Supermarket vs Home Made

[drewid]

Hi :)

Just wondering how many of you use supermarket baby foods (jars & cans) and how many go home-made?

I am currently using store-bought for pureed fruits and rice cereal, but plan to make my own for pureed vegies, meat etc etc.

Also, how long can you store pureed vegies and meat in the freezer?

[draught]

I buy the rice cereal powder, and buy the SPC pureed apple from the fruit section (not the baby section) but make my own for everything else - vegies, meat and fruit. I use a small black and decker food processor (about $23 at K-Mart) and Tupperware ice cube trays (they are a good size and have a lid) then put the cubes into snap lock bags. You can keep the frozen cubes for between 3 - 6 months I believe, but I normally use mine within a month. I alternate between freezing individual vegies which I can then combine, or just mixing them then freezing. I find frozen cubes of bolognase very handy for both baby and toddler - you just increase the number of cubes depending on the child.

Neither of my girls have liked the store bought food and when I tasted it I didn't like it either. I work on the theory that I will only feed them what I would eat myself. It is also a lot cheaper to make it yourself. We are currently all enjoying shepherd's pie - lots of vegies in the sauce, cheese on top of the potatoe - mashed for baby, with tomato sauce for toddler and with shiraz for parents. And it freezes well too!

[aardvark]

Apart from rice cereal, and the odd jar of organic baby food for the nappy bag as an emergency stash in case of unexpected changes in plans, and some of the tiny italian baby pasta from the deli, I made everything myself for the last little one.

You know what is going into it, and you can vary the content and texture to suit your babies needs.

When I would make soup stock, I would also freeze some stock in ice cubes. They were very useful for adding to vegetables to thin them out a bit, or for cooking the baby pasta in.

[Nickster]

Hi Nicole,
You can store frozen pureed meat and veges in the freezer for 3 months. I use a ziplock bag for mine, they have a little panel on the front where I write the date and what it is - because sometimes it's easy to get confused between cauliflower and apple, and it's not very nice to have cauliflower mixed in with your banana breakfast cereal!!!
I'm a bit like draught, my bub doesn't like commercial food (taste it yourself, you probably wouldn't eat it either!), but she will eat some of it - eg. the jars of whatever is purest and closest to being homemade. ;)

[kaydensmum]

I have only bought jars/cans of fruit like pear and banana, ime reluctant to try the savoury as a lot of the mums in our group have said there bubs have not liked it. I make all of kaydens food because then i know exactly what he is having. I buy Tamar valley yoghurt because there is nothing artificial in it and most importantly to us, it has no added sugar. Kayden is 91/2 months so when i make a tuna casserole (just an example), i make enough so i can freeze a weeks worth of meals and i always add about 5 vegies, including frozen peas and beans. The best thing now is i don't have to puree as he is excellent at eating lumpy food!!!!

[drewid]

I agree with you guys - I dont' like the grown up versions of meat/vegies in a tin, so i dont' expect bub to like it either. I am only a fan of buying pureed fruits in a tin, possibly the odd vegie for an emergency. At least pureed fruit in a tin bears close resemblance to home made pureed fruit!

I think I might do a bit of a cook-up this weekend and stock away some frozen bits and pieces. Should be an interesting experiment!

[Chickadee]

When DD was smaller and I wasn't working she got all her food homemade. When she was 10 months we went overseas for 4 weeks and she ended up getting some jars and tins of baby food there as it was just too difficult to do homemade and she couldn't always have what we were having. When we got back I continued to give her a mix of jars and homemade. And until about 3 months ago she continued to get one or 2 jars of mixed veg/meat a week, mainly because it was hard for me to get her a real dinner between getting home at 6 or 6:15 pm and starting her bedtime routine at 7. And I was never organised enough on weekends or my days off to have meals ready in advance.

Some brands and flavours of baby food were ok. Some she hated. I tended to add to them to boost the veg content. One thing with jars and tins is that it tends to be all the same texture and bubs get bored of that very easily. And if you want them to grow up liking a range of food flavours and textures then it's important to introduce that variety young. And the easiest way to do that is to share your meals with them.

[sopolicha]

Sorry Girls but my brother in law who is a chef, worked for a bit in the factory/kitchen that makes those frozen motherly cubes. After that I thought mmmmmm I really like you, but I do not want my babies eating food that has been prepared by you. I admit to being a bit neurotic, when it comes to my kids but not completely over the top.

My son would eat nothing but home made, which despite the extra cooking made me happy in a strange sort of way.

[Ondine]

Kelsie is about 4 1/2 months and has just recently started on solids as she was polishing off about 280ml of formula and still looking for more so the nurse suggested to try some solids.

She screwed up her nose at the rice cereal! Her reaction to it was most amusing!!!

I started her on the tins / jars of fruits, vegies, gels, custards and cereals and loves them (she's not fussed on the ones claiming to contain meat). Yesterday I decided I was going to be good and make a heap of home made stuff. I could not get her to eat the pureed vegies from home at all. She kept screwing up her nose and spitting it out (which she hadn't done since the very first rice cereal episode).

My mother suggested mixing part home made with part bought? Has anyone else had difficulty getting baby to eat the home made stuff???

Ondine

[mumof2girls]

I always made my girls food for them, however when we travelled I would always have some jars with me in case we got caught out. More for convinience than anything. Something my girls enjoyed was having some homemade apple sauce stirred through their vegies, gave them that sweeter taste :)

[mommybear]

I have always made my own but when I was sick I bought the Motherly Cubes and they really helped out. They tasted like my own cooking.

It is easy to cook up big batches and freeze which should last a month. Make sure you do a few different veggies, fruit and meats.

I wouldn't touch the jarred or tin food myself so I don't expect my babies to either.

Mommy

[Chickadee]

Has anyone else had difficulty getting baby to eat the home made stuff??? Ondine

Ondine, like mumof2girls suggested you could make the veg a bit sweeter by adding applesauce, or try the sweeter vegetables - pumpkin, carrots, sweet potato etc. You could also boost the flavor by adding fresh herbs or mix it up using meat broth instead of just water (you could use broth for the cooking then blend it all up).

[jembelina]

hi,

i make bubs fruit and veg myself. i'm sure i will use tinned stuff every so often when we go out but for the time being home made is great and i fing it's really easy. i know alot of mums freeze stuff but i don't - first of all when you cook the veg you are loosing some of the good stuff (unavoidable, i know) then when it is frozen you loose even more, so nutritionally you are probably better off using good quality jar food! also, i don't like the idea of nuking bubs food (losing even more value) so it would be quite impractical to freeze as i would need to defrost in advance! anyway, what i do is cook enough apples or pears for that day and the next in the morning and the same with vegies at night, then i only have to cook every second day. i just heat them by siiting the container in boiled water for a few mins or with some veg i add hot water to them. i also puree the old fashioned way as i don't have a blender/food processor - push it through the sieve!

[Milly]

Well, for my daughter at home we made mashies. We would have a big cook up and freeze them in batches to have ready on hand. Usually portions in ice cube trays so that we coud mix them up or keep the certain vegies separate.

We did use pureed fruit from the tin/jar though, but that was for when we went out. And if we did use jars it was as a standby in the nappy bag, although I would pack some of our prepared food and see what happens.
Even when we travelled interstate on holiday and stayed in a hotel (that had a mini kitchen) we bought vegies an had a mini cook up there and stored them, so we did not rely on jarred food too much. We really only used jarred food as standby and emergencies. We did use store bought rice and baby cereals though and had a box of Motherly Cubes on hand in the freezer. We would use these over jars if we got caught out.

[alicesmum]

well, i must confess to being eligible for the Bad Mothers Club because I use jars a lot. alice has always liked everything i ever fed her, but i have generally stayed away from the ones claiming to contain meat too! I like to give her good quality meat when I do feed it to her (which is only 2-3 times a week, as I do with myself). I figure that the fruit and vegies must be okay and the Mum's Recipe Heinz jars seem ok to me too (I have tasted them). I also mix them with my own food, e.g., I buy the pureed pumpkin and sweet corn in a can (cutting up and cooking pumpkin can be such a pain!!) and mix it with some of my home cooked vegies or cous cous or pasta.

anyway, Alice is healthy as a horse so I don't think they are as bad as some people think. Apparently they used to be a bit dodgy when I was little 30 years ago, but now are ok. Anyway, if I had more time in my life I would probably cook more, but you do the best you can I guess. :p

[Ondine]

Thanks for the tips Martha - I have tried Kelsie on the sweeter vegies at home, but I think the problem is that even when pureed, the vegies aren't as smooth as the bottles/tins. I might try adding some bought food to make a smoother consistency! Will make them go further too!

AlicesMum - The bought stuff is as good and nutritious as the home made stuff according to my CHN but no where near as economical. I am going back to work full time next week and can be almost sure that for the next few weeks will be relying on the last of my frozen pureed vegies in the freezer but mostly the bought stuff - and honestly I don't feel bad at all - if our babies are happy and healthy - what does it matter???

[ThomasMum]

and honestly I don't feel bad at all - if our babies are happy and healthy - what does it matter???

Agree!

We are all the best mums for our lil family in our own way, so we should support each other even if we sometimes have different opinions on how to look after our family yeah? If you can make your own food, GREAT! If you can't don't feel that you are bad mum or anything, esp. knowing that your kids are healthy and thriving!

Sorry to waffle on, I'm hungry is all he he
:D