Our friends with children will understand our latest bump in the road as parents: baby food is expensive.
Right now, the cost to feed Josiah is around 50% of what it costs to feed Steph and I combined. Now, in fairness, the kid might have an over-eating disorder is an eating machine, but he doesn’t eat that much. The problem is the cost of baby food: it’s insane.
If we buy the organic gerber ‘second foods’ baby food for Josiah, right now he’ll eat $5-$6 worth every day.
Nuts!
So, we’re looking at different ways to make our own baby food, and that’s why I’m writing this post:
What have you learned in this area and what do we need to know about? Please share!
*Please don’t read this as whiny or trying to say we’re broke or anything. I just want your knowledge!
July 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Dude, I’m following this thread – I want one of those baby food makers that blends and steams it all in one go. The up-front is expensive, but I bet it saves major money in the long run.
http://seriouslyspoiled.com/20.....the-money/
July 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I say google for some recipes and go from there. I made very little baby food for Isaiah because I’ve always had a full-time job outside the home and this makes for zero time for that sort of thing. When I did it I had fun. Check out http://www.onestepahead.com. They have some good tools and cookbooks there. I actually got A LOT of stuff for Isaiah from them and the prices are reasonable! Good luck!!!
July 28th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
@Josh – yeah man. Y’all will be two steps ahead of the game when the time comes!
@Tabi – awesome! Thanks!
July 28th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Laura made all of Ellie’s food until she started eating what we eat. She would buy fruit and veggies, blend them up (she has a recipe book) in a food processor and then put them in a ice cube trays. About 2-4 frozen cubes is 1 serving of can baby food.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
hey guys,
I made Lael’s baby food from the beginning and she never ate jarred food. I used two books. One was in German and the other was this:
http://www.amazon.com/Petit-Ap.....038;sr=8-1
I used a blender because that’s what we had and used little jars and froze them. You can give Josiah anything you eat usually without the spices. I made Lael stuff like potatoes and would blend in carrots, fennel, or whatever. You can even blend in meat. But, I’d try to implement our meals into hers so if I made ground beef, then I’d put a little aside to blend into whatever I gave her. Hope that helps! PS I have a new blog site. Love you guys!
July 28th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Hey Zack, it’s me, Diane…this is what I had to do.
When Lyn was born 30 years ago, I went to Quality Drugs in Butner, bought a hand-turn grinder and put whatever we were eating into the grinder for her…she refused to eat baby food of any kind except for a couple of the fruits.
So, when Rachel and Missy came along, I just kept grinding our table food up for them as well. I don’t cook with many seasonings, practically no salt, so the food was not too spicy for them.
I never had a recipe book or anything fancy to grind the food up in. By the time of Rachel and Missy the original grinder had gone to appliance heaven, so I just took my Black & Decker chopper and used that to grind up their food.
I don’t believe in spending money frivolously, so feeding them from our food was a very cost efficient method. I have also used the frozen cubes method noted above by Ellie’s dad.
blessings~~di
July 28th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Hey.. I made almost all of Brayden’s baby food and I plan to do it again once Teagan starts eating baby food. It was cheaper and I enjoyed it. I used the book Super Baby Foods and it was awesome. I also did the food cube method. I used a blender and but all the food in ice cube trays. I thought you needed a food processor but you can just use a blender for sure. I also tried to make my own rice cereal at first but that stuff is so cheap and I just couldn’t keep up with it enough. This book tells you what ages they can eat everything and how to make it. It was a great resource.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Hi you three!
My sis, Erika, is a wonderful mom in Maui who loves to cook organic & inexpensively! Read her blog/site at http://alittleinsanity.com/
She has great homemade recipes & I respect her two cents a lot…
Hope it helps!
Sarah
July 28th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
We did not make our own babyfood for our son, but we did figure out that we could buy the baby food alot cheaper at BJs. ($7.99 for an assorted box) Once you start to get to third foods it makes more since to start making your own, it’s basically pasty soup in a jar.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
We had one of these things:
http://www.onestepahead.com/ca....._ite=07905,
but some food like peas & bananas can just be mashed with a fork. Babies don’t need (and probably shouldn’t have) spices or seasoning.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Wow! Thanks for all the great feedback everyone!
You don’t charge consultant fees, do you?
July 29th, 2009 at 11:24 am
My friends by organic groceries only for their son. The steam and blend their food. The old fashion way. and cook their meat. They then put each into a ice tray and freeze. One for the pears, one for the meat…etc. Then when it time to use they take a variety of each out and put into a bowl and heat it up and mix together.
pretty easy. you could make one day of prep.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
wow, who would have thought that this was such a popular topic?!
July 30th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Super Baby Food. I think I mentioned it when y’all were here. Here’s the website: http://www.superbabyfood.com/index.html
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Late to the party, but Cool Mum wrote a post detailing what she was doing for homemade baby food. We’re SO thankful that Cool Baby loves his vegetables!
http://arewestillcool.com/2008.....-food.html