like it or maybe is allergic. Your bag full of butternut squash puree can now be turned into a soup for the rest of your family. Bet you wouldn't do that with the jar stuff.
3. Taste: Bottom line...the homemade stuff tastes way better and way fresher. I know, I tasted everything before it went into Paige's mouth, including the jar food.
   
4. Knowing what is going into your baby: You bought the pears, cored them, peeled them, steamed them and pureed them. No chemicals, no preservatives, no added anything.
5. Easy: It is unbelievably easy to make your own food. Take a bag of apples, core them, peel them and throw them in the steamer. When they are tender, run them through a food processor or blender. Add a bit of the water from the steamer if you need to thin it out. Take the puree and fill up ice cube trays. Freeze. Pop them out into ziploc bags. One cube is approximately 1 tablespoon. Done.

At the time we had Paige, we were an almost completely organic household. I am a huge supporter of buying organic, but upon the arrival of Alyssa, buying organic was something we had to sacrifice when we moved to a one income household. Organic is much more expensive. I am sad to not be a weekly supporter of Rainbow Grocery anymore, but unfortunately it is not in the budget. When the time came to begin making baby food for Alyssa, I had a bit of guilt that she wasn't going to get the organic goodness that Paige & Jimmy had started out with. I put that guilt to rest and went to Rainbow just to shop for her baby food. My children have the rest of their life to make poor eating choices. I at least want to start them off right.