Move Over, Beech-Nut
Before I had kids, I always imagined the kinds of women who made their own baby food to be some sort of hard-core "granolas," hold-overs from the late '60s and early '70s who wore peasant skirts and sandals and didn't shave their armpits. I figured their resistance to ready-made baby food was just another form of protest against The Man, and I couldn't see myself ever joining it. Even after I had my first baby, I scoffed a little at the idea of making my own baby food. Seriously, why should I go to the trouble when all I had to do was pop the cap off a cute little Gerber jar at mealtime?
By the time baby number two came on the scene I was several years older and maybe even a little wiser. I had moved to Sweden by that time and had turned into something of a recycling nut, and the thought of dealing with all those cute little jars was enough to give me pause. As shocking as it seems to me now, when my eldest was a baby, I just threw all those jars in the trash without a second thought. Everybody did. It wouldn't have occured to me or to anyone I know to rinse them, separate the metal caps from the glass jars, and haul the lot out to the recycling center on the far edges of town. What on earth was convenient about that?
After my eyes had been opened to the virtues of recycling (I confess, I still wince every time I think of the hundreds--please don't let it have been thousands--of jars I sent to the landfill before I saw the light), there was no way I could continue the way I had been going. Also, during my second pregnancy I spent countless hours online, reading various baby sites and parenting message boards. I discovered that rather a lot of moms were making their own baby food, and the recipes they were posting didn't seem too complicated. Not only that, but I was a full-time at-home mom by then and I wasn't so concerned with "convenience" as I had been when I worked 40 hours a week outside the home. On a whim, I decided to give it a go myself.
Imagine my surprise when the whole affair turned out to be easy and fun and, yes, even convenient! Homemade applesauce for baby takes just a matter of minutes to make: peel and slice an apple, boil it on the stovetop until soft, mash, and voilà: tasty, nutritious, and no preservatives or artificial ingredients! For a little added flavor, I sprinkle a teaspoon or so of cinnamon into the cooking water, and my baby thinks I'm a gourmet! If you cut it into small pieces, any vegetable will cook to mashing quality in ten or fifteen minutes. It takes almost no extra effort to cook a carrot or a bit of squash for the baby when I'm making dinner for the rest of the family. Often she can even eat a "baby-fied" version of what we're having--potatoes are a particular favorite. Whether they've been baked or boiled, I just mash one up, add a little butter and maybe some dill or lemon pepper, and we're good to go. Commercial baby food is typically pretty bland, but the truth is that babies like flavor. As long as you don't add salt or sugar to your little one's food, you can pretty much experiment to your heart's content with herbs and spices.
There are so many great things about making my own baby food, and I can't imagine ever going back to serving up a jar of processed purée three times a day. While I'm sure that commercial baby food is perfectly nutritious and safe, I do get an extra little virtuous feeling from giving my baby good quality foods that I've prepared myself. Not only that, but my pocketbook appreciates the enormous cost difference between homemade and commercially-prepared baby food. While a jar of carrot purée might cost thirty or forty cents, I can buy a fresh carrot for mere pennies and make two or three times the purée I'd get in that little jar. Over a year or two, that could add up to quite a savings.
So, here I am, where I never thought I'd be: I'm one of those moms, sorting my recyclables, making my baby's food from scratch, and shaving my armpits a lot less often than I'd ever thought possible. And I'm loving every minute.