Homemade Baby Food

This weekend I took a stab at making my own baby food. I am not a very crunchy person and did not think I would enjoy making baby food, but it was actually very easy and sort of fun! For Shelby's first food besides cereal, I made sweet potatoes. Two organic sweet potatoes cost a grand total of $1.61 and I got more than 24 1 oz. servings out them. A friend recommended the Fresh Baby So Easy Baby Food Kit to me and it really took any guess work out of making your own baby food. I mean... not that there is that much guess work to begin with! You basically chop, steam and puree everything.

The book is helpful because it gives some guidance on the order in which you should introduce food and offers some suggestions on combining foods or adding spices down the road. This is helpful for a person like me who doesn't really like to cook (Bake, yes. Cook, no.) and had no idea that you could give a baby things like butternut squash, acorn squash or cinnamon (after 8 months). The book also has spaces where you can write down the date you introduced the food, if the baby liked it, etc.

Shelby the food critic gave my homemade sweet potato baby food two thumbs up! She gobbled it up and was hungry for more! I am looking forward to introducing some more veggies in the coming weeks. Next on the menu: maybe some peas and butternut squash? I've read that you are supposed to introduce veggies first and fruits second so the baby doesn't develop a preference for sweet foods. I don't know if this is true or not, but I am starting out with veggies just to be safe and make sure Shelby doesn't end up with a huge sweet tooth like her mother. I loooove sweets.

I also bought some jarred organic sweet potatoes before I made my own and did my own taste test. Verdict? I liked mine better. Even though they were the same thing with the exact same ingredients (sweet potatoes and water) my version tasted different and was an entirely different color and texture. The jarred kind was more orange and soupy, while mine was a bit thicker. However, I fed Shelby both at one meal and she gobbled down each version with equal enthusiasm.

Have you made your own baby food? What foods did you introduce first?