Homeade Baby Food

I've had several people ask me about homeade baby food recently, so I thought that I would dedicate a post to it! I've become really passionate about homemade, natural, as organic as possible food for Blane. Before I started feeding him solid food I had read an article describing all the additives and thickeners that are added to store bought baby food to make them last a year or more.If it were really fresh and healthy, it would only last several days in the fridge! My first time making baby food, I make carrots and compared it to the container of store bought Gerber carrots I had. Whoa! What a huge difference in color, texture, and smell! I then dedicated to only make all of Blane's food! So, as of now, he has eaten carrots, peas, green beans, squash, banana, pear, apple, sweet potato, parsnip, and lasagna. Making homemade baby food is so easy and you don't even need any fancy or special gadgets. I simply steam the vegetable in my steam pot that I got at Walmart for $6 or so. It holds quite a bit! Once steamed and soft, I put the veggie in my food processor along with a little of the water that I steamed it with. I just add enough water until it's the consistency that I want. Blend, and store in ice cubes. For soft fruits like banana and avocado, I just use the ripest piece that I have and mash it with a fork. Anything that ends up too watery I add rice cereal to, or anything too thick, I add milk to thin it out. Watery fruits like pear, I don't steam or cook at all. I simply peel and core it, then blend in food processor. Now I'm starting to freeze our leftovers for him too. We recently had some lasagna leftover (I had made it without the beef and no offensive spices). I just put the leftovers in the processor along with a little water. He loves my homemade lasagna! I do have some books with great recipes (I recently made baby fruity muesli for his breakfast) but I also look at this website : http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/. I think that a lot of making food is trial and error. And I know a lot of babies that will at first refuse the store bought food if they've been eating homemade and vice versa. But don't give up! It's SO worth it to stick it out. But, just like you shouldn't feel guilty if you can't or choose not to breastfeed, you shouldn't feel guilty if you don't make your own baby food. Most everyone I knew grows up on the Gerber store bought stuff and we've all turned out great! But if you think that you want to try making your own food and have questions, feel free to ask me!