Olivia and her baby food!

When it came time to introduce solids to Olivia it was important to both Mark and me that we did our research on what was best to give our daughter. Just as we made the decision to breastfeed instead of use formula, we knew that making our own baby food would require more time and at times be a bit more challenging, but we thought it was worth it to avoid processed foods full of added sugars and other additives and preservatives. After talking with some friends who made their own baby food and reading the book Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron we felt up to the challenge. We highly recommend the book for other parents wanting to explore making their own baby food. Yaron discusses what age it is best to introduce what foods and tells you exactly how to prepare the food. And when Olivia is older and we are ready to mix her foods, the book includes recipes on how to make healthy foods.

To get started we purchased the Beaba Food Maker. While pricy, it pays for itself in just a few uses and we purchased some baby food storage freezer containers. Then it was time to find the food. We chose to use all organic foods and were on the look out for when certain produce was on sale. The good thing with baby food is that it should be ripe when prepared so often we found ripe organic bananas and avocados on sale in the store.

We started off with avocado which was a huge hit and still Olivia’s favorite. And since then we have introduced banana, pear, butternut squash and sweet potato. When Olivia turns 7 months we can start to introduce many more vegetables that we have already frozen in advance including summer squash, peas, and carrots.

Just to give you an idea, for $6 in organic produce I made around 60 ounces of baby food in less than 2 hours. If I were to purchase jarred organic baby food, 60 ounces would cost around $16.

Olivia seems quite happy with our decision to make her baby food as you can see from her reaction to eating avocado!