How to Make Baby Food

• by Liz Casler

Guide Note: Making your own baby food is easy, healthy, and cost-effective. How to Make Baby Food will take you through the process of making smooth, delicious purees for your baby. Discover how to choose the right ingredients, cook and prepare them properly, and store them safely for future use.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Step 1: Choose Ingredients
• Step 2: Gather Supplies
• Step 3: Chop Ingredients
• Step 4: Cook Ingredients
• Step 5: Puree Ingredients
• Step 6: Serve or Store Baby Food
• Resources

Introduction

(CC photo by Janice Milnerwood)

• Parents' reasons for making homemade baby food vary. Some see it as a healthier alternative for infants; others don’t like all of the fillers included in many commercial baby foods; and still others go homemade to reduce food waste.

• Making your own baby food can also be cost-effective. Proponents of homemade baby food claim that making your own baby food takes very little additional time and effort, while providing numerous benefits to both child and parent.

Step 1: Choose Ingredients

(Creative Commons photo by Jasper)

• You need to select the ingredients for your baby food carefully. An infant's system is more sensitive than that of an adult, and there are certain foods that you’ll want to steer clear of, as well as some nutrients that are critical to include for your child's healthy development.

1. Take a trip to your local grocery store. Take a look at the labels on the commercial baby food you find. While you're not going to buy any of them, these products can act as a guide to choosing ingredients for your homemade baby food.
2. Know what ingredients to avoid. Infants are more sensitive to fertilizer and pesticide residues than adults, so organic fruits and vegetables may be safer for your child. If you don't want to go organic, you should watch out for produce likely to have high levels of pesticides or other residues. Some examples of food items you should be wary of, for varied reasons, are:
   1. Salt
   2. Honey
   3. Sugar
   4. Carrots
   5. Spinach
   6. Beets
   7. Turnips
   8. Collard Greens
3. Attend to your infant’s nutritional needs. While homemade baby food is generally a healthy choice, your child has certain nutritional needs that will be short-changed if you don't make a conscious effort to meet them. Consult a nutritionist if you plan to feed your infant homemade baby food exclusively. Take special care to make sure your baby gets enough iron.
4. Your infant's age will help to determine what foods you should introduce into his or her diet. You can begin to feed your child soft solid foods at about 4 to 6 months of age. When you first start him on solids, rice or cereal are good choices. However, give your infant wheat and mixed cereals last, since they can cause allergic reactions in very young babies. Follow up the cereals with vegetables. Make sure to wait a few days after introducing a new food before trying another. Eggs should be the very last food you introduce, since they, too, can cause an allergic reaction. Within two or three months of starting your baby on solid foods, his daily diet should include breast milk or formula, cereals, fruits and vegetables, and meat.
5. Consider color when you shop for ingredients. Babies like bright, cheerful colors, so fruits and vegetables with vibrant flesh will make your child's eating experience even more enjoyable.

Homemade Baby Food Recipes

• If you're at a loss for where to start and need a more specific shopping list, check out Mahalo's Guide to Homemade Baby Food along with recipe resources:

• Recipezaar: Fresh Baby Food Fruit - Veggies - Pasta
• WholesomeBabyFood.com: Homemade Baby Food Recipes & Solid Food Highlights  
• Canada's Parenting: Baby Food Recipes  
• Names2be.com: Home-Made Baby Food Recipes
• The Vegetarian Resource Group: Wholesome Baby Foods From Scratch

Step 2: Gather Supplies

(Creative Commons photo by woolennium)

• Thankfully, you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment to make your own baby food. Basically, all you need is:

1. Your ingredients.
2. A knife or other sharp tool for chopping.
3. A pressure cooker or pot in which to cook the ingredients.
4. A strainer or colander to drain cooked ingredients. A fine mesh strainer can also be used to help separate out skin and seeds.
5. Something with which to mush up the food. You have several options here. The most common choices include a blender, a food processor, or a manual food mill. A blender is good for making large quantities of food, while a hand mill is better for small batches and for separating out the skin from fruits and vegetables.

Step 3: Chop Ingredients

(Creative Commons photo by John Morgan)

• Chopping your ingredients up into smaller pieces will make it infinitely more easy to puree them. You can chop vegetables and fruits either before or after cooking them, depending on what seems easier to you.

1. Use a clean cutting board and knife. Do not cut ingredients that are ready to be pureed with the same knife or on the same board that you used to cut raw ingredients.
2. Cut all of the ingredients into manageable pieces that will fit easily into the tool you will use to puree them.

Step 4: Cook Ingredients

(Creative Commons photo by Matthew F)

• You should cook your baby’s food using methods that don’t include the addition of oil or fat.

1. Boiling is the most common method for cooking fruits and vegetables.
2. Steaming vegetables and fruits in a small amount of water is another good cooking method. Steaming also helps to retain more of the food’s natural nutrients.
3. Baking is mainly used for meats, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams.
4. Microwaving is fine, too.

Step 5: Puree Ingredients

• Babies should start with very smooth purees. As your child grows older, he will begin to enjoy foods with more texture without any danger of choking.

1. Put your ingredients into the tool you’re going to use to make the puree.
2. Add some fluid, such as water, breast milk, or formula, to improve the consistency of the puree.
3. Puree the ingredients together until they reach the proper consistency.

Step 6: Serve or Store Baby Food

(Creative Commons photo by Cait Hurley)

• Once your baby food is finished, you must feed it to your baby or store it immediately. Otherwise, the food will spoil and could harm your infant. You can easily pour prepared baby food into plastic bags or ice cube trays for freezing.

1. Serve your baby food at room temperature or when it is slightly warm. Do not put a container back into storage if you have fed your child directly from it.
2. Pour your puree into storage containers. Tupperware, freezer bags, and ice cube trays all work well. If you use ice cube trays, cover them with plastic wrap before putting them in the freezer. Each cube is equal to about 1 oz. of food.
3. Store baby food containing meat for up to three months in your freezer, and fruits and vegetables for six months. If you plan to use the food in the next couple of days, go ahead and put it in the refrigerator.
4. When you're ready to serve food you've frozen, you can put sealed containers or bags in a pot of hot water to thaw, or heat the food up in the microwave.

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Resources for How to Make Baby Food

• • Mahalo's Guide to Homemade Baby Food Recipes
• Today'sParent.com: Homemade Baby Food (November 1997)
• Parents.com: Homemade Baby Food
• American Academy of Pediatrics: Parent Corner Q&A: Starting Solid Foods (March 2007)
• MarthaStewart.com: Homemade Baby Food Basics (2000)
• MarthaStewart.com: Making Purees
• University of Maine Cooperative Extension: Making Your Own Baby Food
• National Network for Child Care: Making Baby Food
• FamilyFun: The How-To's of Homemade Baby Food and Recipes  

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