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Baby Food: A Lot More to Think About These Days. Should It Be Homemade or Natural?

by Dr. Donna Schwontkowski

Copyright 2007 Schwontkowski Call for reprint rights.

If you love the thought of giving your baby the very best that he or she should have and want to create your own homemade baby food, this article can give you some great ideas.--Editor

All parents worry about the type of baby food they will feed to their children. They need baby food advice. Breast milk is best for the first year or more but all children need to move on to solid food at some point. In order to eat the good foods that they need, babies have to start off with something that they can easily eat without choking and without having to chew since their teeth may not have come in yet. And you want to give them the best baby food that is available. Some parents buy their foods already prepared for their baby while others decide that they want to spend the time to have homemade baby food for their precious children. Others feel that some of the commercial natural baby food on the market is good enough.

Product Recalls are Always a Concern, Especially for Baby Food

You can generally trust companies like Gerber for baby food advice, especially about how to prepare a safe baby food product, but some people are always suspicious about what food companies do to their food. They're concerned that perhaps the foods weren't top quality or that sanitation rules weren't followed to the letter. This fear emanates from actual problems with baby food recalls or reports saying that the highest pesticides are found in spinach and strawberries, and your baby's favorite baby food is a type with spinach or strawberries in it. Even if there are no reports of sickness in regards to baby food on the markets, it is always a concern.

It seems that every other month something new that is on the market has to be recalled. Children are tiny and their immune systems might not be as strong as adults, so tainted food will hit their delicate systems harder. That alone is enough reason for some to think about what it would mean to go to the extreme to make homemade baby food. But it's really not that hard to do once you know the basics.

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Another concern about commercial baby food is the temperature that the food is cooked at. Certainly, it's important to kill bacteria and viruses and fungi that may have contaminated the food and that is done by high temperatures, but the high temperatures also create the production of advanced glycation end products, which are also called AGEs, and these chemicals accumulate in the body. They're linked with diabetes, neurological disorders, aging, heart disease and blood vessel abnormalities.

One last concern and additional tidbit about baby food advice is to consider the glycemic index of the food you're feeding to your baby. If the glycemic index is too high, it's easy to set your baby on the track to develop diabetes later in life. The sad part is that baby food manufacturers do not list the glycemic index of the baby food on their labels.

Creating Homemade Baby Food Is an Option

If you want to make your own homemade and natural baby food these days, you are living in the right time period. Creating your own baby food is very easy to do as long as you have the right equipment. You'll need some containers and a very good food processor. Your goal in creating baby foods for your baby is to first make the consistency of them very smooth. Lumps can cause a baby to spit the food back out or to choke. Get a quality blender or appliance such as a Vita-Mix so this is not a problem when you make your own natural baby food. Your second goal is to keep things clean and sterile. Your third goal is to make the foods tasty.

Learn from Baby Food Companies

When choosing what homemade baby foods to make, take a look at what most companies recommend for each age group. They have spent thousands of dollars on the research and if you follow their lead, you can save yourself some time. You can always check out books from the library on how to prepare homemade and natural baby foods, but in the beginning, it may be your priority to start making the food. Ideally, you had a little time to read some baby food creation books while you were breastfeeding. Just having a new baby in the home takes a bit of adjustment and it's easy to lose sleep during the first few months so you may not have had time to do that reading. Cut corners by copying the food companies.

High Expectations in the Wrong Place

You could even talk with your doctor about how to make the best baby food and what you should start with first, but don't expect the doctor to be a nutritionist. Your best resource is someone schooled in nutrition who has worked in the field for numerous years; your second is books written on the topic of homemade baby food by experts.

Some Guidelines on Homemade Baby Food Preparation

To prepare the best baby food, use organic fruits and vegetables and make sure you wash them thoroughly. Don't save foods for too long in your refrigerator, either. Three or four days is usually safe, but throw out anything older than that. You may be able to freeze baby food you created, but make sure you have secure packaging for that purpose. Even foods in the freezer can go bad, and freezer burn is never good. Remember that in the self-defrosting freezers that are very common, there's a cycle during the day where the temperature is higher than usual. That's when molds can grow in foods.

Creating homemade and natural baby foods can be fun and it's a great way to get to know your baby's tastes and preferences. It is also an achievement to feed your baby the best baby food and then see him or her smile as soon as that first spoonful goes in.

Resources on Baby Food (Homemade Baby Food, too)

1. Find out about Gerber Baby Food at their site.baby food advice.
2. Guidelines on how to make your own homemade baby food here at this site.Homemade Baby Food
3. Find out more about commercial baby food at the Beech Nut Baby Food site.Baby Food Advice