Well it's been about that time with Izzy now for awhile. I made my own baby food for Ellie so naturally I would for Izz too. She is not quite as good of an eater like Ellie was. She is much pickier. I have to mix the veggie bites with the fruit bite. If it's a bite with plain veggies she gags. Literally gags like it's going to choke her and kill her. It's so ridiculous and dramatic. My reasoning for making baby food are as follows (many people ask): in commercial baby food they cook the food at such high temperatures in order for it to be stored and stay preserved as long as it does that it loses almost all of the nutrients. So pretty much all it's doing is training your child to eat food and help create their palate for new flavors. There is not much nutritional value to it at all... The other reason is it's cheaper and so much more less wasteful. If i bought this stuff, my recycle bin would be overflowing.
So I keep my eye out for Organic fruits and veggies on sale here (there's not much) and i buy a bunch of it or if I can't buy Organic for a food that I'm wanting to introduce I soak it in the sink in a teaspoonful or so of citric acid. Citric acid helps kill the fertilizers and pesticides used on non-organic produce. I steam it or cook it just until it's tender. If you over cook it then you start to lose vitamins and minerals. I then put it into the food processor and puree it to the proper texture. I add the cooking juices to make it smoother if needed. If I have leftover cooking juices (which is where the nutrients end up)i usually keep those and make rice or oatmeal cereal out of it or add it to other fruits or veggies. I then freeze it in trays with one ounce portions and store some fresh stuff in the fridge to test on the Izz.
Izzy's faves these days are nectarines, sweet potatoes, plums (she says mmmmm, while she eats these), pears and she's not too pumped about asparagus or zucchini and i left the peel on the crookneck squash so she wasn't to sure about the texture (she of course gaged) about the texture. Peas with shells were a little gritty so we only tried those once.
Anyway, just a little something that i do. Every mom has their thing, mine is food. What my kids eat is super important to me. Teaching them healthy eating habits and manners and to have the desire to try new things is important to me.... It worked with Ell so we'll see how Izz turns out:)
