Eat, Love: Homemade Baby Food

It all started with mommy guilt. When Lily got ready for solid foods I had just gone back to work part time. Somehow, in my working mom insanity I decided that my child would feel more loved if her baby food was made from fresh foods rather than mass produced and served in a jar. Believe me, nearly two years later I fully realize just how ridiculous that sounds. Honestly, I knew it sounded ridiculous at the time. Instead of saying, "I am making my daughter's baby food because I feel guilty for working" I would say, "I've been doing some reading and I have decided to make Lily's baby food so I can avoid all the preservatives, ensure the food she is eating is fresh and save money." 

 

In the end, making Lily's baby food did save money. One dollar buys a pound of green beans, which then becomes 16-1oz. servings of baby food. Two dollars worth of sweet potatoes made pounds of baby food! We also bypassed the preservatives and, at this point in her life she loves fresh fruits and veggies. Also, after reading labels I found that many of the baby foods at the store were not as nutritious as the high fiber, vitamin-rich foods I was making at home. The homemade food also made us more more comfortable with giving Lily the (nutritious) foods we were eating and helped her enjoy herbs and spices we would not find in the big name baby foods. Oh, and it worked wonders on the mommy guilt. 

 

The surprising part? It was not as time consuming as I had anticipated. I would cook 4-5 pounds of sweet potatoes in the crock pot while I was at work during the day, then puree them and have them in the freezer. The actual time I spent preparing the sweet potatoes amounted to about 15 minutes. Halved peaches and a pyrex dish with a little water perfectly prepared peaches for baby food prep. Purees freeze very well in ice trays, and each cube in the tray is about 1 oz. When the purees have frozen,  you can pop them out and store them in freezer bags labeled with each type of food. They thaw easily in the microwave and can be stored in the freezer for several months. 

 

There are lots of cool baby food gadgets on the market, but you can prepare homemade baby food with just a few items that can be found in most any household. Once the food is cooked in a way that is appropriate for that food, you only need a blender to puree the food, ice trays to freeze the food and freezer bags to store the food. If you are like me and preparing food for the people you love is equivalent to actually telling them you love them, then preparing homemade foods for your baby will be totally fulfilling. Feel free to post any questions in the comments section. Also, check out http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com for great health guidelines, food recommendations by age, recipes and more!

 

Eat, Love: Organic Foods on a Budget

 My grocery bill is getting higher and higher. I owe it all to Netflix. I am a documentary junkie, and Netflix has a ton of them available on demand. One night I was looking for a good one to watch, and I came across Food, Inc. That's when my grocery bill began getting higher and higher. A look behind the scenes of America's food supply is sad, sobering and just really gross. I had smelled the feed lots of West Texas and the chicken houses of East Texas, but the glance of the inside I got from Food, Inc. had an impact on me. 

I can't blame it all on Netflix. When Lily came along I began analyzing every factor of our lives, and food was one of those. We decided to start using beef and milk without added hormones as a first step. Study after study shows the age of the onset of puberty dropping; studies are not absolutely conclusive, but more and more evidence supports the idea that we are shortening childhood with the added hormones in our beef and milk. These added hormones make our dairy cows produce more milk and they make our slaughter cows get really big, really fast, but do we really want these hormones going into our kids? Just a side note: most other meats and animal product, like pork, poultry, and eggs, are free of added hormones due to government regulation.

I managed to move on from meat to produce. I was pretty sure I wanted to cut out pesticides along with the hormones. However, I didn't want to cut out hormones, pesticides and electricity; after looking at the prices on many organic foods I realized the electricity might just have to go if we were going to pay our big fat organic grocery bill. That's when I came across the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen, the list of foods that contain the highest levels of pesticide residue. By purchasing organic on these twelve items, you can reduce your intake of pesticide residue by 80%. Here's the list:

The Dirty Dozen

1. Apples

2. Celery

3. Strawberries

4. Peaches

5. Spinach

6. Nectarines

7. Grapes 

8. Sweet bell peppers

9. Potatoes

10. Blueberries 

11. Lettuce

12. Kale/collard greens

EWG also has a list of foods with very low pesticide residue. These foods, called the Clean 15, are listed below and, in the opinion of your humble blogger and her bank account, are not worth paying those organic prices. 

Clean 15

1. Onions

2. Sweet Corn

3. Pineapples

4. Avocado

5. Asparagus

6. Sweet peas

7. Mangoes

8. Eggplant

9. Cantaloupe 

10. Kiwi

11. Cabbage

12. Watermelon

13. Sweet potatoes

14. Grapefruit

15. Mushrooms

 

Hope this helps! In the end, just do your homework and do the best you can by your family. Happy shopping!

 

For more information on foods and pesticides, check out http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list/