Five Benefits of Making Your Own Baby Food by Brittany Madera Whether you’re a new parent or have had children before, it’s common to wonder what kinds of options you have for feeding your baby. You might have heard about how other parents are preparing and cooking their own purees for their children. Perhaps your parents or grandparents have mentioned that they never used store-bought baby foods either. Making your own baby food can be a challenge when you first start, but there are many benefits that make it worthwhile. By making your own baby food, you know exactly what you are feeding your child. There is no guesswork about any “extras” that the manufacturer might have included. You also know that the food was prepared in a safe place by loving hands. You can keep an eye on nutritional values. This is even more important if your baby has specific dietary needs, but any parent can benefit from knowing how their baby’s meals were made. For environmentally concerned parents, creating baby purees by yourself is a more
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Roanoke Valley Family • February 2022
eco-friendly option. You won’t have to worry about how much it damages the environment to ship jars of baby food from one end of the world to the other. You’ll make an even greater positive impact if you can buy most of your foods from a local farm. Preparing and pureeing your own baby food can be less expensive than buying it prepackaged. This can be especially true during harvest time if you grow your own vegetables or know someone who is willing to share some of their home-grown produce. While it’s not always the case that you’ll save money when you make your own baby food, it can certainly be a motivating factor. You can choose which fruits and vegetables you make into a puree. This can give your baby a wider range of flavors than would be available in the supermarket. You can also be creative with mixing flavors, such as combining fruits and vegetables into one puree. You might find that your baby will turn his or her nose up at a particular food when offered it by itself, but that same food
might become a favorite once mixed with something else. Along that same line, making your own baby food will let your baby become accustomed to the same food your family eats. If your family eats avocados frequently, you might want to introduce them to your child, as well. However, you’d be hard-pressed to find avocado baby food in the grocery store. The same goes for many exotic fruits that your family may love to eat. By creating your own baby-friendly meals, you can prepare your new child to enjoy the meals she will likely eat in the future. While you might be nervous about preparing your own baby food at first, remember that choosing the homemade option instead of store-bought could make a positive difference in both your life and your baby’s life. You’ll have more control over what goes into your child’s tummy, and you might even save some money along the way. These benefits are sure to outweigh the slight inconvenience of making baby food at home.
