preservatives in dinners?

[jessica]

Hi,

I've read alot about giving bubs what were eating for dinner - this sounds convenient but what about all the salt and preservatives in the food we adults eat? We are not good cooks and eat alot of pre-prepared sauces in pasta etc. Does anyone give these sorts of 'adult' foods to their little ones? I still make her own food preservative/salt free and freeze in cubes - she's almost one - what's the next step?

taa,

[aardvark]

We've gone organic, and there are generally a lot less additives in the organic prepared pasta sauces etc than in the conventional products. That said, however, I do make much of what we eat from first principles myself, including bottling my own fruit, tomatoes and pasta sauce.

The reason we went organic in the first place was to try to help my little one's eczema, and it has certainly done that, and improved my dermatitis out of sight as well.

I'm now a compulsive label reader of all grocery items I buy, and I hesitate to purchase anything much which is pre-prepared.

Unless you are going to continue cooking separately for baby, which becomes less and less practical as they get older, you need to look at the content of your own diet, and perhaps find some alternatives if you are uncomfortable with feeding your child food with additives.

[Chickadee]

My daughter continued to eat Heinz type dinners occassionly until just recently. We often don't get home from work/daycare until after 6, and it was the easiest way I could get her fed in time for bed. She lost interest in them around 18 months. They have some for older kids, 9mos+ & 12mos+ which are chunkier and more like real food. But the selection is still limited (though I've seen a new range) and I think a bit light on vegetables - most are meat based. Still, you can use a jar as a base and add extra mashed or boiled potatoes, corn, peas, beans etc. Whatever bub likes.

For adult foods, I'm particularly aware of salt as DH has recently been told he has high blood pressure. The pre-prepared sauces have ALOT of salt in them, even most tinned soups and tinned tomatos. But if you hunt around on the shelves you can find some that have less salt (particularly organic as Aardvark says).

For pasta sauce I now buy LaGina Premium Iltalian Style Pasta Sauce (it's a taller than normal jar) which has about half the salt of others. It's limited in "flavours" but I just use it as a base and add extra meat/veg and don't have to worry about Chloe having it.