[aclee]

Originally Posted by binkybear

I'm looking forward to it! I have a pretty strict (well to me it's just normal, I've been doing it so long) diet and make all of my own foods pretty much. I love to cook and experiment, it's a stress reliever for me

My folks gave me a Champion Juicer they didn't use a whole lot. Talk about an awesome machine! It's suppose to be great for baby food (will probably do peas better than my Thanksgiving peas..the "shell" never fully pureed away in the processor and gave a rougher texture than jarred). This machine makes chilled "ice creams" that you wouldn't believe. Take a really ripe banana, freeze it and then push through the juicer....it's like ice cream without all the junk in it!

I hope your friend saved the stew in the freezer!! They do get use to it and if nothing else you can super puree it and use it as a sauce for other foods, foods they're not as excited about.

(l have the deceptively delicious cookbook on hand too, just in case! )

We have a juicer too...but it sounds like a ford escort to your Lexus SUV We use it for...juice! Ty hasn't started any juice yet. He's old enough, but we have a hard enough time getting enough formula into him without taking up room with juice. I'd like to hold off on him starting juice anyway, I feel like kids can drink way too much juice, and granted this is fresh, but there are other ways to get their vitamins etc too (like whole fruit!) WE however LOVE fresh OJ...

DH is low sodium and I am now gluten free (woohoo) so I hear you on the special diets...we are big cookers too. For me the hardest part is knowing what spices and herbs I can add to his food (pediactrician said that was ok...so he didn't get used to bland food) at such an early age. I do cinnamon in his apples and a little light parsley or basil with some of this veggies...I don't know if he likes that or not

[reetoreet]

I just recently started this but it seems to have worked so far. I bought the Munchkin brand baby food mill (I got mine at Target), I am sure there are more brands but that was the first one I found. Anyway all I do is boil or roast whatever I want to feed Lily and put it through the mill. It comes with these little pacifier looking things with nets (for lack of a better word) on then end of them where you put the food. Then when the baby chews on it a little food at a time sqeezes out. She loves it!! now that she is teething I have been doing it with roasted squash and carrots and freezing them a little so they are cold on her gums. I still feed her from a spoon with cereal and fruit but the veggies I have been feeding from these pacifier things. I find it is giving her more independence and she even tried to grab the spoon from me sometimes! I have just found it is so much cheaper and better to make your own baby food. I know exactly what is going in my DD's tummy! My baby sitter gave lily jarred peaches once and I flipped on her! haha. It's just my way of doing things I guess.

[babydubs5]

DS is a lactose senstive baby... he's been on Alimentum since he was 7 weeks old due to a pretty bad senstivity. We started introducing organic plain (or vanilla yougurt...and not the YoBaby yogurt but it was by the same company) around 8 months old. He handled it perfectly. Not any issues of diarrhea or vomitting. I am hoping it's an indication that he has indeed started to outgrow his sensitivity.

He absolutely loves his yogurt. I've given it to him plain or mixed in two cubes of fruit for breakfast.


For squash, I've always halved the squash and then put it open side down into a glass baking pan with about an inch or two of water and bake for 40 minutes. I bake almost all of DS's food... fruits, and some veggies. I do steam a few (broccoli, carrots and mangos) but bake the rest.

As far as chunky purees... DS still doesn't really like chunky purees, but will eat any regular table food off of his plate. In fact, tonight for dinner, he had some chunks of potato, tilapia and pancakes without butter or syrup. (weird combo, I know. It was a little bit of everyone's dinner)

[aclee]

Tyler LOVES his mesh feeder...mostly with bananas in it. I put them in the fridge and they help his teeth a lot too! I put frozen watermelon in them for my nieces as Popsicles too. 18 months and 3 and they still love them.

[reetoreet]

I also use this site Teething Biscuit Recipes for Your Teething Baby

The link is for the teething biscuit recipes because that is what I have been thinking about experimenting with lately. But you can navigate the whole site from there. I have found some good tips and recipes there. I can't use a lot of them quite yet but in time they will be great! I am so glad to hear I am not the only parent who is particular about what goes in to their babies. Some of my family members think I am so anal by doing all of this. I make my own food, my own oil/water spray for her hair, I mix shea butter into everything....They make fun of me for everything. Someone tried to give lily a piece of scrambled egg and I almost slapped it right out of their hand! haha.

[reetoreet]

Aclee-I also freeze my food and I find this PERFECT for doing so. I do it this way because it is easier to send to the baby sitter and they fit very easily into the freezer.

One Step Ahead Baby - Jumbo Baby Cubes

[binkybear]

Originally Posted by aclee

We have a juicer too...but it sounds like a ford escort to your Lexus SUV We use it for...juice! Ty hasn't started any juice yet. He's old enough, but we have a hard enough time getting enough formula into him without taking up room with juice. I'd like to hold off on him starting juice anyway, I feel like kids can drink way too much juice, and granted this is fresh, but there are other ways to get their vitamins etc too (like whole fruit!) WE however LOVE fresh OJ...

DH is low sodium and I am now gluten free (woohoo) so I hear you on the special diets...we are big cookers too. For me the hardest part is knowing what spices and herbs I can add to his food (pediactrician said that was ok...so he didn't get used to bland food) at such an early age. I do cinnamon in his apples and a little light parsley or basil with some of this veggies...I don't know if he likes that or not

The juicer is pretty cool, very industrial looking. They bought it about 10 years ago and never really used it so I was more than happy to take of their hands!

Personally I think I'll treat spices just like foods, introducing one then wait to be sure they're ok with it. That way I'll know if they like it alone and you can track any reactions. If you look at the organic jarred foods they have some pretty strongly spiced meals. My sister used gerber organics with my niece and one of the beef stews was too spicey for her. The poor kid made terrible faces and even though it had wheat in it I did a quick tip of the tongue test and it was TOO much, like they dump a jar of basil in it.

I've been on a wheat, dairy and preservative free diet for about 6 or 7 years now. It was harder in the beginning but now gluten free is so mainstream it's a snap pretty much today. I can still do gluten technically, but most products I use fit into gluten free. Not sure how long you've been doing it, but if you like I can PM you some links. (dont' want to totally throw the thread with gluten free links!)

[binkybear]

Originally Posted by Fran27

Yeah yogurts have too much sugar, although yo baby has reduced sugars so there isn't much more than in fruit stuff now... but still, that stuff is so crazy expensive... but it's not bad (yeah, I've tried it lol).

I bought a hand blender to make my own food... haven't started yet though, as we're just starting. I'll use some jars but not once we start mixing flavors (and adding meat). But we used it to make guacamole and the texture was pretty good.

Any tip on where to get cheap fruit? Can it be bought frozen? I'm just bummed because with the price of fruit it's just as expensive to buy the jars...

Depending on where you live buying local at farmstands and markets can be cheaper. Buying seasonal fruit and then freezing is what I usually do. I'll buy organic strawberries in season, freeze and then I use a Foodsaver system to keep them fresher longer in the freezer (you freeze first so they don't squish ). Buying out of season is always more expensive, but now it seems everything is higher priced. Check out local growers if you're near any

[aclee]

Originally Posted by binkybear

The juicer is pretty cool, very industrial looking. They bought it about 10 years ago and never really used it so I was more than happy to take of their hands!

Personally I think I'll treat spices just like foods, introducing one then wait to be sure they're ok with it. That way I'll know if they like it alone and you can track any reactions. If you look at the organic jarred foods they have some pretty strongly spiced meals. My sister used gerber organics with my niece and one of the beef stews was too spicey for her. The poor kid made terrible faces and even though it had wheat in it I did a quick tip of the tongue test and it was TOO much, like they dump a jar of basil in it.

I've been on a wheat, dairy and preservative free diet for about 6 or 7 years now. It was harder in the beginning but now gluten free is so mainstream it's a snap pretty much today. I can still do gluten technically, but most products I use fit into gluten free. Not sure how long you've been doing it, but if you like I can PM you some links. (dont' want to totally throw the thread with gluten free links!)

Would love some links...I just started yesterday. I'm self diagnosing my auto immune disease. The only time it was in remission was when I was on Atkins...the more research I did, the more sense it made. But it's in EVERYTHING!

[binkybear]

Originally Posted by aclee

Would love some links...I just started yesterday. I'm self diagnosing my auto immune disease. The only time it was in remission was when I was on Atkins...the more research I did, the more sense it made. But it's in EVERYTHING!

Believe me I know! It's in things you wouldn't even THINK about. Things are easier now with most food stores now carrying gluten free. I almost died when I got to eat a pretzel again. I went YEARS just wanting a really good pretzel with mustard..just one little pretzel...it was heaven that day! LOL I don't like to eat or use too many premade foods, but some of the stuff is great to have if you need a day off from cooking. I'll get my favorite links over to you soon!! (Oh, and I started it for medical reasons too....SMARTEST thing I ever did, it's SO worth it)

[aclee]

Originally Posted by Fran27

Yeah yogurts have too much sugar, although yo baby has reduced sugars so there isn't much more than in fruit stuff now... but still, that stuff is so crazy expensive... but it's not bad (yeah, I've tried it lol).

I bought a hand blender to make my own food... haven't started yet though, as we're just starting. I'll use some jars but not once we start mixing flavors (and adding meat). But we used it to make guacamole and the texture was pretty good.

Any tip on where to get cheap fruit? Can it be bought frozen? I'm just bummed because with the price of fruit it's just as expensive to buy the jars...

Buying fruit is NOT as expensive as the jars. Look at the first ingredient in jars...that's what there is the MOST of in there...WATER. Water is pretty cheap at my house. You puree and thin the stuff so much in the beginning. I bought 3 peaches and it made two trays of cubes (I freeze in ice cube trays) Each tray has 12 cubes, and Ty eats two cubes mixed with some cereal and formula at a meal. So three peaches made Tyler 12meals. The same amount of food would have cost me $6. Those 3 peaches weighted about a pound and cost me about $2. If you get a great sale, you can do it for even less. Right now I'm making tons of stuff to put up enough to get Ty through till he's on table food. Everything I've read and all the math I've done (tons...for almost every food you can imagine) points to jarred food costing 3X as much as doing it yourself.

[reetoreet]

I sometimes go to farmer's markets and buy bruised fruit that is cheaper that good looking fruit. I's really no different, just a little over ripe. You are going to mash it up anyway so who cares how it looks?! Sometimes you have to ask for it but when the farmer sees me coming he already knows what I am going to ask for! haha. I got a gigantic bag of bananas for 50 cents and 10 nectarines for 2 bucks today! They bananas are good for bread too. It never hurts to ask.

[aclee]

Originally Posted by reetoreet

I sometimes go to farmer's markets and buy bruised fruit that is cheaper that good looking fruit. I's really no different, just a little over ripe. You are going to mash it up anyway so who cares how it looks?! Sometimes you have to ask for it but when the farmer sees me coming he already knows what I am going to ask for! haha. I got a gigantic bag of bananas for 50 cents and 10 nectarines for 2 bucks today! They bananas are good for bread too. It never hurts to ask.

That is a great idea. Usually I have to buy the stuff and let it overripen for a couple days anyway, so if I can get it super ripe and a little mushy...even easier

[Beth.]

[quote=aclee]
Beets. Everything I read is different on when he can have them and I just want some opinions on when you all started them. I boiled them in a tiny bit of water and then pureed them really smooth. I want to try them cause DH and I love them, but some books say not till 8 or 9 months

Carrots...again, mixed reports on making my own, so far I've done organic jarred and it kills me. Did you all make your own?


Just back from the ped today with some new info on the introduction of solid foods. Here is his opinion on carrots and beets:

"No beets, turnips, carrots or collard greens unless commercially prepared as they are high in nitrates and should be postponed until infant is taking a variety of foods. If you choose to use these exceptions, serve them fresh and don't store them while your child is an infant."

[aclee]

[quote=Beth.]

Originally Posted by aclee

"No beets, turnips, carrots or collard greens unless commercially prepared as they are high in nitrates and should be postponed until infant is taking a variety of foods. If you choose to use these exceptions, serve them fresh and don't store them while your child is an infant."

What does taking a variety of food mean? Right now I feed Ty carrots about 2X a week...but they are commercially prepared anyway... Ty eats just about everything though. Sweet Potato, Carrots, Peas, Brown Rice, Bananas, Peaches, Apples, cereal (Oatmeal, Barley and Rice) Acorn and Butternut Squashes, Patti Pan Squash, green beans, Prunes, ...Is that a big enough variety? I have no idea...i think I'll try adding them, but I'll do one day, two meals and then wait 4 days and do another day two meals.

I knew it was the nitrates, I just don't know if I "buy" the reason why commercial foods are ok and home grown aren't...it's not that they remove the nitrates, it's that because the carrots come from a variety of fields if there is a field that yeilds carrots higher in nitrates than normal, you have a better chance of them being mixed with carrots lower in nitrates...it's the whole multiple source mentality. If my field is high in nitrates, that's all Ty's getting...but if my field is lower in nitrates than their "average"...I'm buying the carrots for nothing. That's how I understand it anyway.